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Here's a summary: http://www.westegg.com/unmaintained/carnegie/win-f riends.html

What cost $90 in 1998 would cost $104.29 in 2005. Also, if you were to buy exactly the same products in 2005 and 1998, they would cost you $90 and $77.67 respectively.

The inflation calculator reports that the TR-1 would have cost $343.45 in 2005 dollars (it cost $49.95 according to a flyer on the TR-1 site).

Actually, you'll probably only find yourself looking down the barrel of a gun if you resist arrest (after failing to follow some of the laws/regulations you mention) or if you threaten violence yourself.

I challenge you to give me one instance where any of the items in your list have resulted in someone looking down the barrel of a gun otherwise.

Some of the items on your list have even more degrees of separation from a barrel of a gun. Fail to abide by the oh-so-intrusive I-can't-possibly-keep-my-car-under speed limits and what will happen? Most likely, you'll get a speeding ticket. Fail to pay that, and you'll might get a nasty letter and a second and possibly a third chance to pay. Do this enough times and you'll be threatened with arrest. Resist arrest, and then you might be looking down the barrel of a gun. Of course, if you don't have a weapon on you, they'll probably just forceably arrest you even then.

This isn't to say that some of these laws/regulations aren't unjust. Just that you're engaging in just a little bit of hyperbole that has become cliche'.

And if I opened the Xbox 360 box and saw an NES I would be pissed.

Of course computers are getting more powerful, and cheaper all the time, so a direct comparison isn't right.

In 1983 or 1984 I bought a Commodore 64. I paid $99 for it at K-Mart. Add in a monochrome monitor for $150 and I had an awesome computer for only $250.

According to the inflation calculator, that would be about $467 in today's money. I *could* go out and buy a computer for $467, and it would be decent- sufficient, and possibly fairly good.

But I don't want that computer. I want an LCD screen, I want lots of RAM, I want a large hard-drive and a DVD burner.

I don't want a modernized version of the NES, with some cheap light-gun and a cartridge based media that doesn't work unless I slam it in 'just right.'

I want the PLUS option, something a little more. The Apple ][...not the Commodore 64. I'll take the $400 Xbox 360 over a $250 Revolution any day.

And besides...the Xbox 360 will already have one price reduction by the time the Revolution comes out...so they won't be cleaning up too much...

I know there's nothing wrong with the proven tech, but why do CDs still run $16 a pop?

This first table shows the Apollo Budget over its entire lifespan, including, at the bottom, the percentage Apollo made of the entire NASA budget:
Apollo Budget

Make sure you convert the numbers given into 2005 dollars:
Inflation

This link give the entire budgeting report from last year for NASA. About halfway down, you'll find Figure 1-1 : the second graph has the numbers calculated in terms of 2005 dollars. While these numbers don't explicitly separate manned spaceflight from robotic missions, there's a table near the bottom that does.
Current Budget

To answer your question, at the height of Apollo, NASA was running at $26 billion 2005 dollars, while today they're running at about $16 billion. We have launches on a regular basis, and are monitoring not only the new stuff (like Cassini around Saturn), but also the stuff launched in the 60's (like certain Moon experiments, the Voyager satellites, etc). In short, NASA is *far* more efficient now than they could possibly have been back then. We're doing much more science for far less money.

Ticket prices are not rising much more than inflation. Ticket prices in 1989 averaged $3.99. According to http://www.westegg.com/inflation/, the inflation-adjusted value of that amount in 2004 is $6.06. Ticket prices averaged $6.21 in 2004, about 2.5% higher than inflation - but even that may be within the margin of error of the survey data. Assuming that your data is correct, ticket prices are not rising much....

I can't believe you had a post complimenting you. Your post was one distortion or outright misinformation after another.

Not exactly. It just wasn't what the US military wanted.

The military wasn't the only group who saw hopping around on moon dust as pointless. The American public stopped paying attention to moon missions, and hence their price tag could no longer be justified.

