Comment by MarkusWandel

4 years ago

Sears was the Amazon of the day. Order by mail, receive by rail shipment, completely bypass local retail infrastructure. In some case this meant unmarked crates to avoid trouble.

Here's a link to a catalogue page for DIY telephone equipment from those days. At least the link works for me right now.

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101066805050&vi...

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MarkusWandel

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ck2  4 years ago

That whole catalog is incredible, like a time machine.

I remember looking in awe at the Sears catalog every time one came by mail, then all the smaller specialty ones.

I get similar feelings looking back at heathkit catalogs from 1950s, 1960s, then there are the Radio Shack catalogs when the TRS-80 first came out, the world seemed like it was going to be amazing...

( https://heathkitcatalogs.com )