[Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies...

[Bill Cousert]

My memory is a little corrupted. I had a friend who had spent about $5k on a similar system. Maybe it was the printer that made up the difference.

How will engineers get their start? I don't know. As time goes on, I'm certain we'll see this trend continue. Some people think we'll be soon using 3D printers to create our own electronics at home. When they break we'll toss them in the compost pile and print out another one. The Rep Rap (http://www.reprap.org) may be the first generation of that 3D printer. Click on the URL and watch the video if you have a few minutes.






________________________________
From: Christian Lesage <hyperfrog at gmail.com>
To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts <coco at maltedmedia.com>
Sent: Thursday, August 6, 2009 12:23:11 PM
Subject: Re: [Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies...

Bill Cousert wrote:
> But I don't think the situation is as bad as it looks. 30 years ago, a TRS-80 model I with dual drives, expansion interface and 48k RAM cost nearly $5,000 (probably more than $10,000 in 2009 dollars). 

5 grands? I don't think so. Here are the 1979 prices:

TRS-80 Model I System w/ 16K RAM Level II....... $988 (includes monitor)
Expansion Interface w/ 32K RAM............................ $697
Disk Drive #0........................................................... $499 (includes TRS-DOS)
Disk Drive #1........................................................... $499

That's "only" $2,683. And in 1980, the first two item were about $100 cheaper ($849 and $597 respectively). On the other hand, I agree that some printers were quite expensive (ranging from $220 to $1600).

> Today I can get a really nice notebook computer for less than $400. I think the savings more than make up for it.
>  

Well, in terms of money, it looks like it makes sense. But the cheap prices don't make up for the huge, growing electronic waste problem that the world is facing. Moreover, we no longer can buy "Made in the USA" (or Canada, Australia, France, UK, etc.) consumer electronic devices, which means we "benefit" from some other people's cheap labor in other parts of the world... probably the same people to whom we ship some of our hazardous electronic waste.



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