$8,499.00 could have bought you ...

[LisaSkinnoble]

a 1989 Tandy 5000 computer. I never ever spent that much on a computer. I bought my first PC around that time for $2,500. As I remember, 5 years later, I bought another "state-of-the-art" computer for $2,500. Crazy, when I think back - that was soooo much money for me back then. What did you spend?

[mslman71]

Not sure how much our first computer cost total (Christmas '79). My dad bought it. Looking around it appears the II+ 48k was about $1800, the drives were about $4-500 ea. We also had a MX80 printer which I imagine was between $500 and $1000. So, with the monitor, WAG-it as maybe $3500-$4000, which was a ****-ton of money for us. The first computer I paid for myself was an Apple IIgs. I carried a box full of rolled change and a few bills to pay for it (pre-order). I think I was around 15 years old or so and I remember how unhappy the lady at the register was with me.

[-=FLEX=-]

My first PC was a Dell XPS D266, I think it was a couple grand. Bought it in 1996 I think.

My first Notebook was a Dell Inspiron 5000 and it was 5 grand in 2000 or so.

I am typing this on a total POS HP notebook I bought at Costco for about $475.

Times have changed....

[Zoosh]

I spent a total of $8k on an Apple 2e including the cost to build a 1M ram disk and a 10M macbottom hard drive!! More storage than a man will ever need in a lifetime!! ha!!!

[Karl_Hungus]

I spent 3,000 dollars on a top of the line computer in the mid-90's (1994-ish). It was 120mhz machine, 1.6 GB hard drive (I think), 16 MB RAM, which I eventually upgraded to 32 MB. I remember when I bought it, a friend told me that was more computer than I would ever need. No way would I ever fill up the hard drive and no way would any application require that kind of processing power. Kind of funny in retrospect.

EDIT: It was way faster than his computer, which allowed my to totally kick his ass playing Duke Nukem 3D over the modem.

[mslman71]

1993 I bought a Packard Bell 386 with a 750 HD and 8 Meg's of RAM for $1800. I got the top of the line modem at 9,600 baud. I was on compuserve before I switched to AOL. 1 year later I bought an 8 meg stick of RAM for $135. That baby really smoked then!!!

I don't remember our first CIS ID but the last one I had was 72426,2617. No idea why I remember that; it's been 25+ years.

I spent 3,000 dollars on a top of the line computer in the mid-90's (1994-ish). It was 120mhz machine,

Musta been. I think I had a 486DX2-66 about that time, which cost me a pretty penny.


When I was in Jr. High School me and a few of my dorky friends would walk over to the town library to drool over the advertisements in BYTE magazine.

[Karl_Hungus]

When I was in Jr. High School me and a few of my dorky friends would walk over to the town library to drool over the advertisements in BYTE magazine.

My very first computer was a Commodore Vic 20. Saved up my money for a year to buy it. Didn't even have one of those old 5 inch floppy drives ... but recorded everything on a cassette tape drive...lol.

[Zenshi]

Mine was a Mac SE back in the late 80s. I was still a grad student so I could only afford the non-hard drive version for $1500.00 (saved for many months). Had to swap floppies all the time. About a year later, I was able to afford an external 20MB Hard Drive and I was so happy.

[Corbi]

Compaq that I bought at Best Buy back in 99 and paid somewhere around $600, really was a pos. Right now I'm posting from a $250 tablet that runs circles around my laptop.

[V-240]

I paid $400 for a used 8K Commodore PET from Computerland in 1978. It had the Chiclet keyboard and built in cassette, which took several minutes to load one program.

We were the first on the block!

[jeffaus]

Early 80's I think, was a commodore 64, only ever played summer and winter Olympic games on it, that was until Leasure Suit Larry came out.. Cant remember how much I paid for it.

[beachguy498]

I bought a Gateway in 1997 for around $2500, think it had all of a 2.5 gig hard drive. We got suckered into a game package like Myst and some others that were tough to play.

I worked with a few guys that bought PCs in the pre-internets world, they all got a deal on them at a show. This was in 1992 or so. Another guy at work set them up for them for $100 each and they were virtually unusable, plus he loaded them up with porn as a freebie.

Rob

[Richie71]

The first PC I bought of my own.....I think the manufacturer was called Escom. It was the first generation of Pentium, P60, running DOS. I think the cost was around £850. Some great games back then: Doom 1 & 2, the X-Wing and Tie-Fighter games, Command & Conquer, and Wing Commander 3 and 4.

[danap3681]

Not sure exactly when I bought it but it was when Gateway first put out laptops. I paid about $2000 for it and I still have the damn thing in my closet. I would be willing to bet the thing weighs in at about 10lbs. LOL! I also have the CD burner I bought to burn CDs from way back!

[ChazWood]

My favorite thing from back in the day was the turbo button. As I recall, my first PC had a 486iDX2 33MHZ processor.

If I really needed to unleash the fcuking fury, I'd press that turbo button to clock it at a whopping 66MHZ.

[doughnutgut]

Bought a 486 off of a work mate for £50.

Did not even start it up apart from to see if the operating system loaded.

Took the back off and took it apart and put it back together again a fair few times. got my head around the components and what they were for.

Then went out and built my own and upgraded when I needed to. I remember my Gforce Titanium ultra graphics card being the shnizzle at the time and ran counter strike so smoothly.