The current shuttle design suffers a lot from this, since early NASA tried playing politics

NASA "played politics" so that they could get anything, as their budget was slashed in half during the design phase without their requirements being lightened.

Unfortunately, the shuttle is a far less capable launch vehicle.

It depends on what you're talking about. Payload? Certainly. Orbital maneuverability (which allows it to drop off more LEO satellites per launch)? Definitely not. Payload return? Saturn-V didn't have any, although we had some craft (like Apollo) that were launched by it that returned with small payloads.

And the shuttle can't put any significant cargo into GEO at all; the additional booster ring they have to use to launch from the cargo bay is too bulky, heavy, and risky to make it worthwhile much.

The "additional booster ring" that you refer to is called PAM, and it's the same series of stages that we use on Delta and Atlas. It's not risky, and we've used it all the time - the shuttle leaves the area before the GTO injection begins. The shuttle's GEO capability is greater than Ariane and Proton's.

It wouldn't be that big a deal to recreate the Saturn Vs

Not at all. The Saturn V was created on the availability of all kinds of 1960s hardware. The Federal Archives in East Point, GA has 2900 *cubic feet* of Saturn V documents describing all of the parts. It would actually take far less effort to design a new system than to try and basically recreate the 1960s rocket-base in modern times. I've only ran into *one* study that suggested that it would be cheaper to recreate the Saturn-V ("Launch Vehicles for the Space Exploration Intiative", AAIA), and even then, not by much.

these Saturn VIs would outstrip anything else around right now. And still be cheaper than Shuttle launches...

Um, no. Cheaper per kg, yes (although not by that much), but a Saturn V launch in modern dollars, by this inflation calculator, is 2.5B$ dollars - 5-6 times as much.

What makes it an insane contraption is the fact that we've never bothered/managed to address most of those problems.

Bothered? Heck yes. Managed? Most. The SRB problem is fixed. The foam problem is not. Hundreds of problems during the development and initial testing phase were fixed, and I'm surprised that you're not aware of this. The shuttle used to have big problems with tiles falling off - during an early test flight, one shuttle lost a third of its tiles! After extensive reengineering work, they developed a system of epoxies to attach the tiles to a felt stress isolation pad, which in turn attached to the skin, and essentially eliminated the (very difficult) problem.

Even worse, there were a number of problems with the design we knew about in advance, but we went with it anyway because (wait for it) it was the low bid. What am I talking about? Segmented SRBs for a starter.

Wrong. Because it was the *only in-budget bid*. The initial designs called for either LOX/LH or LOX/Kerosene boosters. Then their budget got cut - almost cut in half. The SRBs already existed and were almost completed, so they had either to use them, or essentially scrap reusability of the orbiter if they wanted to stay in budget (essentially defeating the purpose of the project). Even still, NASA continued working trying to improve safety - not just with the numerous improvements after Challenger, but with the development

"Accoding to http://www.westegg.com/inflation/ that Atari 2600 would cost $634.91, and each cartridge would cost $63.49, in 2005 dollars."

In college I paid $2700.00 for a 386 DX with 4 megs of RAM and an 80 meg hardrive. I could buy 5 full Dell computers with that money today. I don't think inflation applies to everything.

If you account for inflation the Xbox 360 is *much* cheaper than some of its predecessors.

Atari 2600
1977 price: $199.95
Adjusted for inflation: $648.83

Colecovision
1982 price: $199.95
Adjusted: $405.63

Nintendo Entertainment System
1985 price: $199
Adjusted: $353.16

Inflation based on the Consumer Price Index.

Inflation Calculator

Accoding to http://www.westegg.com/inflation/ that Atari 2600 would cost $634.91, and each cartridge would cost $63.49, in 2005 dollars.

So Xbox 360 is actually a great deal compared to the Atari 2600 if you just look at price.

Inflation plays a large part in this.

According to http://www.usedgames.com/nintendo/nintendo.htm#nes the original NES opened up at $159 in 1985. Using the Inflation Calculator http://www.westegg.com/inflation/ that equates to $282 in 2005 dollars.

