1988 vs 2008

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

http://tech.msn.com/products/a...id=tg6328095&GT1=10938

 

[SpeedEng66]

heh thats about the time I bought my first amstrad 8088 pc :thumbsup:
I was just under 1 grand @ service merchindise lol

 

[krnmastersgt]

Hey, want to buy a 1-terabyte hard drive for $5.8 million? We thought not. But based on per-megabyte prices in 1988, that's how much a 1TB drive would have cost in 2008 dollars.

Damn nice comparison

 

[aigomorla]

there isnt a day my dad doesnt remind me that the first computer i had he built for me.

Now i do all the building for him.

And he still to this day keeps rubbing it in, that he built a more expensive computer. To me it looks like an abacus compared to todays machine.

LOL.. the illustrious OG IBM, with floppy, and i think a measy 128kb memory.


Man, you know how expensive a 10MEG disk was back then? Or even a 5 1/4 floppy drive even.

 

[AmberClad]

Heh, that was a fun read. Pretty crazy that just one of the little memory chips on a RAM stick these days holds more than that massive hard drive. And costs about 1/1000th to boot.

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: AmberClad
Heh, that was a fun read. Pretty crazy that just one of the little memory chips on a RAM stick these days holds more than that massive hard drive. And costs about 1/1000th to boot.

*looking at my 8gig usb flash drive*

this would of made a lot of people cry back then.

 

[brassbin]

back in the days, could people buy parts and put together a system by themselves or you pretty much had to buy a prebuild?

 

[heyheybooboo]

The Tandy 1000's were some hot shiite - the TX model had a 'turbo' mode to 6MHz. lol

DeskMate was really cool - as was a 16-color monitor. You launched programs by typing in the 'path' to the .exe file via the dos prompt or wrote a simple batch file.

You were really high tech if you changed your text and screen colors using the dos 'mode colormap' command. BASIC was really basic -lol

It beat the crap out of FORTRAN on punch cards

 

[nerp]

The tandys were never considered "hot sxxt." some of their earlier machines, like the trs-80 grew a following but anyone who knew their beans had a 286 clone, like me. I just had to suffer with dual 5.25 floppies before I could afford a HD. Fortunatley, most games allowed for a game and data disk to sit in seperate drives so I didn't have to switch disks between levels.

I'm feeling old. My first computer predates 1988. c64 baby.

 

[richwenzel]

old pcs i had,

odyssey2 (technically it could be used as a pc)
ti 994a
apple iic (that thing lasted forever and was decent for a very long time, maybe got 8 years of good use out of it, back when apple actually dominated home software)

my very next pc was a 486dx50 (or maybe 66, i can't remember now)...i remember it was $50 per meg of ram and I got 8megs at $400....

was my first microsoft experience...

i dont think i moved form dos 5.0 until windows95....

autoexec and config file modification ftw...

just getting a gamecard to work was impressive....

i could never get terranova to work on my pc either...

though i did love mw2 with my ch mach flight stick...woooooaha that was fun.

 

[nyker96]

Originally posted by: nerp
The tandys were never considered "hot sxxt." some of their earlier machines, like the trs-80 grew a following but anyone who knew their beans had a 286 clone, like me. I just had to suffer with dual 5.25 floppies before I could afford a HD. Fortunatley, most games allowed for a game and data disk to sit in seperate drives so I didn't have to switch disks between levels.

I'm feeling old. My first computer predates 1988. c64 baby.

same here, got my nice C64 back then. Played plenty games on it. Typed assembly code into that box too. I remember the Tandy computers sold in the radio shark, used to drool over its color display like a kid in candy store. Good old days, now kids play with PS3 that has about 1000x horse power just not a fair comparison any more. But without the c64/tandy then wont be no C2Ds/PS3s.

 

[Markfw]

Originally posted by: heyheybooboo
The Tandy 1000's were some hot shiite - the TX model had a 'turbo' mode to 6MHz. lol

DeskMate was really cool - as was a 16-color monitor. You launched programs by typing in the 'path' to the .exe file via the dos prompt or wrote a simple batch file.