Spent thousands of pounds on all sorts of Motherboards, Graphics cards, Memory, HDDs, coolers, cases as the PCU changed.

Then got out and earned a good crust from what I had learned keeping Honda UK running smoothly on a day to day basis.

[nikkisixx66]

what would 8,499 dollars be in todays money due to inflation etc?? 20k???? 30k?? phuckin hell!

[mslman71]

what would 8,499 dollars be in todays money due to inflation etc?? 20k???? 30k?? phuckin hell!

~ $15.5k

[nikkisixx66]

~ $15.5k

kind of justifies some of the prices of todays technology that we think is expensive lol

[mslman71]

kind of justifies some of the prices of todays technology that we think is expensive lol

You can buy a multi-MHz microcontroller with MB of embedded RAM and flash for a few bucks; a few minutes of your labor tops. If you think about (or knew) what it took to make that thing and get it to your door it's almost unbelievable.

[Dave76]

I can't remember what I paid for my earliest computers. I do remember buying a VCR for $750 around 1983 or so. It was stereo!!

[litljay]

My first PC was also a Gateway notebook that I'm pretty sure cost me $2500. Bought around '99 or '00

[ILurkAtWork]

Commodore 64 from Goodwill for $10. No disk drive, hard drive, or tape drive. I had to learn to program in BASIC in order to write my own video games. I'd leave it on for 2 weeks until it was about to melt, then have to turn it off. Had to write a new game as there was no way to save anything. If I really liked a game I would have to write the code all out on paper so that I could input it again later.

Plugged into the TV. Damn I miss that thing.

[Zenshi]

My favorite thing from back in the day was the turbo button. As I recall, my first PC had a 486iDX2 33MHZ processor.

If I really needed to unleash the fcuking fury, I'd press that turbo button to clock it at a whopping 66MHZ.

Many motherboard UEFI or BIOS still provide a turbo boost option for the recent processors. Since most everything uses Intel processors these days and the new SandyBridge, IvyBridge, and Haswells can handle the boost, this is not a problem so long as the motherboard has a sophisticated enough UEFI or BIOS to be able to provide that (just got to go into the UEFI or BIOS and turn it on if that option is available). You can think of this as a automatic overclock. Also almost all recent computers have an automated processor power control function that increases the processor capability as you increase the need (open more programs, open more sophisticated programs). This is to conserve energy when not needed but provide power when in demand. The difference between the two options is one will let you go beyond the rated speed of the processor and the other controls within the rated speed of the processor.

Early 80's I think, was a commodore 64, only ever played summer and winter Olympic games on it, that was until Leasure Suit Larry came out.. Cant remember how much I paid for it.

Commodore 64 from Goodwill for $10. No disk drive, hard drive, or tape drive. I had to learn to program in BASIC in order to write my own video games. I'd leave it on for 2 weeks until it was about to melt, then have to turn it off. Had to write a new game as there was no way to save anything. If I really liked a game I would have to write the code all out on paper so that I could input it again later.

Plugged into the TV. Damn I miss that thing.

Commodore 64s and their Amiga cousins were great computers. Commodore, a company that could make great hardware and market it very poorly.

[Witness01]

I spent my life savings (£20) on a second hand ZX81 (Timex Sinclair in the US I think) back in...hmmmm '82.

It came with a ram pack to upgrade it to a full 16K and took about half an hour to load anything off of cassette.

The *really* exciting thing about it was that if there was any vibration in the house whatsoever, such as that caused by breathing for instance, the load would fail and you'd have to start all over again.

[commonguy001]

Back in 92 or 93 I had a guy I played racquetball with who dropped something like 4 grand on a 486dx2 33mhz or something like that. I remember thinking WOW that's a WHOLE lot of money which it was and magnified by the fact I had very little.

I bought my first real computer in 96 or 97 for 1800 or something like that. Pentium 100 with a 15 in monitor! lol

[ChazWood]

Many motherboard UEFI or BIOS still provide a turbo boost option for the recent processors. Since most everything uses Intel processors these days and the new SandyBridge, IvyBridge, and Haswells can handle the boost, this is not a problem so long as the motherboard has a sophisticated enough UEFI or BIOS to be able to provide that (just got to go into the UEFI or BIOS and turn it on if that option is available). You can think of this as a automatic overclock. Also almost all recent computers have an automated processor power control function that increases the processor capability as you increase the need (open more programs, open more sophisticated programs). This is to conserve energy when not needed but provide power when in demand. The difference between the two options is one will let you go beyond the rated speed of the processor and the other controls within the rated speed of the processor.(

Yeah but I miss the turbo button; farting around in the BIOS just isn't the same.

[scullin]

My first computer was
http://oldcomputers.net/ts1000.html

My dad handed it down when he got a Commodore and then later an *** clone.

[gixxer0.6g]

Does this count?





To think, I have 3 gb of ram on my phone now.

[scullin]

I spent my life savings (£20) on a second hand ZX81 (Timex Sinclair in the US I think) back in...hmmmm '82.

It came with a ram pack to upgrade it to a full 16K and took about half an hour to load anything off of cassette.

The *really* exciting thing about it was that if there was any vibration in the house whatsoever, such as that caused by breathing for instance, the load would fail and you'd have to start all over again.

Missed your post. I had the same one though. Kind of miss messing around with it a little. My Dad actually started with the earlier ZX80 before that but then got the additional TS1000 as well. Usually had a few computers we'd mess around with.