Radio Shack’s Lewis Kornfeld Dies in Texas

Lewis Kornfeld, president of Radio Shack Corp. (Fort Worth, Texas) in the 1970s, died earlier this month from complications of lymphocytic leukemia. He was 97.

During his tenure, the consumer electronics retailer become a major player in the early personal computer market with its pioneering TRS-80. It was one of the first finished products of its type that consumers could simply plug in and use.

“Nobody had a personal computer,” Kornfeld told The Fort Worth Star-Telegram in 2006. “I didn’t know about them. I walked into a buyer’s office and saw him using a cathode ray tube screen and a typewriter keyboard. I said, ‘You let me know when I can play chess on it, and I’ll put the damned thing in our line.’ ”

At its introduction in 1977, the computer with four kilobytes of memory retailed for $600 (about $2300 in today’s dollars). Rival computers at that time, like the Apple II and the Commodore PET, cost from $200 to more than $1000.

Tandy Corp., Radio Shack’s parent company at the time, initially planned to manufacture about 1000 of the computers but ended up delivering 5000 by the end of the year.

Kornfeld started as advertising manager for Radio Shack’s one store in Boston in 1948. It was acquired by Tandy in 1963 and Kornfeld became president in 1970. He retired in 1981. The chain had grown under his leadership to more than 7000 locations.