10 Nov
1998
10 Nov
'98
8:34 a.m.
That seems sort of overpriced. I mean, 4 kilobytes of code for $150? Was
this a reasonable price at the time, or were there similar programs for
less?
Altair 4K BASIC - $150
w/ purchase of an Altair 8800, 4K of Altair memory and
an Altair I/O board - $60
8K BASIC - $200
w/ purchase - $75
Entended BASIC - $350
w/ purchase - $150
Altair PACKAGE ONE (assb, edit, monitor) - $175
w/ purchase - $75
Altair DOS - $500
w/ purchase - $150
Note: when ordering, specify paper tape or cassette.
Uh, is that a bootable paper tape ?
Chuck
cswiger(a)widomaker.com
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11 Nov
11 Nov
1:01 a.m.
At 02:34 PM 11/10/98 PST, Max Eskin wrote:
That seems sort of overpriced. I mean, 4 kilobytes of
code for $150? Was
this a reasonable price at the time, or were there similar programs for
less?
Max, how old were you in 1978? :-) Let's see, $150 in 1978 would be
at least $500 in today's dollars, maybe 12 cents a hand-crafted byte.
Today's Visual C 5.0 is about 131 megs installed at about $500, or
about seven decimal places in the less expensive direction.
At 01:56 AM 11/11/98 -0000, Eric Smith wrote:
What made people think that a good BASIC interpreter and a Disk Operating
System were worth $350 and $500, respectively? Seems ludicrous even in
in 1998 dollars; in 1976 dollars that was utterly insane.
It's all a matter of time, place and comparison. What was DEC charging
for a box, OS and BASIC at the time?
At 10:42 PM 11/10/98 -0600, Paul Braun wrote:
Considering that BASIC was a language developed and written by somebody
else, and that Gates & Allen simply took someone else's language and
adapted it for a specific machine (like, say, for example, QDOS) (OK, they
paid
a little for it. But it started out as someone
else's..) it still seems
kinda odd that
he would get so bent out of shape about somebody
stealing a copy of the
program that he himself stole.
But who are we to question. He managed to turn that skill into a tidy sum.
Gates & Allen created their own BASIC from scratch. They didn't steal
anything. Microsoft BASIC, like most BASICs, had its own variations
and wasn't Dartmouth BASIC. Sheesh, they even wrote their own PDP-based
cross-assembler in order to cut tapes to load into the Altair. And yes,
they bought QDOS for ~$50K from someone who wasn't making much money with it.
That's business.
My experience (and knowledge gained from talking to Bob
Cringely) is that
Bill's PR machine is trained from birth to say "No." and "I'm
sorry,
but there's no way in hell you can talk to Bill."
You can try, but I'm pretty sure your requests will go through several
layers of filtering and firewalls and end up in "File 13" without
anyone actually reading it or bringing it to Chairman Bill's attention.
I blame the media. About three weeks before the Wall Street Journal and
several other publications printed Gates' personal e-mail address in
early 1993, I was engaged in an e-mail conversation with him. I had
no reason to assume I was talking to anyone but him.
At 10:21 PM 11/10/98 -0800, Sam Ismail wrote:
Absolutely. I agree 100%. If he had priced it in the range that a
hobbyist could afford, and proportionate to the cost of the system ($500
for the kit?) then people would buy it. Its nothing to throw down $25 or
$50 if you're getting a manual and support with that.
Pish-posh. In 1978, we're talking about a bunch of scroungy ex-
or current- ham radio operators who'd cross the street to pick up
two pennies on the sidewalk. Even today, why do people routinely
pirate software that can be had for $20 in the CompUSA discount bin?
- John
10 Nov
10 Nov
8:27 p.m.
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1998 09:01:30 -0600
Reply-to: classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu
From: John Foust <jfoust(a)threedee.com>
To: "Discussion re-collecting of classic computers"
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: Saved Altair 4K BASIC
At 02:34 PM 11/10/98 PST, Max Eskin wrote:
I'm still just a baby at that time. :)
Hehehe... Well, we have few local big stores with that discount bins
and none of them that good. These software are those undesireables
that they can find to fill those bins up.
Office xxxx for so many monies with word files not compatiable to
past and future word programs?! Oh gawd.
Also I'm still preeved at MS's choices on selling only upgrade
OSes. I can afford to obtain the real OSes without upgrade junk but
I don't want upgrade OSes because they sniff out the old copies
installed on hd or disks that still have to be bought with the system
in the past. I'm not at that point yet because all of my systems are
built up.
Once again, WHY does MS choose to sell upgrade OSes only forcing you
to pre-buy new systems with software in past just for this?
I had to get my frustration off my chest on this.
Jason D.
That seems sort of overpriced. I mean, 4 kilobytes
of code for $150? Was
this a reasonable price at the time, or were there similar programs for
less?
Max, how old were you in 1978? :-) Let's see, $150 in 1978 would be
at least $500 in today's dollars, maybe 12 cents a hand-crafted byte.
Today's Visual C 5.0 is about 131 megs installed at about $500, or
about seven decimal places in the less expensive direction.
- John
email: jpero(a)cgocable.net
Pero, Jason D.
13 Nov
13 Nov
1:56 a.m.
Pish-posh. In 1978, we're talking about a bunch of
scroungy ex-
or current- ham radio operators who'd cross the street to pick up
two pennies on the sidewalk. Even today, why do people routinely
pirate software that can be had for $20 in the CompUSA discount bin?
I'm sure
they don't do it out of scrounginess.
1:42 a.m.
New subject: FORSALE: DEC DEUNA Two-Board Ethernet Set
FOR SALE to the highest bidder by Wednesday, 11/18/98:
Two-board DEC DEUNA Ethernet Interface. These items are UNTESTED and
sold in AS-IS condition. They came out of a DEC Communications Server
but members of the list have assured me they are:
A Standard Unibus Ethernet Adapter
w/ AUI bulkhead connector and cable.
I do not have documentation for these boards and you will need to supply
your own transceiver for either 10baseT or 10base2 cabling.
Thanks and happy bidding! =)
Anthony Clifton, kc0cue
wirehead(a)retrocomputing.com
9540
days inactive
9543
days old
4 comments
5 participants
participants (5)
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a.kotsenos＠rca.ac.uk -
jfoust＠threedee.com -
jpero＠pop.cgocable.net -
maxeskin＠hotmail.com -
wirehead＠retrocomputing.com