How much did OLD computers cost in 1996?

[SuperJediMedia]

Like 486/66 MHZ, with only 8MB memory.

I forgot was it over $500-1000 on Average?

Edited July 21, 2009 by JediXAngel

[lnmnky]

Yes, they were alot of money.

Brand new machines were commonly over ?1000 in UK. I remember ads for systems over ?2000.

Alot more than new top-of-the-line ones are now.

[darth_mark]

Yeah, electronics were generally more expensive back then. I remember when having a cellphone used to be a status symbol.

[lee31]

Put it this way the average laptop that costs around ?350 -?400 now would have cost more than ?1500 back then.

I remember that having 512mb of ram was a luxury in those days.

[lnmnky]

Put it this way the average laptop that costs around ?350 -?400 now would have cost more than ?1500 back then.

I remember that having 512mb of ram was a luxury in those days.

512mb would have been the hard dis;) ;)

I reckon 512mb would have been unheard of before Windows 2000.

[#Michael]

In 1995 my family bought a 386/9mhz that had a 50mb hd and 4mb ram. Cost a little over $3k. I loved that computer...overclocked it to 25 mhz.

[James Rose]

In June of 93 I purchased a 486, 66mhz with 16mb ram and a 17" monitor, 340MB HD and a 1MB video card. I paid $3K for it all. In late 96 or early 97 I sold the machine for $600 without the monitor.

Hope that helps.

[leesmithg]

512mb would have been the hard disk. ;)

I reckon 512mb would have been unheard of before Windows 2000.

Exactly most mobo's went upto 196 max.

Are we talking about old computers then, so anything prior to 1990 is old?

I purchased a Sinclair spectrum for ?4 in 1993 with floppy drive, from a boot market.

In 1996 time would do a computer windows 95 with all bells and whistles, 32mb r.a.m. cd rom and floppy + for free ?1,000 worth of software.

Total cost ?1,200.

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

In June 1993 I purchased the following system:

• 486 DX 33 MHz
  
• 8 MB RAM
  
• 162 MB HDD
  
• Oak VGA card with 0.5 MB graphics RAM
  
• 14" CRT monitor
  
• MS-DOS 6, Windows 3.1, Lotus SmartSuite bundled
  

for roughly 3000 DM, or about $2000 at the time. Mind you, this was a relatively low end system from a budget retailer (the older German users among us will still remember Escom).

[darkmanx21]

I had a 486 Packard Bell that cost around 1300 USD in 1996. That thing had 8MB of RAM! It cost me 99 dollars to double it! Hahaha!

I'm glad tech is now much easily affordable! PC's are pretty cheap nowadays!

[splur]

Probably 2k for a computer like that, 486 with 8MB was pretty top line back then... although I can't remember when back then was, might've been before 1996. :s

512mb would have been the hard disk. ;)

I reckon 512mb would have been unheard of before Windows 2000.

512MB would've been a pretty good hard disk :p, I had to stack a couple SCSIs to get to 512MB.

[Dave Diller]

I originally read OLD as OLED, and got really confused.

On a side note, I have no idea how much my parents paid for our 386, but I do still have the 40mb hard drive running Windows 3.1 Sucker still runs!

[DrCheese]

We bought in 1997 a

166mhz P1 with MMX (haha)

32mb ram

3.2GB Hard drive.

32x CDrom (was a big thing back then)

15ins ADI CRT Monitor

Cost us around ?1400. Nowadays the average system is ?40:s:s

[+Mirumir Subscriber¹]

Like 486/66 MHZ, with only 8MB memory.

I forgot was it over $500-1000 on Average?

PCs were a lot more expensive back then.

I purchased an Acer 486DX2 with 16Mb RAM and a multimedia kit (cd-rom + sound card) for $2,500USD back in 1995.

NB: with time value of money taken into account, $2500 back then is like 5K+ nowadays. The purchasing power of $100 ten years ago was a lot more than $100 today.