Yes, electronic equipment has gotten significantly cheaper in the past 20 years, but the video game industry has also grown significantly. I'd be willing to bet that the demand for video games and thier consoles has gone up far more than the additional 33% inflation adjusted price increase.

I agree its a very high price, certainly not an impulse buy, and definitely will get an evil look from wife as christmas present. But there is this little thing called inflation, which i think they are adjusting for. The original NES was what like $200 in 1985? (I think thats what i paid for it in 87' at least). If you adjust for inflation it looks like that would be around $350 today...and I think the NES may have started a little more expensive then $200 (of course it also came with a game and other crap). But I think that is the main reason, you can't compare past and present prices.

The interesting thing is that gaming's never been this expensive before.

The Model T sold for $825 in 1908 when it was first sold to the public.

The Model T sold for $575 in 1912. According to Forbes magazine: "When it sold for $575 in 1912, the Model T for the first time cost less than the prevailing average annual wage in the United States." (link)

Using the CPI:
$825 in 1908 would cost $16327.82 in 2005
$575 in 1912 would cost $11383.77 in 2005
(link)

The buying power of the average American family is much greater than it is today. There is no real good way to bring the price of the Model T into "2005 Dollars", but $32000 is probably really close.

$350 is a little high based soley on inflation. From http://www.westegg.com/inflation/ : What cost $300 in 2001 would cost $325.35 in 2005. Plus you have to take into account that in general the economy in the US at least hasnt been all that great over the last 4 years so keeping the price the same seems to make a lot of sense.

I spent $50 to purchase the computer game Ultima 3: Exodus in 1983. According to an inflation calculator that price in 2003 adjusted dollars would be $90.91.
Admittedly it came with a really nice cloth map and 3 manuals (2 were spell guides) but that's still a lot of money.

inflation, hopefully before some smartass comments on how low those prices are

A typical non-economist (and non-mathematician) slashdot post modded insightful. At the same time it's completely wrong.

Hmm, does $4-$9 in 1980-dollars equate to $12-$25 in 2005 dollars? At 2.5% inflation per year, it doesn't even come close. Bummer.

Actually, $9 in 1980 with 25 years of compound @ 2.5% inflation (your figures, not mine) is ~$16, so it's actually a pretty good estimate. I buy CDs at the rate of maybe 5 or 6 a month, and they're usually in the $12-$18 range. But that's just your random 2.5% inflation figure (which is wrong). If you use the CPI (which is a much better measure) you get $9 in 1980 being worth over $21 in 2003 (the latest year I could find figures for).

Try it yourself here.

Seriously, with inflation, $200 in 1980 is $484 (2003 dollars) today. Look it up yourself.

And for the record, the C64 was $429 when it came out in 1982 ($930.69 2003 dollars).

The Apple ][ was $1298 in 1977. ($4009 in 2003 dollars.)

The IBM PC was $3000 in 1981. ( $6389.32 in 2003 dollars.)

I was there. Computers were REALLY expensive. You used to collect soup labels to get discounts. Schools held bake sales for computers. They were NOT cheap.

Wikipedia says:Hubble was designed in the 1970s. It cost about US$ 2 billion ($2,000,000,000) to build and launch.

Using an inflation calculator, that's supposedly $9.5 billion in in todays money.

But you have to also factor in the fact that the technology should have gotten a whole lot cheaper by now, plus many other side benefits of building a new one.

Bush is a bad president because his inauguration total was around $40 mil, while Clinton was a good president because his '93 inauguration was only $33 million.

If you look at inflation, $350 in 1984 would be $616.63 in 2003.

The article says 25 tonnes is enought to power the US for a full year. Apollo 17 returned 110 kg of moonrock plus 3 astronauts and their equipment. Call it 1/3 of a tonne. So that makes 75 Apollo round trips to retrieve the fuel for one year of power.

