Time Warp Computer Pricing Revealed

Agg writes "OCAU has posted an article which shows just how much computer pricing has changed over the last 20 years or so. During a 24-hour period I asked OCAU readers to scan and send me an ad page from the oldest Australian computer magazine they could find. This snapshot of historical pricing is fascinating and, quite frankly, a little scary. How does $5999 for an 8.6MB hard drive strike you? For reference, 1 Australian Dollar is worth 70 to 80 US cents."

Comments

newsflash

[Anonymous Coward]

Hardware prices drop over time.

Re:newsflash

[Anonymous Coward]

+1 sarcastic

Re:newsflash

[Anonymous Coward]

you mean via kazaa or sub $1 USD Hong Kong night markets?

Re:newsflash

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this what Software freedom is all about? $0 ?

no, that's what war3z is all about.

/.'ed

[Joey Patterson]

I hope that site wasn't hosted on a 128K Mac that they brought here in a flying DeLorean.

How

[Julian Morrison]

...does $5999 for an 8.6MB hard drive strike you?

As silly. I mean, why didn't they want that one more dollar?

Re:How

[eingram]

So they could advertise, "8.6MB hard drive now LESS THAN $6,000!"

Woo! Sign me up.

Re:How

[Anonymous Coward]

...does $5999 for an 8.6MB hard drive strike you?

Please stop striking me even though I am an AC!! It is no fun striking someone you don't know.

$5999 worth of heavy equipment striking me hurts my body as well as wallet...

Does it come with 10 licenses to run Linux?

Hard Drives-The chronicles of "Dick".

[Anonymous Coward]

"I hope my children will be able to make similar claims."

Viagra, Viagra-II, Viagra-III, Viagra-"Is that a space elevator, or are you just happy to see me?"

Re:Hard Drives-The chronicles of "Dick".

[AndroidCat]

Then again, IBM used to call them Fixed Drives. What was that about children?

Re:Look at more recent stuff

[JWSmythe]

Judging by most of the computer "users" I've met, computers surpassed the average users mental capabilities in about 1998. :)

Most users can be replaced by a simple shell script anyways, so that wasn't hard to prove.

#!/bin/pseudoperl
#
# Replacement for average user
# v1.0b

use ICQ;
use email;
use browser;

while (1){
while ( period = "waking hours" ){
$input = browse( randsite() );
send_icq( To => randuser(),
Message => "$input ! hahaha!");

$input = read_mail();
send_email (forward_message());
);
sleep (8 hrs);
};

Modern hardware is expensive rubbish ..

[Peter_JS_Blue]

.. my ZX81 only cost me £200 20 years ago ! OK, it doesn't do all the fancy things the new machines can do ( Email, Browsing, Word processing, Spreadsheets, Databases, Sound, CD-ripping ..) but it does all the things I need ( Door stop or ammo to sling at next doors cat when it craps on my lawn).

Not too mention

[geekoid]

that everybody know Australa is populate by thieves, and therefore stole the computer anyways. ;)

Re:How silly

[Diag]

That's a lot of empty disk.

The storage administrator I once was is screaming "Give it back! Wasting money!"

Re:Australian Dollar?

[DigiShaman]

If you look really close at the graph, you can spot the outline of a kangaroo. That's right, hop to it mate!

What's scary is...

[michaelmalak]

This snapshot of historical pricing is fascinating and, quite frankly, a little scary. How does $5999 for an 8.6MB hard drive strike you?

No, what's scary (to me) is that some slashdot readers don't remember this first-hand.

"386-20MHz: Fast. Expensive. And worth it!"

[Slashdolt]

I remember that being the cover of PC-Magazine in (I think) 1989.

The Price? It was posted on the cover in big-bold letters at a mere $10,000.

It was probably only a couple issues later where they announced that the "386 is dead". ;-)