[NotSoBad]

Bought around middle of the 90's for ?1500.00

P2 266mhz

128mb ram (If I remember correctly)

4gb Hard drice

4mb ATi Graphics Card

15" CRT Monitor

Dial up modem for very slow internet

Windows 95

[#Michael]

In 1995 my family bought a 386/9mhz that had a 50mb hd and 4mb ram. Cost a little over $3k. I loved that computer...overclocked it to 25 mhz.

Sorry about that. In 95 we bought the compaq Pentium 200 with MMX. It had 256 mb of ram and a 500 mb HD. Had an 8x cd-rom. That was a top of the line then and I swear the tower looked like a space ship. This machine was a little over $2K. My parents were still using it until last summer.

The 386 was bought in August 1989.

[KeeperOfThePizza]

Just goes to show how far the industry has gone...as far as capability and price.

[hopp58902 Member]

Nostalgia...I'd love to pick up one of these old clunkers, but have only seen a Macintosh SE at the local thrift store for $125. Thinking that the price wasn't worth it, I didn't buy it.

I should have. :p

[hitman05]

As other people have said, most computers were over $1000 in 1996. I remember my family purchasing a new computer in April or May 1997 for about $2500 CDN... it was pretty high-end for the time. Sad that I remember the specs:

-Intel Pentium MMX 166MHz

-32Mb EDO RAM

-2Gb Western Digital IDE hard disk

-ATI 3D Xpression+ PC2TV 2Mb PCI video card (ATI Rage II chipset... one of the early and useless 3D cards)

-Creative Labs Sound Blaster AWE32 sound card

-AOpen 33.6kbps internal dial-up modem

-12X Panasonic CD-ROM (went through 2 of these in 2 weeks before the store realized they had a bad batch and replaced it with an AOpen 18X)

-3.5" 1.44mb floppy

-14" AcerView 34T monitor

-Windows 95 OSR2

I remember this computer as being ridiculously fast for about a year until games started supporting 3D accelerators. That ATI card claimed to be Direct3D compatible but never really worked with any Direct3D games.

Edited July 21, 2009 by hitman05

[Jason S. Global Moderator]

my first "family computer" was bought in 1993. it was a Packard Bell Pentium (90MHz) w/ an 800MB hd and 8MB ram. it had a monitor, so im just guessing it was upwards of $3k.

several years later we finally put a 32MB DIMM in it (total of 40MB!), an upgraded hd, and a 4MB PCI video card. Amazing.

i think we kept that machine for 6-7yrs.

[tiagosilva29]

**** yeah! TURBO button!

[Elliot B.]

We bought in 1997 a

166mhz P1 with MMX (haha)

32mb ram

3.2GB Hard drive.

32x CDrom (was a big thing back then)

15ins ADI CRT Monitor

Cost us around ?1400. Nowadays the average system is ?40:s:s

Around the same time, we bought a 200 MHz Pentium 1 (MMX) machine with 16 MB RAM, a 2.1 GB HDD and a 20x CD-ROM drive. Was between ?700 and ?900 (can't remember).

[cabron]

Apple Macintosh Performa Infomercial - 1994 :p

Starting Price: $1,800

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1c0CdtuzgBo.swf

[Elliot B.]

Apple Macintosh Performa Infomercial - 1994 :p

Starting Price: $1,800

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1c0CdtuzgBo.swf

Brilliant :D

[ozgeek]

They were about the same costs as today's computers. Remember those computers were once the high end in the days.

My family bought an Osbourne pc running win 3.11. Can't remember the specs. My own first PC was a 500mhz CPU, 64mb RAM, 8GB HD running Win98. Got that back in 2000. 9 years later I have a PC 1000 times powerful than that. but cost is the same. I got that 98 computer for $1999. This computer (the second one I built) I have now costs me $2000 with a video card to come yet.

when people say computers are getting cheaper, they actually meant that old hard ware are getting cheaper, not new hardware.