1975 Dollars (was RE: State of the Hobby)

From: Richard Erlacher <edick_at_idcomm.com>
Date: Thu Jul 1 17:09:20 1999

I think you have that backwards, sir. The present value of the 1975 dollar
is $2.95, not the other way around. This is clearly just a misstatement, as
you've interpreted it correctly in the subsequent statements of present
value.

This implies that when eBay facilitates an auction of an old Altair for
$3000 it's $2500 lower than what a new one cost. That's not so bad,
considering that the original was probably not built up and not functional.
I note that the last one I saw for sale there hadn't even gotten a bid from
$3k to start after 4 or 5 days. It would appear the guys who buy these
aren't all totally stupid out there.

Dick
-----Original Message-----
From: Kai Kaltenbach <kaikal_at_MICROSOFT.com>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp_at_u.washington.edu>
Date: Thursday, July 01, 1999 12:17 PM
Subject: 1975 Dollars (was RE: State of the Hobby)


>I grabbed the Consumer Price Index history off the web, pasted into Excel,
>and applied the percentage changes cumulative from 1975.
>
>One 1998 dollar = $2.95 in 1975 dollars (ouch, those Carter administration
>years! Thank goodness for Greenspan)
>
>Therefore, an assembled Altair 8800 with 4x2K static RAM, serial, parallel,
>cassette, and bus expansion, $1880 in 1975 dollars, would be the equivalent
>of $5546 today.
>
>An Apple Lisa base configuration ($9995 in 1983 dollars) would be $16,169
>today.
>
>Kai
>
> -----Original Message-----
>From: John Foust [mailto:jfoust_at_threedee.com]
>Sent: Thursday, July 01, 1999 10:45 AM
>To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
>Subject: Re: State of the Hobby
>
>At 11:02 AM 7/1/99 -0600, you wrote:
>>
>>In a recent auction on eBay, a MITS Floppy Disk Drive was auctioned off at
>>$565. "WOW!" you may say, but that unit cost $1300 when new, and that was
>>in dollars that were a DOLLAR, and not just the price of a candy bar.
>
>I suppose there must be a web site, somewhere, that would let you enter
>a date and a US dollar amount, and would show you the equivalent value
>in today's dollars, accounting for actual inflation, etc. in the
>intervening years.
>
>Which reminds me, when I was in high school, we sold candy bars to
>fund the purchase of a few K of RAM for the IMSAI as well as a floppy
drive.
>
>>I'm presently in the process of selling off excess 8" floppy drives for $5
>each,
>
>Similarly, you'd think there would be a web site somewhere to
>remind people of the rapid devaluation of the value of computer
>equipment - say, perhaps the flip side of Moore's Law, that shows
>how simply purchasing and opening the box of a new computer causes
>a significant drop in value, followed by subsequent halvings of
>resale value every six months, until it quickly reaches the
>"nuisance fee" level mentioned above, where the cost of shipping
>and packing seems to exceed the street price.
>
>- John
Received on Thu Jul 01 1999 - 17:09:20 BST