One Apollo mission cost $110 billion in today's dollars (20 billion in 1970, adjusted using the inflation calculator). So the total transportation costs run about $8.25 trillion. Or about 75% of GDP. I don't know how much we spend on power, but I don't think it's that much.

Conclusion: yup, transportation costs will be a killer. Not the conclusion I expected when I started fact-checking you.

Wow. You really need this.

When you're done with that (you'll probably need the whole book), here are a few further hints:

1) If a person is working on games for Gnome, it doesn't mean he thinks everything should be free.

2) If a person dislikes intrusive DRM systems, it does mean he thinks everything should be free.

3) The grandparent didn't say it was a shame that WoW was charging money for their game. He was complaining that the costs are excessive and badly structured. Blizzard should be able to make plenty of money just off subscriptions.

4) Good grammar makes for happy readers.

5) Gratuitous insults make for unpersuaded readers.

6) Caffeine and ritalin don't mix.

I always feel like the record companies fooled us when CD's came out. Sure, they sounded great, but when CD's were new, vinyl LP's were now $7, and the CD was $14-16, with the excuse that "we are capacity constrained, when we get more capacity, prices will be much cheaper, because these things are cheap to make".

So we're talking the equivalent of $3.00 a track. Not to mention since you have to buy them in groups of two and one of them might be crap, you might be wasting $3.00.

My conclusion is that parent poster is underestimating the effects of inflation.

So, $5000 back then is ~$12000 now. Don't know about you, but even ignoring superior performance, I don't pay anywhere near $12000 for a decent computer these days. Closer to 1/10th that.

And when you factor in superior performance, it gets positively frightening. Modern PC is to 1980 PC as Concorde is to DC3. And Concorde doesn't cost 1/10th of what a DC3 cost.

Do I really need all that for a gaming machine, though? I mean, are save-games so important that I really need RAID?

Another thing to consider is inflation. I realize skermit's info is anecdotal, but let's use it as a demonstration. This site says the Pentium 90 appeared in 1994. The Inflation Calculator says that $3000 in 1994 dollars is $3645.04 in 2003 dollars (the most recent data available).

Assuming you aren't just putting stuff in your PC because it's possible to do so, I'm pretty sure a top gaming PC today is certainly no more expensive than the analogous PC of a decade ago, and I suspect it'll be cheaper.

Anyone care to compile actual numbers, instead of relying on skermit's and Dragoon412's estimates?

From my perspective: The divestiture and breakup of the Bell System was utterly unnecessary, along the lines of using an antiaircraft gun to kill mosquitoes.

Yup, poor mabell. Nevermind that there has been alot of innovation since the split, and prices keep going up!

People that tell me that say 'I used to pay just $35 /month for everything.' Never do they adjust for inflation: $35 in '75 would be $124.78 in '03. See for yourself http://www.westegg.com/inflation/

PC's only just recently matched the price point of those 1985 era machines.

Keep inflation in mind. According to this inflation calculator, a $400 product in 1985 would cost $675.66 in 2003.

For someone who claims to be "old skool" you should be extremely happy that instead of paying $90 to watch two stick figures fire dots at each other like in Gunfighter, you get smooth, crisp graphics of actual people jumping and firing in slow motion with bullet casings falling to the floor and smoke rising from the gun barrel. Could things be better? Sure, there's plenty of room to improve and game design needs to catch up to the graphical side. But to defend your piracy because you're not getting "value"? Puleeze... you just like getting stuff for free.

According to The Inflation Calculator What cost $1000 in 1954 would cost $6468.58 in 2002 and I know teh US hasn't been dropping prices of late.

Numbers:

US Budget Summary since 1789
Inflation calculator.

Okay, the largest budget deficit of the 1930's (Great Depression, New Deal) was about $3bn in 1939. That's about $31bn in 2002 dollars.

The largest budget deficit of the 1940's (WWII) was $55bn in 1943. That's about $585bn in 2002 dollars.

The largest deficit of the 1960's (Soviet Union, Space Race) was $25bn in 1968. That's $130bn in 2002 dollars.

The largest deficit in the 1980's (Soviet Union) was $221bn in 1986. That's $354bn in 2002 dollars.

The largest deficit of the 1990's (Iraq war?) was $290bn in 1992, which is $370bn in 2002 dollars.

The 2004 budget deficit is officially $521bn. However, that does not count the costs of war, which are $84bn in Iraq alone. All told, the current deficit is well over $600bn. Depending on the cost model, that equates to about $580bn 2002 dollars.

So in any case, the current US budget deficit is not larger than at least the one FDR carried, but its skirting damn close.

Can you say INFLATION??

Take a look at the Inflation Calculator. It only goes as far forward as 2002, but $5 in 1975 is equivalent to $17.54 in 2002, it will be even more than that now. So the cost of the music has actually almost halved. Stop whining that things aren't free and either pay up or shut up.

In 1999, the median salary for a US Systems Administrator was $64,271. As of 2002, the average salary was $67,675 ($67,920 for males, and $64,946 for females).

You're forgetting about inflation. Your income has gone down in real terms. An income of $64,271 in 1999 is equivalent to a salary of $68,671.92 in 2002. Conversely, a salary of $67,675 in 2002 is equivalent to earning $63,337.97 in 1999.

Ever heard of inflation?

Games sometimes come with extras these days. But it's not as common as most people don't care. I miss the extras that came with the Wing Commander games, they were cool. But it's the games that made them really cool.

You're saying that games have stayed at $50 since the 1980s That's not staying the same, that's a steady DECREASE in price!

I can remember paying a lot for new hot release games. $60 (or was it more?) for SMB3 when it came out. $70 for a shity Star Trek The Next Generation game when it came out for the SNES. $60 for Half-Life when it was new.

According to this calculator, $50 in 1990 dollars is $69.67 in 2002 dollars. $50 today is $35.88 in 1990 dollars.

I'm not saying we should ever be hapy about prices going up (even if it's just a market adjustment) but this is over due. I can't remember video game prices ever going up long term in flat dollars.

Yeah, $500 for "a professional recording studio that used to cost tens to hundreds of thousands" is major cost reduction. Unfortunately, the above quote (I made it up) is basically, like nearly every software program's hype, full of omissions.

Like what you have to buy to get the program to work. Let's start with a computer, in the interest of brevity.

Any old computer? Nope. How about my brand-new multigahertz PC wonder? Probably not. You have to run it on a ProTools approved system. One reason why a whole bunch of audio is still done with Macs; once it's all said and done, Macs and PCs for audio (at this level) cost the same, maybe even less.

Like all the other stuff you have to buy. Including ProTools hardware; a bunch of extra software, and the rest of the stuff that makes a recording studio what it is. Singers are blowing through microphones that cost thousands of dollars and explode if you look at them funny (well, maybe not that easy; singing too close, or dropping them even once, maybe a hard bump, that will do it. Spend $5K).

Wages, wages, wages. Heat, rent, electricity. A cable inventory that's worth more than your car. You know, the usual stuff. When it comes right down to it, you could get the software for free* and it still wouldn't make much difference in the bill.

Now, many musicians are on the edge and do some great things with (only) many thousands of dollars invensted. Don't expect to see their efforts in a major label release though; if they get signed the record company is going to send them back to do it again, with the big buck guys. And yes, you can hear the difference.

As to the question why the product hasn't gone down in price, the answer is it has. I used to pay $10-16 for LP records. According to this inflation calculator, that translates as $33.73 to $53.96 (1975-2000, US). I won't go into about how the music industry has been trying to get us to pay $25 since the early 80's, suffice to say consumer resistance has tended to curb their periodic attempts to raise the retail price.

* Get ProTools Free direct from Digidesign here (Win98/Me & MacOS9): Digidesign It will run on less critical hardware, and is a functional but somewhat limited version of the paid programs. Don't expect your next CD to cost $0 to finish.

