Your daily dose of perspective

In the process of moving our home office, we’ve come across a 1988 price list for a computer company where Dr. T worked once upon a time, which reveals a couple of things:
1 ~ this is exactly the kind of thing I’m talking about when I complain that the man never throws anything out. I mean really, 1988??
2 ~ computer technology (in case you hadn’t noticed) has skyrocketed in terms of capability and plummeted in terms of price. We are all pretty much aware of this, but the 1988 price list offers some concrete examples:
HP laser printer: $6,750
Hayes 1200 baud external modem: $649
IBM PS/2 (featuring 2 Mb RAM, 115 Mb hard drive – and that’s Mb, not Gb; and there’s no monitor): $14,000 (add $350 for a 12″ black & white monitor, and at least $850 for colour)
Compaq portable 386 (featuring 1 Mb RAM and 40 Mb hard drive): $10,595
Right now, I am creating this entry on my sexy new laptop, which features 2 Gb RAM, 160 Gb hard drive, 17″ anti-glare screen, integrated webcam, wireless, etc., etc., for which I paid about a thousand dollars – one-tenth what I would have had to shell out for that portable Compaq. And my SNL is ‘espresso’ brown – it’s like a huge slab of cyberchocolate.
Just the way I like ’em: sexy, powerful, chocolatey, and, as it turns out, cheap.