For those who say the real costs on so many things haven't gone down...but more generally this is just fun to see.
http://www.geekologie.com/2011/09/we...-from-1996.php
Full flyer here: http://gregarious24.imgur.com/best_b...september_1996
Best Buy 1996 Catalogue
For those who say the real costs on so many things haven't gone down...but more generally this is just fun to see.
http://www.geekologie.com/2011/09/we...-from-1996.php
Full flyer here: http://gregarious24.imgur.com/best_b...september_1996
Wow, capitalism rocks!
Love the phones.
We're stuck in a bloody snowglobe.
Totally forgot Bestbuy used to be the place to go for computer parts. Oh how the mighty have fallen.
but that page isn't even the best part(s) of the ad (why even edit the photos to crop out the full page?). Check out the rest of it.
Printer ink hasn't changed a fucking bit, hell the printers themselves have barely gotten any better. Games have gone up. Top of the line SLR for only $549.99? I'll take 12!
Oh, almost forgot to mention, they still use that stock football picture in today's ads
Last edited by Ominous Gamer; 09-24-2011 at 01:46 AM.
"In a field where an overlooked bug could cost millions, you want people who will speak their minds, even if they’re sometimes obnoxious about it."
Are you kidding? The printers there are all hundreds of dollars, around $300. And they're just printers.Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer
Last week I bought an all in one printer, scanner, copier and fax for £50
That was more of a joke that printers are still shit, and non shitty printers still cost several hundred dollars. This is one of those industries where you get what you pay for.
"In a field where an overlooked bug could cost millions, you want people who will speak their minds, even if they’re sometimes obnoxious about it."
Until your games start costing you $99 I wouldn't complain.
Well, they really haven't. What you get in your $2500 computer or your $100 RAM DIMM or your $300 Hard Drive sure is a lot more impressive, but they still cost roughly the same now as they did back then.
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
-- Thomas Jefferson: American Founding Father, clairvoyant and seditious traitor.
You haven't been paying much attention to prices, have you?
Current Best Buy desktops
Full computer setups, even including a printer, everything superior to the earlier systems, and you can get that for less that they were selling some printers alone for. Prices on everything have plumeted over the past decade. Figuring in inflation makes it even more drastic.
I think you mean they plummeted until 2008, and started sky-rocketing since.
In the future, the Berlin wall will be a mile high, and made of steel. You too will be made to crawl, to lick children's blood from jackboots. There will be no creativity, only productivity. Instead of love there will be fear and distrust, instead of surrender there will be submission. Contact will be replaced with isolation, and joy with shame. Hope will cease to exist as a concept. The Earth will be covered with steel and concrete. There will be an electronic policeman in every head. Your children will be born in chains, live only to serve, and die in anguish and ignorance.
The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
I find it hard to believe the average Joe is buying a $2500 computer or a $300 HDD.
I bought a new HDD last week (when I dropped my Laptop on the floor, see another thread) - it set me back £50 including VAT. I highly doubt that translates to $300 without sales tax.
Well, you'd have to figure in your costs for cable, dish or satellite, high speed internet or wifi. Modems or routers. Cell phone plans. Bundling. Netflix or HBO on your cable package. Plus the physical machinery as well. Computer or lap top, smart phone, game platforms, wii or X-box, controllers, microphones or headsets, subscriptions to Live play, flat screen HD monitors, audio components with sub woofers....it all adds up ya know.
Most of those aren't computers or go with a standard desktop/laptop setup... Also, his point about a $300 HDD stands.
Electronics is only a small part of the game. There's transportation/cars, FOOD, utilities, and HOUSING. Those have stayed flat or gone up.
Everything is rotten in the supermarkets nowadays...
Food and fuel etc have gone up dramatically in recent years, nobody is denying that.
You may have a point, I honestly don't pay any attention to the low or mid-range pre-assembled computers, because I don't use 'em or have any exposure to them, or want any exposure to them. That said, I'd be a bit surprised if you couldn't find a cheap computer then for similar prices to what you can find a cheap computer now. Economies of scale and all that would probably be working a lot more in your favor these days, but as far as high-end systems and high-end components go, the prices are pretty much the same as they were 15 years ago, or so it seems to me.
What does a new crApple cost these days?
Right, well, in 1996, you would have bought the low-end 500 MB hard drive for ~100 bucks, instead of the top of the line 3 GB monster for 300. Look at those RAM DIMMs for a slightly more inclusive view of the spectrum - your low end DIMM for 30 bucks (about the same as you'll see today), your mid-range for 60 and your high-end for 130. Not so different if you go look at 1, 2 and 4 GB RAM DIMMs on newegg (or where ever) right now.
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
-- Thomas Jefferson: American Founding Father, clairvoyant and seditious traitor.
My first computer was an Alienware I bought myself for just shy of $3000 (high school). One of my first online communities, and my first experience in understanding how poorly personal information online can be protected. I remember being able to access their complete customer records for anyone who created an online account by changing up a few settings in a program called ZoneAlarm.
They sent me a fUnc mousepad for my troubles, then banned me from the forums.(still use the mousepad).
"In a field where an overlooked bug could cost millions, you want people who will speak their minds, even if they’re sometimes obnoxious about it."
I remember back then, and the whole allure of building yourself was that you could hit a $1000 price point on a low to lower-mid range computer. That usually amounted to a $500-$800 savings. Now, a low to low-mid range computer built yourself will run around $300-$400, saving you...$50. Maybe nothing. Lower end desktops retail at about the build-it-yourself prices now.
You're probably right on high-end components, though, especially if we ignore inflation. I don't remember them being much more expensive back then, but they were way out of my price range, so I wouldn't have noticed anyways. It's the low to mid range that seems to have experienced the biggest price plummeting.
Love the pager
I have never used a pager, they always remind me of The Wire
Used to have one for IT software support at work, linked up to an AS400 messaging system.
Would beep incessantly on saturday mornings.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote