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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
This is why the ZX Spectrum was so important, in 1982 it cost £125 for the 16K model (£469 or so now). That's within the reach of many consumers. Sure, it was laughably simplistic even at launch, but if it wasn't for the Speccy I wouldn't be an IT professional today.
My Dragon 32 or 64 (can't remember which it was) has a lot to answer for too!
Whole bunch of low cost 8-bit machines in that era, the Dragon 32, Commodore 64 and Amstrad CPC ranges to name but a few. Of course we must also mention the BBC Micro, was not low cost but every school had one if you grew up in the UK.
We had one in my school in Ireland too (and I think they were common in schools here) but tbh none of the teachers knew how to use it and so we got very little time on it in school.
Hey ZX-81 gang here!
999SKR (Swedish crowns) guess it was like 100$ and it gave you a 1KB 1Mhz computer :-) around 400SKR more for an expansion card with a whopping 16KB...
Went the C64 way but damn that Spectrum was sexy back in the day.
ZX81 here too! Bought 500FF in 1981 iirc, in kit.
Clavier membrane team !
BTW did you solder it yourself?
My father did, I was 10. But he then teached me a lot of things like soldering, programming in basic and Z80 assembly
Excellent!
So true! My parents got me the C64 when I had no idea about computers. I loved the Spectrum+ my buddy had at the time but always wanted the C128 another friend of mine got. My parents eventually upgraded my computer to an Amstrad CPC6128 when they saw that I was actually programming in BASIC. I learned a lot from that computer too, e.g. Fortran, Pascal, a bit of Z80 assemly (the last one was horrible!)