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Cost of a 128KB computer with floppies in 1985
(sopuli.xyz)
How much would you pay for a PC with 128KB RAM, and no hard disk?
In today's money (inflation adjusted)
This an ad from Personal Computer World (UK) from 1985
Who remembers the Sinclair ZX-80 with a massive 1kb ram?!
Ooh! I had a ZX-81 with a 16k ram pack on it (and cassette recorder to save with!) as a kid haha….god I’m old!!
Don't mind me. Just showing off the Sinclair ZX Spectrum bag I got a couple of weeks ago. I'm nostalgic for 5 minute loading screens that could trigger an epileptic fit!
The 80s were a different time.
Oh that’s amazing!
The 80’s were certainly a different time. Especially when only allowed to access a computer at school for a few minutes in the day (Apple IIe) so all of us could “have a go at the computer in the library”!
I would never have imagined as a kid what it was going to be like today with smartphones and the internet everywhere….
You were lucky! We only had BBC's in our computer room.
"Only had BBCs". The best 8-bit computer of their generation? ONLY had a BBC? You have any idea how lucky we were growing up with those amazing machines in the 80s-90s? I owe my whole career to the BBC, with an honorable mention to the ZX Spectrum I had at home.
Even today, they're still in use.
I guess I went to a well funded public school... In 1984-5 we had a whole bunch of apple ][s so we had an hour or so per week of programming in basic- I had a commodore 64 at home so I could do the classwork in the first 5-10 minutes, then spend the rest of the time playing with it to see what it could do...
Shut up and take my money!
I was starting writing here to correct you that it had 48KB (like the spectrums) but thought to check on wikipedia and... you are right! Oh my goodness! 1kb and called a computer! And was a computer!
I remember they had a space invaders type game for it, written and run IN 1k RAM!! Just amazing.
theres 1K programming demo contests now that would blow your mind. like https://www.pouet.net/prodlist.php?type%5B%5D=1k
Possibly the worst keyboard ever too.
I do, wonderful machine. You could get a 16K RAM pack (most did) that made a huge difference. Problem is, if an ant sneezed in the next town over it'd wobble loose and the machine would crash. A dab of Blu-Tac was just the ticket.
The ZX Spectrum came out 2 years later and was far more capable, and reasonably priced.