Bell & Howell Apple II update

From: John Allain <allain_at_panix.com>
Date: Fri Jan 25 19:27:16 2002

- - - -point
however. DEC, for example, stayed with "old" technology, charging WAY more
than "new" technology prices for it for years. They typically lagged two
generations behind in technology, yet exceeded costs of "leading edge"
systems
by a couple of orders of magnitude. Just compare the cost and features of
the
PC/AT clones sold in, say, '87-88 with a similarly equipped microVAX-II.
The
PC/AT would typically cost about $800 bucks, while a similarly equipped
uVaxII
cost nearly $100K, partly for the stuff the PC/AT had, and partly for what
you
had to add in order to have the stuff the PC/AT had. Inside a year, the
power
cost alone exceeded the PC/AT, yet folks LOVED the microVax and hated the
PC/AT clone, that ran half-again as fast. If that DEC gear hadn't been so
- - - -


- - - -counterpoint
I have two machines sold in 1987, and the original bills of sale for both.
One I bought used for 35 bucks 5 years ago, the other, new.
1987: PS/2m60 10Mhz $2,200 and microVaxII ??20Mhz?? $39,000
Looks bad, doesn't it? Except the PS2 had 1M/mem and 44M/disk
and the VAX had 16M/mem, 310M/disk. So the price differential was
18x, not 120x, and there was enough difference in capacity to see why.
So, personally I have few problems with DEC.
- - - -

John A.
Received on Fri Jan 25 2002 - 19:27:16 GMT