Read the System Requirements here:
Windows XP

For those of you who would rather not click the link here's an example (there's a lot of requirements, but whatever):
The only fully approved CPU's are Compaq EVO W2000, an IBM Intellistation M Pro model 6850 or Intellistation Z Pro model 6221, and a Turnkey solution from a company called Carillion. Don't be expecting to run Quake and MS Office on this box either, it will probably break the audio hardware functionality. You can run it with any G4/AGP/OSX Mac though (although that's not all you'll need, on either platform).

It's just staggering - over 20 billion in 1961 dollars. Guessing based on nothing more than intuition, that's 100 billion dollars today.

According to the inflation calculator, what cost $20,000,000,000 in 1961 would cost $115,019,019,272.52 in 2001.

The ideas are interesting by themselves, linking to other's work isn't much a validation in itself.

You mean this post doesn't rival the writings of Shakespeare or the thoughts of Aristotle?

Why, I belive it is genius rivalled only by Einstein.

NO NO NO!

Cars are actually less expensive today if you adjust for inflation!

According to this inflation calculator, $10,000 in 1976 has the same purchasing power as $31,500 in 2001. So, a car would have to cost $31,500 today to cost the same in inflation adjusted dollars to a $10,000 car in 1976. The fact that it costs less than that today means that the real cost of cars has come down since 1976.

Evian Natural OVERCLOCKING Water

Just imagine the niche market. Especially considering how close Silicon Valley is to Haight & Ashbury in San Francisco. This is it. This is finally a way to get those damn hippies happy.

Evian Natural OVERCLOCKING Water

By the makers of Nuts and Gum and BeerNuts Gum

Coming soon:

Evian VITAMIN ENHANCED OVERCLOCKING water
Let your processor go the extra mile with this slick, new overclocking sports water.

And let's not forget how much money they make every year and yet still increase the price of stamps almost yearly.

Apparently the schools aren't as efficient as the Post Office. Pay attention much in math class? Ever hear of something called inflation?

The price of a stamp has remained pretty much exactly constant over the past 30 years.

In 1971, a first class stamp cost $0.08. Plug that into the Inflation Calculator and see what you get.

yerricde wrote:

1. Longer albums. Back in the day, when vinyl was king, 35 minutes was considered an album; nowadays, CD albums average 70 minutes.

Double albums were quite common (at least among the artists I listen to, and many artists would put extra tracks on their cassette releases because they wanted to get the music out and it wouldn't fit on the vinyl.

Yes, CD albums are probably longer on average than Vinyl albums were (Vinyl you could get about 18 minutes per side / 36 total before having to make sound quality compromises), but I question your "70 minutes" figure for the average CD albums. The longest many CD players can handle is 74 minutes, and most albums are far from full. My guess is the average new music CD is about 45 minutes (not counting compilation or "Best of" CD's, where it's trivial to just add tracks until it's full).

2. Inflation. CDs cost USD 17 now, but $17 in AD2002 dollars is worth about $9 in AD1983 dollars (when CDs were first released).

According to the CPI, $17 in 2001 money (USD) is $9.65 in 1983 dollars. I don't think there are formal figures for 2002 yet, but your figure sounds plausible.

The thing is, how many people were buying CD's in 1983? CD sales didn't pass Vinyl sales until 1988 ($11.36). CD's didn't become the dominant form of music sales until they passed the cassette in 1992, and $17 in 2001 was $13.61 then (in terms of sales, cassettes were king from 1983 to 1992). As I recall, CDs themselves often sold for $9.95 in 1992 (because they were still competing with cassettes). We're talking about much more than just inflation here.

I don't have figures onhand, but my understanding is that CD production costs have dropped to the point where they are considerably cheaper to produce than cassettes (and have been for a while), yet the cassette version is sold for less than the CD of the same album. We're definately talking about much more than inflation here, and more than "longer albums".

yerricde wrote:

1. Longer albums. Back in the day, when vinyl was king, 35 minutes was considered an album; nowadays, CD albums average 70 minutes.

Double albums were quite common (at least among the artists I listen to, and many artists would put extra tracks on their cassette releases because they wanted to get the music out and it wouldn't fit on the vinyl.

