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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 $5999 for an 8.6MB hard drive strike you? For reference, 1 Australian Dollar is worth 70 to 80 US cents."
Wildly inaccurate probably, but it has varied between 50-80cents over the last ten years, I know at some stage (in the 70s?) the aussie dollar was stronger for a while, which caught out a number of aussies who taken US$ loans
Someone else pointed out that the price of computers never really change, but that there is more power for the same price. In 1987 our family computer (mid-range) and printer cost around $1200. Today the same amount of money will also buy a mid-range computer (at least for gaming). However, this idea is getting less and less true as computers become commoditized and "powerful enough".
10 year performance of the Aussie dollar compared to The Yank
_ relative=AUD&ela__base=USD&UmsSession=6ef5cf65e96f 39657787d73633e3de9c
http://www.ela.co.nz/CurrencyGraph.class.php?ela_
In the Slashdot moderating system, humourless based offenses are considered especially heinous.
It had a 68000 and a Z-80. When running as a Unix box, the Z80 functioned as an I/O processor. When runing as a Radio Shack Model II, the 68000 was essentially idle
The first box to land in Edmonton ran Xenix/Unix on 256KB of ram, and an 9MB hard disk. I don't remember how much the box cost but the (14" platter) Hard Disk was about $10K.I actually managed to get Xenix, vi and nroff running off of one 1.2MB (12") floppy disk (including a swap partition) with the second floppy disk being used for user data.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
More importantly, what's the Aussie dollar going to be like in the next 2 months?
I made some payments for the bike I'm riding round the world a couple years ago when the OZ dollar was worth 52 cents American. Now it's up to 78 cents and I'm screwed. I still owe money on the bike. It would've been cheaper for me to pay the credit card interest (it's been bouncing between 0% and 3.9%).
I tried to pay but I think the guy who's building the bike thought he was doing me a favor by not getting more money. Argh!
riding round the world on an old motorcycle
No, it's a P4 3GHz doing the webserving with a dual AthlonMP 2800+ doing the database back-end. S'funny, the servers are both coping fine, so I'm wondering if we're being capped on a router somewhere..
The Government *wants* it to fall (good for exports), but it all depends on the economy in the rest of the world. The US economy has been in a bit of a rut lately, so they have low interest rates to stimulate the economy. Much of the rest of the world is in a similar position. On the other hand, Australia's economy has been steady, so interest rates are high by international standards. As a result, investors put their money into Australia to get better returns. This drove the dollar up.
Once the interest rates elsewhere rise, money will flow out of Australia, driving the AUD down. So, I guess all you can hope for is US interest rate rises.
The current position of the AUD at 70 cents is actually pretty close to its long-term stable position, but I have a gut feeling that when rate rises occur in the US, it will dip back down to the 60 cent mark (I could be wrong though).
Well, we've sent out more traffic than this in the past, in terms of bytes/sec. So large images aren't too much of a concern for us. I figured it was the usual servers-dying slashdot effect, but they're both coping fine. Current theory is that we're being capped on a router or something. Anyhoo, site is working, but slow.
Oh For the love of God, get an education in economics. Currencies don't really represent the strength of your economy, they're a measure of a lot of other things (of course, if your currency is tanking by more 10%, I think it's safe to say the economy is bad). Currencies that float mostly represent trade imbalances. The middle eastern currencies are almost worth 2 US$ - hint:The world depends on the middle east for a critical resource...
If you want your country to export more, you try and devalue your currency, if you want to reduce inflation, your currency may start rising, blah blah. Currency and economic strength are not always directly related.
My Favourite Meme
FOSS
I am an economist... a young one, but one nonetheless!
In a perfect world, the exchange rate will adjust perfectly to inflation. However, in our world, thanks to imperfect information, inflation and exchange rates will vary in the short run. Arbitrage does exist, as humans do not have perfect knowlege of the future. We can make ex ante predictions, but we will still end up with ex post deviations from such predictions.
SO.. if you're adventurous, try a job in currency exchange markets to make (or lose) a buck or two!
Crashes - There were horrible compatibility issues. Lots of games made you select from a list of components for video and sound. Alot of times my stuff wasn't on the list (darn you Tandy!). So I'd end up with junky graphics, and/or glitchy or non-working sound. Later on sound cards (like the first sound blaster) would randomly crash your system if things weren't setup just right (IRQs, memory addresses). Then when the first dedicated video cards started coming out they were the random crasher.
//c :)
Hehehe... Youngsters. I believe the grandparent poster was lamenting the times before the days of irqs and hercules adapters and PC compatibles. I read his post and missed my apple
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
Actually, they don't.
20 years ago a killer system cost $4000 and you could get entry-level computers for $600 (I know this since that's what I paid for my brand-new TRS-80 model III).
Ten years ago, a killer system cost $4000, and you had the newest 486/33 before anyone on your block. You could still get Commodores and others for around $600.
Today, a killer system costs around $3000, granted you get the best of everything, but at this price-point you always did. You can also get a 90-day warranteed crapo Dell for around $600 that will perform basic requirements for a few years.
Hardware prices don't change much over decades. What you get for the money changes pretty drastically, but the price-points are much as they were in 1980.