I still have many of my old computer receipts.
My first IBM PC (December 1981) cost nearly $2,800 for a 64K machine, 1 SSDD
floppy (120K with DOS 1.0) and a color card with an RF Modulator.
I have a notebook full of receipts and invoices that came with a pair of
Altairs. In addition to the costs for the specific machines there are also
receipts for various other hardware items including old Cromemco and SOL
stuff. I'll have to take a more careful look at some point and either scan
those or post the prices here.
Erik S. Klein
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org
[mailto:owner-classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Ethan Dicks
Sent: Thursday, April 25, 2002 9:35 AM
To: classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org
Subject: Period pricing references (was Re: Micro$oft Biz'droid Lusers)
--- "r. 'bear' stricklin" <red_at_bears.org> wrote:
> On another note, I concede that Byte is not the best price guide, but
> it's the resource I had available. I'm still skeptical the difference
> was THAT great.
I would tend to agree with you. I remember looking at prices in Byte
and being disgusted at the time, but if you could afford to advertise
there, you weren't small potatoes.
Computer Shopper is a good place for bargain prices of the day, with
less "print lag" than Byte. One of the things I hated was seeing "*CALL*"
for 80% of prices for what I was interested in, but I know that things
changed too fast to commit to a price 90 days in advance.
Local sales flyers are also a good place to cull pricing information, if
you can find them. There are a few on the web and I have a couple from
way-back-when.
One of the cool things about an Atari 800 system a friend gave me when
he moved was that it came with Atari official price sheets, and, since
the donor was an Engineer, he saved every single receipt for every
item he ever bought - $2,500 for the base system (CPU, 32KB RAM,
printer, external serial ports, modem, two floppies, acoustic coupler,
tape drive, manuals, joysticks, etc.) and that was about 80% of MSRP!
It's only one data point, but it is *spot on*. Some real person paid
those real dollars for a machine that is completely documented.
It's also interesting to look back at what the big iron used to cost.
Somewhere, I have a DEC third-party-reseller flyer listing the RA81
at $14,000 (we paid $26,000 for one in 1984) - that's about $33/MB,
or about 1650000% more than a modern 100GB drive ($0.002/MB)
While I don't have a massive pile of pricing data (that isn't in
the backs of magazines), I think it's an interesting category of
data to save. Sometimes the "good old days" don't look so good.
-ethan
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Received on Thu Apr 25 2002 - 13:31:22 BST