I came across some old UK Practical Electronic magazines in my junk from 1970's, this ad is from 1978 , the cost of a 6502 was equivalent to 74.00 GBP in today's money... likewise a NASCOM 1 micro kit was 1190.00 GBP
It was an expensive hobby back then , no wonder I was taking chips off old boards...

 

If that was there, imagine what was here, where prior even thinking "how much?" you actually asked "available?". (Mostly not!)

At that time, one of the most important shops dedicated to electronics, answered your questions with: "We do not give prices on the phone!" Go figure.

 

If that was there, imagine what was here, where prior even thinking "how much?" you actually asked "available?". (Mostly not!)

At that time, one of the most important shops dedicated to electronics, answered your questions with: "We do not give prices on the phone!" Go figure.

I remember a real volatile period in memory prices. (I think it was caused by import restrictions.) None of the ads had prices for memories because they were changing so fast. The _only_ way you could get pricing was to call.

 

By the way...
I bought my first 6502 as a set of the chip and the amazing Hardware and Software manuals. Cost me $35 US. the chip by itself was $25.

I think I still have that chip. Ended up buying a Digital Group computer as a kit instead.

 

The first disk drive I worked on was an IBM compatible. 100 megabytes, about the size of a dishwasher and sold for about $25,000. Aww, the good old days.
Much later worked on 3.5 inch drives. Cheapest was about $35 to build, gigabytes of data. Took an act of congress to add 2 cents to the build cost.

 

Between raping dead TV's and Radio Shack, I didn't have to order parts until the Internet was invented.

 

The first hard drive I ever bought was 20Mb and ~$800 as I recall. I might still have it. They built the cases better then.

That was back when we figured that was all we'd ever need.

 

Between raping dead TV's and Radio Shack, I didn't have to order parts until the Internet was invented.

Ditto. But beyond that, I don't think I even knew you could order parts that weren't at Radio Shack. Many suppliers in the old days wouldn't accept orders from retail customers.

 

I remember the complete, official Radio Shack catalog ... the thing was humongous! ... it's hard to believe the company practically ceased to exist.

 

20MB? That's ridiculous. My first hard drive was 5MB, and we had plenty left over.

 

The first job I had where I worked with a microprocessor, it was the 4-bit Intel 4040. At the time, Motorola was just about to introduce the 8-bit MC6800, and I had ordered one (a pre-release XC6800 for about $250) to make a home-brew system. The engineer I worked for on the 4040 project scoffed and said "8-bit machines are a waste; no one will ever need more than a 4-bit processor!"

 

I forgot.
I was a TV repairman for 3 years. I bought parts at Mar-vac and Chesters Electronics.

 

The first computer we owned had no hard drive, just two 5" floppy drives of 56MB.

 

The first computer we owned had no hard drive, just two 5" floppy drives of 56MB.

what?

 

Those true "floppy" disks were 640K, I think, for the 5-1/4" disks used by the IBM machines. The 3-1/2" hard floppy disks that the first Macs used were 800K and 1.4Mb when you had double-sided capabilities.

 

The first computer I owned had no hard drive nor floppy drives. You couldn't write nor read data in a file. Programs were either typed in manually, often from a magazine article and could be saved to a cassette tape. Remember those? Loading programs from tape could be done too. However, the cassette tape recorder/player was an optional peripheral.

What is my computer's name?

 

The floppy disks (5.25) with my c/pm computer were a whopping 90 kB. I did get DS FDD and doubled it. Like my first speed demon of a modem at 300 baud. Then again I worked with 45 baud TTY and 74.2 baud TTY and the 110 baud TTY.

I'm getting aged.

 

The floppy disks (5.25) with my c/pm computer were a whopping 90 kB. I did get DS FDD and doubled it. Like my first speed demon of a modem at 300 baud. Then again I worked with 45 baud TTY and 74.2 baud TTY and the 110 baud TTY.

I'm getting aged.

No Joe, like me, you were born too early.

 

The first computer I owned had no hard drive nor floppy drives. You couldn't write nor read data in a file. Programs were either typed in manually, often from a magazine article and could be saved to a cassette tape. Remember those? Loading programs from tape could be done too. However, the cassette tape recorder/player was an optional peripheral.

What is my computer's name?

Could by any one of so many:
PET, Radio Trash, VIC 20, Commodore 64...

 

I came across some old UK Practical Electronic magazines in my junk from 1970's, this ad is from 1978 , the cost of a 6502 was equivalent to 74.00 GBP in today's money... likewise a NASCOM 1 micro kit was 1190.00 GBP
It was an expensive hobby back then , no wonder I was taking chips off old boards...

Care to peruse my collection of Practical Wireless going back to 1968?