You were really high tech if you changed your text and screen colors using the dos 'mode colormap' command. BASIC was really basic -lol

It beat the crap out of FORTRAN on punch cards

Actually I think the slowest AT was 6 mhz, and the turbo made it run at 8 or 10.

 

[jiffylube1024]

FANTASTIC read - thanks!

 

[tenax]

my first "real" home computer was a tandy in the early 80s..regular 4200 dollars..on sale for 2400 bucks..SUCH a deal in included:

dot matrix printer
12 inch monochrome monitor
20 meg hd (that was the big boy at the time)

can't remember ram or processor..but i bought it because i was a music director for a radio station and got the notion i could take the big encyclopedia of rock and type it all on the hard drive. i got alphabetically to david BOWIE'S biography..and ran out of space..and learned the limitation of pc's with one crushing blow

 

[GuitarDaddy]

Originally posted by: brassbin
back in the days, could people buy parts and put together a system by themselves or you pretty much had to buy a prebuild?

No, It would be like building your own iPhone today, your only source of parts would be through the manufacturer. The few replacement parts that were available through RadioShack were hard to get and took weeks to deliver. Upgrading was the game, as larger ram and hardrives and CDrom came along pretty fast relatively speaking

I've got a pretty good computer museum going
Tandy TRS-80 w/tape drive (cassette)
386sx 16mhz
Pentium 166mhz
Athlon tbird 1.4ghz
2x AMD X2 4200 systems
C2D current rig

cpus in the drawer
A64 3200+
A64 3700+
various PII's and PIII's

 

[cubeless]

hard drive? you young whippersnappers are used to all the latest technology...

we paid $5500 for first gen ibm pc's with 2 5.25 floppies - no hd at all... the smart guys at my work figured out how to hot rod one of them newfangled modem things to get to 300baud so i could work from home... the thing wasn't much more than a smart dumb terminal... but we had the fancy amber 122 in crt's, no lowclass green screens for us...

aaahhh, the joys of venture capital in 1983...

and the systems that we were building had 'replaceable' 450MB hd's in them that were as big as 2 full tower cases stacked on top of each other and weighed 100lbs...

we sold a 4 8086 processor, 4mb memory, 4 450mb disk database system for $1.5MM in 1984... how far we have travelled...

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Originally posted by: jiffylube1024
FANTASTIC read - thanks!

Its also great to read our forum member stories

good laugh

529th

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: cubeless
hard drive? you young whippersnappers are used to all the latest technology...

we paid $5500 for first gen ibm pc's with 2 5.25 floppies - no hd at all... the smart guys at my work figured out how to hot rod one of them newfangled modem things to get to 300baud so i could work from home... the thing wasn't much more than a smart dumb terminal... but we had the fancy amber 122 in crt's, no lowclass green screens for us...

aaahhh, the joys of venture capital in 1983...

and the systems that we were building had 'replaceable' 450MB hd's in them that were as big as 2 full tower cases stacked on top of each other and weighed 100lbs...

we sold a 4 8086 processor, 4mb memory, 4 450mb disk database system for $1.5MM in 1984... how far we have travelled...

ROFL...

Which is why my dad keeps rubbing it in to me that he built a more expensive computer then i did. The first one only had floppys, then i started seeing 10MEG SCSI-1 drives. ROFL back then 3 HD Floppys would fit an average computer game like wing commander. XD man how big games have gotten.

The second one i actually got to play with used an OG SCSI-1 Hard drive. I dot think IDE was in back then. And yes had 1 5 1/4 floppy. Only thing i knew how to do was play hang man, and ping pong.

Dude, the best computer back in the days tho was an Apple IIC LoGos OWNED! Man that triangle turle... LOL..

10 foward 10
20 back 15
30 right tun

LOL.... basic roxed.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: aigomorla
Dude, the best computer back in the days tho was an Apple IIC LoGos OWNED! Man that triangle turle... LOL..

10 foward 10
20 back 15
30 right tun

LOL.... basic roxed.

