It was a big day in Tallahassee — June 25, 1962 — and McDuff Appliances was having its big Grand Opening on North Monroe. Ooooooh, let’s look inside! Credit: State Archives of Florida/Slade
Inside, American ingenuity, marketing enterprise, layaway plans — and maybe even Calorics color-coordinated by Beatrice West. (State Archives of Florida/Slade)
An old newspaper article says that Randolph Thomas and his brothers opened McDuff’s in 1944 in Jacksonville, Florida. In 1985, the company was acquired by Tandy Corporation, which grew the chain to 235 locations. About 30 McDuff locations were turned into Radio Shacks or Computer City Express stores (other Tandy companies) in 1994, and the rest of the McDuffs were shut down in 1997.
Well, that’s a boo hoo that McDuffs were shut down after so many years. But, I bet the owners made a pretty penny from the Tandy buyout. Tandy = Radio Shack. Hey, anyone else once have a serious personal relationship with a TRS-80? Good times…
There’s a second floor, too. (State Archives of Florida/Slade)
There were appliances big, and small. (State Archives of Florida/Slade)
Don’t you wish you could take a short trip back to share the day — and to transport a truckload back to 2018?! (State Archives of Florida/Slade)
Scott says
I can imagine standing there, completely frozen, unable to decide which color range was most beautiful.
Sandra says
Pam, you are not alone in having a “serious personal relationship with a TRS-80.” Here is my friend Ira’s website: http://www.trs-80.com/wordpress/
It is the “Save the Pink Bathrooms,” of computing.
In the upper left is a menu button. Start there. Near the bottom is a link “Personal Stories.” I laughed and cried when I read them. Written mostly by men (then younger), they describe their first love: TRS-80 computers.
I met Ira when we worked next to each other in an office 400 miles from where I am now, but I have since met one of the guys who wrote about his “serious personal relationship” with Tandy computers on that list. It was a smaller world in the early days. Although I, myself, sold computers in the 1980’s, none was a Tandy. I did sell software for them.
Computers age much, much, faster than appliances and furniture, and the early ones are rare and collectable.
Monica says
Ah, the TRaSh-80…the fondest of memories. Sort of like that old boyfriend that you were so completely in to, and when you see them a few years later, you slap your forehead and shudder. “What was I thinking?!”