25 Apr
2002
25 Apr
'02
9:23 a.m.
I've found it useful to show prices of common things
or people's salaries when stating "X cost Y in year
Z", like:
-A typical car cost X in Y
-A middle class home cost X in Y
-A teacher generally made X in Y
This gives some graspable perspective to younger
people.
For example, I think you could buy 4 or 5 loaded
Cadillacs for the cost of a PDP-8 in 1965.
Of course, these values and prices aren't stable,
either; I read an interesting article about the
constant value of gold. In George Washington's time,
an ounce of gold would buy you a very good (but not
super-expensive) suit. It still does!
--- "Fred Cisin (XenoSoft)" <cisin(a)xenosoft.com>
wrote:
On Thu, 25 Apr 2002, Erik S. Klein wrote:
__________________________________________________
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I still have many of my old computer receipts.
My first IBM PC (December 1981) cost nearly $2,800
for a 64K machine, 1 SSDD
floppy (120K with DOS 1.0) and a color card with
an RF Modulator.
That was 160K for the DOS 1.00. 512 bytes per
sector, 8 sectors per
track, 40 tracks, 1 side. (multiply) arguably
(rarely done), you could
subtract 4.5K if you don't consider the DIRectory to
be part of the disk
capacity.
You could have saved ~$400 by buying the same Tandon
TM100-1 drive
after-market.
You could have saved ~$400 by buying 48K of the RAM
aftermarket.
You could have saved ~$100 by buying the RF
modulator aftermarket.
($1360 for bare computer + $300 for video card +
$300 for disk controller
+ everything else aftermarket)
You could have paid more for CP/M-86 or UCSD
P-system. (neither available
immediately, but in 6 months.)
IBM sold Easy-Writer (by John Draper) and VisiCalc.