Quote:
Originally Posted by Pinecone
I disagree. In the 1980s through the mid to late 90s, the price of a computer system was about $5000. Computer, monitor, printer. And that was not a leading edge computer, but a mainstream, what you wanted to buy.
Heck, in 1985 a 5 MB hard drive was $5000. A double sided, double density floppy drive was around $1000.
In the early 90s, I upgraded a 386 computer to a 486. The motherboard and processor (with trade in credit) was $1500. Later, a 486/66 CPU for that machine was about $1000.
Now days, a system is well under $1000.
Yes, to computer you buy today is a lot more powerful than the computer of before, but the prices have REALLY fallen.
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Not so.
Granted, and IBM PC-XT (8086 processor) with a 5 MB HDD came in at around four grand, but a LeadingEdge, Acer, Compaq, Packard Bell, Gateway, and Micron as well as several other "clone" manufacturers were about $1,000. When IBM came out with the IBM AT (80286 with 20 MB Drive) they too were around $4,000, and the clones were about $1,200. This trend continued through the entire 80*86 line of processors, and into the era of the Pentiums, eventually driving IBM out of the PC market entirely.
I put together my first white box in 1985. It was an XT clone with a 20 MB drive, a double sided double density 5.25" floppy drive, 1 MB of RAM (in the words of Mr. Gates "More than anyone would ever need!"), and a 12" 16 color CGA monitor all in a flip top box and the total bill was right at $1,000. A Star NX-10 dot matrix printer was another $200.