Price/Cost Indexes from 1875 to 1929 by United States October, 1993 expanded for release in November, 1993 [Originally published as a column entitled: THE RATE OF CHANGE OF THE RATE OF CHANGE by Michael S. Hart In The Electronic Journal of Virtual Culture] WHILE IT APPEARS THAT COMPUTERS ARE AN INCREDIBLE DEAL THEY ARE REALLY TWICE AS GOOD A DEAL AS IT SEEMS TO BE COMPUTERS INCREASED IN VALUE TWICE AS MUCH AS IT APPEARS SINCE THE FIRST CONSUMER HARD DRIVES BECAME AVAILABLE IN APPROXIMATELY 1979 WHERE DOES OUR MONEY GO? Many of you are aware that the $3,000 you spent on computers last year could be replaced by $2,000 spent today. However, only recently have I actually purchased computer gear that I bought with dollars that were only half as valuable as those with which one of my drives was purchased in 1979. Many of you are aware that the average personal computer was $5,000 - $10,000 some 10 - 15 years ago when Apples and IBMs first appeared on the scene, but you might not be aware of a trend beyond the price reduction that makes today's computer prices an even better bargain in comparison. In fact, computers today are TWICE as good a bargain as they appear in comparisons with those early computers, and it was already looking as if they were bargains beyond all belief. In earlier articles I mentioned the fact that today's cheapy 486 DX2/66 computers were 100 times as fast as the originals from IBM, and were likely to also have 100 time as much hard drive storage. [After all, the original PC didn't even have hard drives, and still cost a fortune.] Here are a few examples to jog your memory: These are "bare bones" prices for the computer systems; when filled out with color monitors, printers, ports, modems, and the rest of an average computer system, these prices usually doubled, and the prices I usually quote as modern comparison figures include VGA, printer, modem, mouse, and software. 1979 Konan 5M External Hard Drive Kit for Apples $3,000 1981 PC-DOS CP/M 1-Floppy 128K-RAM serial-parallel $2,000 1983 PC-XT added 3 slots and 10M hard drive $3,600 1983 PC to XT Upgrade kit with 5M ST-506 Hard Drive $1,500 1984 PC-AT 1.2M Floppy 256K-RAM no ports 3x faster $4,000 1984 PC-AT Enhanced added 20M hard drive no ports $5,800 [These two Hard Drive Kits both included the ST-506 drives-- but the Apple was External while the IBM was Internal: both were from third-party vendors.]