Your Desktop Companion: Introducing The Tandy Sensation!

Previously, On Allison’s Written Words…

From families who engage in whitebread computer learning, to children and moms who internet, we’ve learned as much about mid-1990s computer technology and the internet as we could ever have hoped to learn. It has been a fun trip through a time when connecting to the internet involved a phone line, modem, and the AOL Running Man, when playing a game on the computer meant Minesweeper and Solitaire, and not Fortnite (though Peter Jamison preferred Duke Nukem). Searching the internet meant using Alta Vista and not Google.

Considering that we also lived that education, it is fun (in a weird way) to experience it all again, even if it is through cheesy training materials, as told by Training Video People.

I’m wrapping up 1990s Computer Learning Month by going corporate. Instead of training videos for the everyday computer user, we are going to learn how to demonstrate and sell (yes, sell!) a computer to the average person!

The year is 1992, the company is RadioShack, and their newest computer is a Sensation!

That’s actually what the model name is, Sensation! Yes, with an exclamation point.

Because nothing creates excitement (!) quite like an exclamation point in your product’s name!

Sansation Begins Where Ordinary PCs Stop!

Had to drive up the amount of times I use exclamation points in this article.  Just because.

….

!

Yup.

The Tandy Sensation! was one in a long line of computers made by the Tandy Corporation, a leather goods company that entered the new and exciting market of personal computers in 1977.  They created a buzz in this new market with their pre-assembled microcomputer, as computers at that time came as kits.

Starting with the TRS-80 in 1977, their computers evolved throughout the late 1970s and into the 1980s, and were sold exclusively in Radio Shack stores, at a time when the market yielded very few computer stores.  The Sensation! (replacing the model number system that all Tandy computers had until that point) made its way to RadioShack shelves in 1993, priced at $2398.95, it boasted the most features of its predecessors, along with new features that the competition could not offer!

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Wow.  Gotta get to RadioShack for this amazing new computer!

Watch The Demonstration Of The Tandy Sensation!, and Learn How To Sell…The Sensation!

“Once you’ve seen it in 16 million colors, heard it in true digital stereo sound, anything else is just a computer!”

Tell me MORE, Tandy Sensation!

I’m convinced there’s more exclamation points (and mentions of them) than in any other article I’ve written.

Anyway, this tutorial, meant for the purpose of teaching RadioShack employees how to demonstrate and sell the Tandy, is everything you need in your 1990s Computer Learning Life!  It lacks Jamisons, it lacks moms, but it has the feeling of professionalism!

For the next 14 1/2 minutes, let RadioShack’s Marketing Manager of Computer Products Michael Money, along with Sales Training Specialist Michael Dryden, teach you how to not only demonstrate the product, but how to sell it to your potential purchasers.  The high-appeal features are at the forefront of this demonstration video.

You may get nostalgic for the days of computers like this…or balk at how expensive computers were in the 1990s!

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Those features!

Remember when features like this made a computer rise above the competition?  This was coming far in the 1990s, but I bet no one ever saw what the future of computers would be like!

It’s all pretty cool, don’t you think?  Even cooler,  archive.org even has the Tandy Manual available to read!  This is important information, friends.  Very Important Information.

Tandy Sensation User Manual (Archive.org)

Does Allison Remember The Tandy?

I do!

I never owned a Tandy Computer, but my first computer was a custom-built, IBM-compatible computer, running Windows 3.1 in 1993.  I do remember Tandy computers on display in the two RadioShack locations I frequented as a kid – the location in the local mall (which is now an Escape Room), and the one near the local grocery store where I grew up.  I used to see the computers set up in the stores, but I didn’t dare touch them.  I mean, you’re supposed to actually try out computers, but we weren’t buying on, and I actually listened when told “don’t touch anything!”  I do remember the computers being very expensive for the time, as all computers were.  At the time, we didn’t have one yet, and I hoped that we would have one at some point.  1993, it turns out, was that year.

These days, I have a Dell Inspiron 2-in-1 laptop and a Microsoft Surface Pro 6 – I use the Dell at home, and the Surface goes to work with me and anywhere I may need a laptop.  I remember what desktop computers used to look like – heck, I remember what laptops used to look like – and to have the technology I have now, it always amazes me what I started out with.

The End of Tandy

Turns out, 1993 would be the last for Tandy-branded computers.

The Tandy computer, and all its models, were discontinued as a whole in 1993.  The competitiveness of the market by that point made it hard for Tandy to turn a profit on its computers.  RadioShack stores began selling other brands of computers at this time.

I guess it wasn’t so…Sensational?

I’ll show myself out.

And Now, You!

Do you remember the Tandy Sensation(!)?  Did you own a Tandy computer, or better yet…what was your first model of computer?  Sound off in the comments below, or be social on social media.  If you know anyone who ever worked for RadioShack, and can shed some light on the Tandy computer, please send them in my direction!  Remember, stories and personal nostalgia create an amazing atmosphere that is the heartbeat of this blog!

Next week, we’ll move into a new month, which means a new theme!  I’m still planning the “new” part of it, but I’ll have that ready to present next week, in time for the new theme!

Have a great day!