What I do remember, and quite clearly, is that the job I held in summer of
'61 there was a sign right next to the washroom saying that the federal
minimum wage, of wich there was none in 1952, was 65 cents per hour.
In the early '50's people were saving up their bucks for a TV set, because
not everybody had one yet. That was much different four or five years
later, but for the first couple of years of the Eisenhower administration,
things were rather poor, due to the compounded post-war recession.
We came to the US in February of '52, and my father had a job engraving
plates for bank notes, at which he was considered VERY well paid at $1.25
per hour. He left that job, to everyone's surprise to take a job in
Oklahoma City for $1.35 an hour. I don't know what my mother earned as a
secretary.
Since people were just catching on to TV, if there was a station within
range, I doubt anyone really wanted a computer. As I wrote yesterday, when
someone said computer, I thought they were talking about my grandfather who
held that title at one of the big New York banks. I was just a kid, but
still, if computers had caught on the way they did some five to eight years
later, people would have known about it and the things might actually have
interested someone. Without the games, I doubt more than a hundred were
built for personal use or amazement.
Dick
-----Original Message-----
From: Lawrence Walker <lwalker_at_mail.interlog.com>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp_at_u.washington.edu>
Date: Friday, April 23, 1999 8:48 PM
Subject: Re: The "FIRST PC" and personal timelines (Was: And what were t
On 22 Apr 99 at 20:02, Richard Erlacher wrote:
> I suspect that few of the readers of this list remember the early '50's as
I
> do. I wasn't trying to compare or contrast the prices of the antique
> computers which were under discussion, but rather point out that few
people
> would put out a month's pay (gross) for a personal computer, even today.
In
> the early '50's there were more people, including some professionals, with
> less than $300 after taxes (and they were MUCH lower then) than there were
> people earning more. There wasn't yet a minimum wage of $1.00 per hour,
> and, in fact, when I had a minimum wage job in '60, I earned <$5.00 per
> 8-hour day. Naturally a $300 computer wasn't on my list of things to buy.
>
> Dick
>
I think you're understating wages a bit in the early 50s . I remember
getting
$125 for a 55 hr week working as a construction laborer on a summer job in
52, and getting $1.75 an hour as a derrickman in the admittedly highpaying
oil-patch in 53. On the other hand I worked as a jr. IBM operator in 55
starting at $35 a week. Office jobs unless you were in management were
notoriously underpaid. I was paying $18 a week for rent. At this time the
Can $ was equivalent or more than the US$ . I took out a loan from the
credit
union in order to buy a $125 trumpet. So otherwise your reference to the
high price of "hobby " computers is valid. Of course the larger computers
(data
processors) could only be leased, not bought from companies like IBM and
Univac, so even the concept of "owning" a computer would be somewhat
ludicrous
unless you were an academic with a liberal budget.
ciao larry
lwalker_at_interlog.com
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Received on Sat Apr 24 1999 - 01:12:59 BST