Radio shack began in the year 1921 in Fort Worth, Texas by Norton Hinckley and Dave L. Tandy (1889-1966). Radio Shack continued to do quite well. It issued its first catalog in the early 1940s. In 1947, the company entered the growing high-fidelity market and opened the nation's first audio showroom that provided comparisons of speakers, amplifiers, turntables and phonograph cartridges. In the mid-1950s, Radio Shack began selling its own private label product line with the Realistic® brand name, a variation of Realist, which had been used earlier. Radio Shack also manufactured old computers under the Tandy corporation name back in the 1970s and 1980s. The Realistic name still lives today.