1981 PC Catalogue

[l33t k1w1]

If you moan about the price of hardware today, look at what we had to pay in 1981!

http://xpda.com/asbc

[shizzlette]

I own calculators with more brains than anything in that catalogue.

[mrikasu]

Wow!

I don't have things going back that far but I do have a few old (10 years) PC magazines.

They have amazing top stories. Like

"£1999 PCs - can you get a PC on a shoestring?" and stuff like that.

I will try and dig them out this evening.

[flapjackboy]

My life! Has this guy never heard of optimising his images? I've got a 1meg broadband pipe and they still took ages to load!

[Dr-Electro]

WWWWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW WWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

32 K byte memory expansion modules for only $359.99!!!!!!!

I just bought a batch of 128 MEGA byte modules for $19.99 each.

I also remember a time slightly earlier than 1981 when memory was over $100.00 per Kbyte.

I have some golden oldies in my storeroom. Two of them have 8086 processors in them. 4.33 MHz clock speed with 640 Kbytes or RAM. Woo. Monochrome monitors, too. Woo. One has a handle on the back. If you are strong enough, you can carry it around. Woo. It's screen is a 9 inch green monochrome. Woo. I was an uptown guy in those days.

[eleanor]

ooh, post photos! Educate those of us who have not seen such things :D

[l33t k1w1]

Originally posted by Dr-Electro
I have some golden oldies in my storeroom. Two of them have 8086 processors in them. 4.33 MHz clock speed with 640 Kbytes or RAM. Woo. Monochrome monitors, too. Woo. One has a handle on the back. If you are strong enough, you can carry it around. Woo. It's screen is a 9 inch green monochrome. Woo. I was an uptown guy in those days.

I had one of those as well - donated it to a local kindergarten where I wrote a cute BASIC program to print out what the kids type.

[Lewiji]

I have one too, except it's a mono orange display (woo!) compaq personal...with a handle and a keyboard attatched :D

[Dr-Electro]

Mine's a Corona Business Portable. I forgot to mention that it has a whopping huge 512 K of RAM.

I will try to get camera and hosting sorted out soon and post piX of my antiquities. I have some goodies, too. Did I mention the original 1984 Mac? The Mac 512? The Mac Classic II? How about the fluorescent pink 286? The NCR 386 that weighed as much as a small truck? The homebuilt 486? The HP server with the Pentium I 90 MHz processor? I can find more as well. Ok, I need to get busy.

[sidneylopsides]

My cousin had an IBM PC portable, was an 8086 desktop with a tiny mono monitor built in, the keyboard clipped on the front.
Huge thing, felt like it was madeof cast iron. Sure I have some pics of them in my Home Computer Advanced Course mags from the early 80's. Ill look
:)