Of course, since I used only the real prices we paid for drive after drive, it was only a matter of time until the cost/price index would begin to play an important role, and we now have a database of drive prices long enough that the $3,000 price for the Konan 5M External ST506 Apple Hard Drive Kit in 1979 was a mere half of what it would be in today's 1993 dollars. Thus: The first 5 1/4 hard drive we got [Seagate-ST506] should be at $6,000 in today's pricing index, or, conversely, we should see that the $850 we paid for a Toshiba 1.2G drive is really only: $425 per 1200 megabytes. . .in 1979 dollars. The Database of Project Gutenberg Drive Costs: 1971 $50,000 per 5M at $10,000 for the removable 5M drive chassis each 5M added was about $1500 1979 $3000 per 5M at $600/M [Same ST506 drive as I got in 1983, but 1980 set up as external drive for the Apple] 1981 Prices unstable early on 1982 Prices VERY stable now, falling by about 1/3 per year. 1983 $1500 per 5M at $300/M (Please see footnotes directly below)* 1984 $1950 per 10M at $195/M (only Seagate drive in 1985 Blue Book)* 1985 $1500 per 20M at $75/M (some disagreement about the year here) 1986 $1500 per 40M at $37.50/M 1986 $1595 per 80M at $20/M --> (IBM listed in Blue Book as 1984 price) 1987 $1500 per 80M at $19/M (but I never saw until two years later) 1988 $1500 per 120M at $12.50/M 1989 $1500 per 200M at $7.50/M 1990 $1500 per 300M at $5/M 1992 $1000 per 1000M at $1/M [In Summer 1993 we got a Toshiba 1200 Meg] 1993 $666 per 1000M at $.67/M [Actual cost was $.71/M at $850 per 1200M] 1994 $444 per 1000M at $.44/M [IBM in 1993 was $.50/M @ $4000 per 8000M] 1994 $296 per 1000M at $.30/M 1995 $198 per 1000M at $.20/M 1996 $132 per 1000M at $.13/M 1997 $88 per 1000M at $.08/M 1998 $58 per 1000M at $.06/M 1999 $39 per 1000M at $.04/M 2000 $26 per 1000M at $.03/M 2001 $17 per 1000M at $.02/M 2002 $12 per 1000M at $.01/M Disclaimer: most of these are personal recollections, but are close to estimates I have looked up, as below. [How is it that 1985 and 1990 can seem so LONG ago!?!] *Suggested resale price was $771 in 1983, still over $150/M *(by the 1987 edition, resale price was $89, only $9/M) *Shugart and Tandon were not listed *IBM DID list a 20M for $1595, only $80/M, couldn't find one *IBM listed 360K floppies at $425 and 1.2M floppies at $650 *floppies dropping at 33%/yr are now under $100, of course, *IBM 512K RAM cards were $1125, 256K RAM cards were $295 *IBM 128K RAM cards were $350 THE PROJECT GUTENBERG PRICE INDEX FROM 1875 TO 2010 How to use the chart, first set of examples: The price in current 1993 dollars for any year is found in the first column. Thus you can see that a one dollar item from 1993 will cost about $1.95 in 2010.