State of the Hobby

From: Allison J Parent <allisonp_at_world.std.com>
Date: Thu Jul 1 21:46:18 1999

<> In a recent auction on eBay, a MITS Floppy Disk Drive was auctioned off a
<> $565. "WOW!" you may say, but that unit cost $1300 when new, and that wa

Aas someone that placed that order asap back when, that was several months
savings! the new ford truck (F250 4x4 pickup) was only $2700.

and it would take weeks to make it do something. later more money to
replace the damm S4Ks with 88MCDs and again with seals 8k static.

<Which may very well prove one point being brought up, that some people are
<not collecting to use or preserve, but merely to display and trophy.

or worse they havent a clue what is important save for a few names.

<> When I bought my first pair of 8" floppy drives they cost $675 each. Th
<> last pair I bought cost $470 each in 1981. In 1980, it seems to me, a
<> typical S-100 CPU cost $250. A floppy controller cost about the same, an
<> terminal cost $750.

When? In 1977 it's was more like(8080 or z80/2mhz) $399 by 1979 it was 299
and 4mhz z80, 81 a cpu board had z80b ram, rom serial and floppy at $599.
hard to compare apples and oranges.

<Yeah, but today I can get a 3.5" floppy drive that holds more data and is
<faster, for $35. I can get a Pentium-II CPU at 350Mhz for certainly less
<than $250, and a floppy controller is built into the motherboard I buy for
<under $100. So how does your price comparison stand up now?

cost of technology has dropped without question. My first SRAM was 1uS
1101 part (256x1) at $9.95, a bargan then. Later it would be 2102 at
$16.00 a pop. Now 16mb is $16! the funny twist is if I wasted to make a
s100 card around said 16mb dram it would still cost $$$.

Allison
Received on Thu Jul 01 1999 - 21:46:18 BST