The first PC system I bought was a TRS-80 Model I for about $3k in 1979. That was a Z80 based 64k machine. Then there was the Gateway 386 with 1 MB of memory for about the same price in about 1990. I would be hard pressed to figure out how to spend that much money on a machine nowadays.
Technologizer takes a look at Classic PCs vs. New PCs: Their True Cost to demonstrate just what has happened to make these machines so much of a common appliance.
What is hidden in the look at personal computing systems is how the cost effectiveness of computing power has infiltrated so many established technologies and enabled so many new ones. Whether it is automobiles or cell phones, it is hard to look around at the many things in our lives without seeing some rather significant computing power that has made those things less expensive yet more capable.
And still some folks moan about the “good ol’ days” when life was rosy and all that.
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