Ah - the good old days

[Newt]

1989 PC advert and note that the listed price does not include the monitor or the mouse.

 

 

For any who aren't really up on their hardware, the PC you are running now if bought within the past year and a decent but not top end system

 

Then vs Now

Processor - 20Mhz vs 1Ghz (so at least 50 times faster)

Memory - 2Mb vs 256Mb

Display card - VGA; your cell phone has a much better display and your video card has at least 4 times the memory of the whole PC

Price in 1989 the exchange rate was around $1.5 to £1 so figure the base price at £5800 (plus VAT?)

[spangles]

wow, i had no idea they were that price!

[Peter]

First computer I bought in 1983 was a BBC 'B' with 32K of ram. deal included a cassette player to input software and if my memory is correct cost about £400. Price did not include a monitor and the procedure was to hook it up to your television. A 'Cub' monitor cost £300, I think that when I bought a double floppy disc drive that was about £400 ( 5.25 inches), can't remember how much a 9 pin dot-matrix printer was but it was probably 2 or 3 times as much as a good ink jet at todays prices

[severus]

Incredible. A slow microprocessor and little memory. Makes one wonder what we'll have in 15 years, and how we'll look back on today's computer standards.

[Tog]

Price looks very iffy Newt!

I've been 'puting' since CPM machines were cool & none of them were more than £3000?(except SUN servers!!!!)

First IBM I had was 'luggable' 8086, which I got sent from US for about $4000 (twin floppy & orange screen!)

First 386 I knocked up from a 286 for about £1500 in 89 & first 'proper' 386 laptop was £1500 (again from US in 91)

Was the ad from USA or maybe a bit more south?

I love your local paper's in the US, The deals I see for cars are outstanding! (I get quite a few packages from US and they pack them in old newspapers).

[Newt]

May 1980

Apple Computer introduces the Apple III at the National Computer Conference, in Anaheim, California. The Apple III uses a 2 MHz 6502A microprocessor, and includes a 5.25-inch floppy drive and 128 KB RAM. Price ranges from US$4500 to US$8000.

 

August 13 1981

IBM announces the IBM 5150 PC Personal Computer, in New York. The PC features a 4.77 MHz Intel 8088 CPU, 64 KB RAM (expandable to 256 KB), 40 KB ROM, one 5.25-inch floppy drive (160 KB capacity), and PC-DOS 1.0 (Microsoft's MS-DOS), for about US$3000. Also included is Microsoft BASIC, VisiCalc, UCSD Pascal, CP/M-86, and Easywriter 1.0. A fully loaded version with color graphics costs US$6000.

 

January 19 1983

Apple Computer officially unveils the Lisa computer. It features a 5 MHz 68000 microprocessor, 1 MB RAM, 2 MB ROM, 12 inch B/W monitor, 720x364 graphics, dual 5.25-inch 860 KB floppy drives, 5 MB Profile hard drive, and six integrated programs. It is slow, but innovative. Its initial price is US$10,000.

 

October 1989

NEC Home Electronics introduces the ProSpeed CSX portable computer. It features color LCD with 640x400 resolution in 16 colors, 16 MHz 80386SX processor, 42 MB hard drive, 2 MB RAM, 1.44 MB floppy drive, 18.5 pounds weight. Price is US$8499. This is the first commercial color LCD portable computer.

 

November 1992

Hewlett-Packard announces the HP 9000 Model 725/50 workstation. It features 50 MHz PA-RISC processor, 4-slots, grayscale monitor, 512 MB hard drive, 16 MB RAM, for US$17,895.

 

[ 13. August 2004, 12:46 AM: Message edited by: Newt ]