Dude, that's LOGO, not BASIC.

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry

Originally posted by: aigomorla
Dude, the best computer back in the days tho was an Apple IIC LoGos OWNED! Man that triangle turle... LOL..

10 foward 10
20 back 15
30 right tun

LOL.... basic roxed.

Dude, that's LOGO, not BASIC.

LOL.... wait i thought u programed in basic the same way

using 10 20 30 and if u messed up in codes, you can add 11-19 to compensate no?

omg long time eh larry? you must be old too to remember it! ROFL!

 

[heyheybooboo]

Originally posted by: cubeless
hard drive? you young whippersnappers are used to all the latest technology...

we paid $5500 for first gen ibm pc's with 2 5.25 floppies - no hd at all... the smart guys at my work figured out how to hot rod one of them newfangled modem things to get to 300baud so i could work from home... the thing wasn't much more than a smart dumb terminal... but we had the fancy amber 122 in crt's, no lowclass green screens for us...

aaahhh, the joys of venture capital in 1983...

and the systems that we were building had 'replaceable' 450MB hd's in them that were as big as 2 full tower cases stacked on top of each other and weighed 100lbs...

we sold a 4 8086 processor, 4mb memory, 4 450mb disk database system for $1.5MM in 1984... how far we have travelled...

lol @ fancy amber ... Elitist!

I had to play my Star Trek on lowclass green (with 8-inch floppys), but I grad-ee-ated to a PS/2 Model 30 with that fancy video graphics array - and the PFS Pro Series Write/Plan/File made me a multi-tasking fool with twin 3.5 floppys ...

 

[Markfw]

I still have one gig SCSI HD that I paid $900 for about 1990 I think.....

aigomorla, Basic used line numbers like what you say, then you add lines in between, then RENUM and you had your pretty numbers back. In that era, I was programming VAX basic on green screens.

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: Markfw900
I still have one gig SCSI HD that I paid $900 for about 1990 I think.....

aigomorla, Basic used line numbers like what you say, then you add lines in between, then RENUM and you had your pretty numbers back. In that era, I was programming VAX basic on green screens.

Thats what i thought... blah maybe im getting my logos and basic confused.

Mark you be old too to know about this! lol

 

[pm]

Originally posted by: GuitarDaddy

Originally posted by: brassbin
back in the days, could people buy parts and put together a system by themselves or you pretty much had to buy a prebuild?

No, It would be like building your own iPhone today, your only source of parts would be through the manufacturer. The few replacement parts that were available through RadioShack were hard to get and took weeks to deliver. Upgrading was the game, as larger ram and hardrives and CDrom came along pretty fast relatively speaking

I don't remember that to be true. I built my own 286 computer and then my own 386 later on. As I remember it, there were several smaller computer stores in my small town who sold all kinds of components. I bought my 286 from Rappaport Computers in Napa, California - I even remember exactly where the store was... and bought the motherboard, CPU (Intel for the 286, IBM for the 386 as I recall) and memory (which came as a series of DIP IC's in a tube as I remember... hard little things to swap... tough to take out). As I remember neither the 286 nor the 386 required heatsinks. They were in these gray ceramic packages...

There were fewer choices for components like motherboards, but there were more "mom & pop" stores selling home-brew computers, and computer components... at least in Napa. As I recall there were three small stores when I was growing up... There was Radio Shack too - but it was more much expensive compared to some of the smaller computer stores in town.

 

[wwswimming]

Originally posted by: brassbin
back in the days, could people buy parts and put together a system by themselves or you pretty much had to buy a prebuild?

i did this in 1990 with a friend; it as a 282-12.

my first CAD system needed 10 MB RAM, in 1988. $500 a meg, paid for by my employer. in that job, i had 5 systems running 3D solid modelling software (like Pro-E). the flagship was a Compaq 386-20.

that was Heaven.

still, in terms of getting things done, the most productive engineering department i ever worked in was at Wiltron-Anritsu. in the mid-80's. with no computers, cutting our own rubylith.