TrivialBetaStateAug 14, 2023

Cost of a 128KB computer with floppies in 1985

https://sopuli.xyz/post/2298547

@zen - Sopuli

Apple Vision Pro launched at WWDC over a week ago and they showed a lot of clips of normal people wearing it doing (relatively) normal things, like cooking, watching movies, even working at the office. One clip that really intrigued me was the one where a father was recording his kids in 3D through his Vision Pro. To me, this seemed off at first since to other people, it may not look like you’re present in the moment. But after thinking about it for a while, isn’t it the same as just wearing sunglasses, if not better? Sunglasses block your eyes, but Vision Pro would show your eyes to the outside world. So I guess the question is, will Apple Vision Pro and subsequent products become widely socially acceptable one day?

Show threadBrownian Motion

So everything is about right. Today you can buy a budget pc, and skim on performance, but back then (and I was there man!) you could not.

In 1985 HDD were only starting to gain traction for PC’s and that was about the only thing you could spec up. That IBM pc is “High Res” which probably means it was VGA multicolour (yay!lol) with 640x480 resolution. So you were basically buying top of the line.

Today, if you were to build a top of the line PC, RTX4090, latest best intel cpu, PSU, etc, etc it would be easy to spend $5K!

But damn, the difference in performance from back then to now!! (That IBM is an XT which means it was a 4.77Mhz with 8086 cpu. Just looking at that picture, I can feel the weight of the bloody thing)

Aug 14, 2023 at 6:00amWeb
Show threadnottheengineerAug 14, 2023
Adjusted for inflation, I’m pretty sure that today’s PCs are still cheaper than this.
Show threadOisteinkAug 14, 2023
I was there too but vga was not. My dad got an IBM XT fully specd as a home computer (he was CFO of Emma EDB). I believe the hires could be EGA or probably Hercules as they don’t brag about colours - but his had CGA. The full spec of my dads pc - that changed my life - was: 2x256kb ram on full length isa cards. 10mb hdd, 360kb floppy. 9pin printer and cga. Total cost back then in Norwegian KR was 120000.
Show threadOisteinkAug 14, 2023
After checking with my dad the price was half of what I stated. He got one for home and one for office - the business he was with was providing IBM mainframes, and wanted to check out the PC. My dad got them because of Lotus 1-2-3 - spreadsheets was the shit in accounting/ finance already
Show threadBrownian MotionAug 14, 2023
Might be right, could have been ega. It was a long time ago and the mind is wobbly.
Show threadNum10ckAug 14, 2023
yea 8086 couldn’t drive a vga. 16 preset ugly colors if you’re lucky. unless you had a magical amiga with dedicated graphics chips to do 256 colors, 4096 if you’re nasty.
Show threadLoulouAug 14, 2023
Oh those raster hacks and stuff…
Show threadcaptain_samuel_bradyAug 14, 2023
Sir, I’ll have you know that I had an IBM PS/2 Model 25 with 256 glorious colors in MCGA. And fuck every developer then didn’t support MCGA, because it dropped down to 4 color CGA. No support for EGA.
Show threadNum10ckAug 14, 2023
and i’m sure you learned your valuable lesson :)
Show threadcaptain_samuel_bradyAug 15, 2023
Almost certainly not as my next PC was a Gateway 2000.
Show threadSquare SingerAug 14, 2023
Also, these PCs back then were heavy (=>much more resource intensive), handbuilt and low-volume. All things that add a lot to the price.
Show threadLoulouAug 14, 2023
I don’t know about resource intensive, today you need a frigging powerplant to feed a decent PC. At least the 286 and onwards didn’t consume that much right?
Show threadastropenguin5Aug 14, 2023
I think they mean resource intensive as in it literally took more physical material to build them, which costs more.
Show threadLoulouAug 14, 2023
Ah okay, that’s totally true.
Show threadSquare SingerAug 14, 2023
Resource intensive to make. If you have a PC that consists of 20kg steel and other materials, that’s gonna add to the price.
Show threadLoulouAug 14, 2023
True true!
Show threadFerrisAug 14, 2023
eh. Money is worth a third it was worth.
Show threadWhiskyTangoFoxtrotAug 14, 2023

Today you can buy a budget pc, and skim on performance, but back then (and I was there man!) you could not.

For PCs? Maybe not, but you could get plenty of other types of home computer for reasonably cheap. A Commodore 64 was $150 in 1985, for instance. Just had to stay away from the absolute bleeding edge.