Yes, CD albums are probably longer on average than Vinyl albums were (Vinyl you could get about 18 minutes per side / 36 total before having to make sound quality compromises), but I question your "70 minutes" figure for the average CD albums. The longest many CD players can handle is 74 minutes, and most albums are far from full. My guess is the average new music CD is about 45 minutes (not counting compilation or "Best of" CD's, where it's trivial to just add tracks until it's full).

2. Inflation. CDs cost USD 17 now, but $17 in AD2002 dollars is worth about $9 in AD1983 dollars (when CDs were first released).

According to the CPI, $17 in 2001 money (USD) is $9.65 in 1983 dollars. I don't think there are formal figures for 2002 yet, but your figure sounds plausible.

The thing is, how many people were buying CD's in 1983? CD sales didn't pass Vinyl sales until 1988 ($11.36). CD's didn't become the dominant form of music sales until they passed the cassette in 1992, and $17 in 2001 was $13.61 then (in terms of sales, cassettes were king from 1983 to 1992). As I recall, CDs themselves often sold for $9.95 in 1992 (because they were still competing with cassettes). We're talking about much more than just inflation here.

I don't have figures onhand, but my understanding is that CD production costs have dropped to the point where they are considerably cheaper to produce than cassettes (and have been for a while), yet the cassette version is sold for less than the CD of the same album. We're definately talking about much more than inflation here, and more than "longer albums".

yerricde wrote:

1. Longer albums. Back in the day, when vinyl was king, 35 minutes was considered an album; nowadays, CD albums average 70 minutes.

Double albums were quite common (at least among the artists I listen to, and many artists would put extra tracks on their cassette releases because they wanted to get the music out and it wouldn't fit on the vinyl.

Yes, CD albums are probably longer on average than Vinyl albums were (Vinyl you could get about 18 minutes per side / 36 total before having to make sound quality compromises), but I question your "70 minutes" figure for the average CD albums. The longest many CD players can handle is 74 minutes, and most albums are far from full. My guess is the average new music CD is about 45 minutes (not counting compilation or "Best of" CD's, where it's trivial to just add tracks until it's full).

2. Inflation. CDs cost USD 17 now, but $17 in AD2002 dollars is worth about $9 in AD1983 dollars (when CDs were first released).

According to the CPI, $17 in 2001 money (USD) is $9.65 in 1983 dollars. I don't think there are formal figures for 2002 yet, but your figure sounds plausible.

The thing is, how many people were buying CD's in 1983? CD sales didn't pass Vinyl sales until 1988 ($11.36). CD's didn't become the dominant form of music sales until they passed the cassette in 1992, and $17 in 2001 was $13.61 then (in terms of sales, cassettes were king from 1983 to 1992). As I recall, CDs themselves often sold for $9.95 in 1992 (because they were still competing with cassettes). We're talking about much more than just inflation here.

I don't have figures onhand, but my understanding is that CD production costs have dropped to the point where they are considerably cheaper to produce than cassettes (and have been for a while), yet the cassette version is sold for less than the CD of the same album. We're definately talking about much more than inflation here, and more than "longer albums".

CD's came out in 1983, according to this page on the history of the CD. If you adjust for inflation, a CD that cost US$8.00 in 1983 ended up costing US$14.09 in 2001. Taking inflation alone into account (and ignoring improvements in technology, etc.), 15 bucks actually ends up being somewhat reasonable. Of course, we all know there's a lot more involved, but I just thought I should point out the effect of inflation alone.

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Gandhi

According to the paper which I originally got the figure from, it was $13,000.

According to an inflation calculator at http://www.westegg.com/inflation/...

What cost $13000 in 1943 would cost $132688.99 in 2000.

Equivalently, if you were to buy exactly the same products in 2000 and 1943, they would cost you $13000 and $1273.66 respectively.

$132,000 seems about right for a sub-orbital rocket with minimal guidance built with slave labor.