The Times They Are A-Changin'

[poolhound]

Its amazing really that over time the absolute price of a PC hasnt changed. $1000 will always get you something pretty decent. Not a blazzing hot gaming or graphics system but something that will do for 85% of the population.

Given that we are approaching the PCs 30th birthday that really represents a huge decrease in the real price and of course the performance of todays systems are crazy by comparison.

Theres more computing power in the average laptop than first sent a man to the moon!

[LarryG]

'wolf: I used to do that, too! Someone told me, way back then, that the only difference between single- and double-sided floppies was that the latter were tested on both sides. Don't know whether that was true, but I never "converted" a SS disc that failed to work on both sides.

Jon: You mean lately, right? In the cabinet behind me is a very early IBM PC with the original 64K motherboard, two single-sided floppy drives, and a 13" green monitor. About $3500 for that setup, circa 1983. And out in our mini-warehouse is a Compaq 386-20 for which we paid roughly seven grand in 1987 ... and it was used.

I saw a documentary that said there's more computing power in the average DIGITAL WATCH than the Apollo capsules had on board. Also that the International Space Station is run mostly by 80386-class computers ... the reason being that it took so long to get the computers certificated, they were several generations behind in computing power by the time the ISS was ready to fly.

[crokett]

Actually the price has come down considerably. When PCs were first released they were at the 3k mark or better. My dad paid that much for his IBM PC 8086. A few years later he paid 2400.00 for a used 286 - the woman he bought it from had just paid 3200 for a 386. The PC Jr we had cost close to 2k when we got it. The first time I remember seeing a PC for 1k was when I built my pentium. Consider that my next one was a P3 at double the speed for 800.00 and my next was at 850mghz for slightly under 700.00. None of these included OS or software. Now you can get 'something decent' new less than that, including the OS.

[poolhound]

Jon: You mean lately, right? In the cabinet behind me is a very early IBM PC with the original 64K motherboard, two single-sided floppy drives, and a 13" green monitor. About $3500 for that setup, circa 1983. And out in our mini-warehouse is a Compaq 386-20 for which we paid roughly seven grand in 1987 ... and it was used.

I think I may have an old 386 M'BD laying around somehwere at those prices I can do you a deal - how about only $1000

[JeffG78]

... or TWICE that much on an Atari 800, 64k RAM, Epson MX-80, and Hayes 300 baud modem.

I had that same setup!

Mine was an Atari 800, Gemini 10X printer, and Hayes 300 baum modem. I also used a Samsung 13" color TV for the monitor. The 300 baud modem was awesome. I could dial into a BB and download a simple game in just a few short hours. Usually the phone line would get some static though and disconnect before the download was complete.

[ironhat]

Let's see, in approx 1986 or '87 we put a 286CPU with a 40 MB HDD in the office (I don't recall the RAM), bought it from some guys in NYC who were a bit hard to understand and paid $1250 for it. There weren't many options available and I remember thinking, "Who's going to ever need more than a 40MB HDD"? Yea, 'wolf, I did the same thing to floppys run games on my Atari. What a hoot. I guess that a cross comparison between PCs and autos is similar but unfair because of the amout of labor that goes into cars. It was mentioned how much maintenance we used to pour into cars as late as the early '90's - tune ups with plugs, points, condenser and rotor every 15K miles. Man, I **hated** that job. Now, we gripe when we have to run defrag on the PC and change the plugs in the car at 100K miles!

[shoottx]

Since we are walking down memory lane, in 1983-4 my first "portable" computer was an Olivetti suitcase with the keyboard in the top tray. It had 4K processor, and 2 - 5 1/4 inch drives, one for the program and one for storage.

It was portable because some one had attached a handle to the top. It weighed a bunch!

17 laptops later I am starting to look for the next one and I am seriously considering a MAC airweight. I do not do the heavy work I used to in office so email, letter writing, and spreadsheets are about it, oh and connecting here.

[BobSch]

Someplace at the bottom of the pile of old motherboards, CD and hard drives and other miscellany is my first PC — A Tandy TRS80 Modek 1. 4 K (yes K, not Meg) of RAM and an audio cassette deck for storage. Times, they have changed!

[gsmittle]

MAC 512 KE with Imagewriter dot matrix printer. $2,500 using my BIL's university discount. Included AppleTalk 256 Kb LAN.

The E was becuase it came with an external 800KB floppy drive in addition to the internal one.

JR

edit: Thinking about it now, I realize the internal floppy was 400 KB.

I ponied up the extra $500 for the Mac Plus and external 800K floppy drive. Used that Plus for nine years, then sold it for $100. **sigh** Wish I still had that machine....

At the time (late '86) it cost twice what my very used Buick Century did.

I'm writing this on more computing power than all of NASA had for the moon landings. My, how time flies...

I remember reading an article in MacUser shortly after Apple bought a Cray XMP. Evidently Jobs called Seymour Cray and mentioned that he was using the Cray to design the next Mac. There was a moment of silence, and then Cray said, "I'm using my Mac to design the next Cray." Don't know if that's true, but it makes a good story.

g.

[dkerfoot]

I learned to program on the Atari 400 - Membrane keyboard and all.

A couple years ago I bought an Atari 800xl off of eBay just because I had always drooled over it but could never afford it. Modified it to read programs off my PC's hard drive so that I didn't need to buy a floppy drive.

Then I went into business for myself and my days of "playing" on computers ended. Now if I have free time, I purposely avoid computers!

[KenBurris]

1 meg of memory

We went nuts at work when we got 1 meg of external memory that doubled! the (shared) memory of our 2 computers




It was located in a cube 10 feet square and 7 feet high



no Sipps or Simms - just doughnut magnets strung on wires - @ 1977 (of course we got all equipment used - probably was new in 1972-3)

(2 IBM 360/50s)

[Alex Franke]

I had that same setup! Mine was an Atari 800, Gemini 10X printer, and Hayes 300 baum modem. I also used a Samsung 13" color TV for the monitor. The 300 baud modem was awesome. I could dial into a BB and download a simple game in just a few short hours. Usually the phone line would get some static though and disconnect before the download was complete.

:lol: yeah, I remember the first time I started a download -- I think with XModem, if my memory serves me correctly. Anyway I was watching the blocks of text appear on the screen as they were downloaded and thinking (in absolute amazement), "WOW, I can't even TYPE that fast!!!" (and I was a pretty fast at the keyboard for a kid).

I learned to program on the Atari 400 - Membrane keyboard and all. . . . .A couple years ago I bought an Atari 800xl off of eBay just because I had always drooled over it but could never afford it. Modified it to read programs off my PC's hard drive so that I didn't need to buy a floppy drive.

I first learned on a Vic-20, I think around '80/'81. My cousins got one for Christmas, and it was the reason I pulled my first all-nighter. By morning I had a little text-based adventure game And then the Atari came a bit later and I just kept on going.

I just need to figure out if I can still get data off these discs... Maybe I'll pull that thing back out this weekend and see if it fires up! I just found the power cables recently. Problem is that I don't have the modem anymore... but I do have that RS-232 module... hmmm....

[Alex Franke]

I could dial into a BB and download a simple game in just a few short hours.

BTW, you want to take a trip down memory lane?

telnet to darkforce-bbs.dyndns.org -- and remember to hit enter a few times when you get there.

[JeffG78]

What's funny is that I still have the old Atari 800 with probably 1000 games (all pirated... shhh), but I haven't had a phone line for over five years. I haven't fired it up in many years. Now that I think about it, I don't even have a TV that I could use. I'd have to find one of those antenna to co-ax adaptors.