I was writing code in 1962 for slow-as-molasses computers using core memory that filled gargantuan rooms in computer buildings.
Did later use those much newer eight inch floppies. They were a real step forward. Even stored some personal financial data on one of ‘em. I kept the floppy in my desk at work and then, after hours when everyone else had gone home, I would go into the computer room, slip in my personal floppy, then return to my desk and terminal, update all my financial data, print it out, then remove the big ol’ floppy, return it to my desk, and go home. That was probably in the late 1970’s or early 1980’s. Nobody ever knew.
But with SSDs the prices have been dropping and it hasn’t really stabilized at a bottom.
The floor price on HDD seemed to stabilize around $40-50 several years ago. ANd then over time you get larger capacity for that price.
For SSDs the minimum price has been going down and years ago you couoldn’t find any SSDs under $100 or so and then it crept down to $75 minimum then $50 and now we see deals around $25-30 for small capacity SSDs. WE’re probably approaching the minimum price floor for SSDs as I don’t expect the lowest capacity drives will get much cheaper than $25.
I was through with computers by 1985. Weary. Too many years. Had had enough. On to other pursuits. Completely missed the BBS phenomenon. No interest. However:
In 1994 became aware of this thing called the “internet”. Disagreed with Gates when he said, circa that time frame, the internet was less important than the desktop. Foolishness, I thought. Climbed aboard the net first time on June 29, 1995. Been here ever since. Had to re-learn all the computer stuff on my own, so many advances since I had left the field. Built my own computers eventually. Linux. Merely building 'em was lots easier than designing 'em from scratch, but still everything was new (to me).
HUGE SCSI fan!! Pretty sure I still have a computer around here someplace running on a SCSI drive . . . no longer in use, of course. I have enough computers here to where I don’t know the actual count! And most of 'em work . . except they are no longer in use.
Have both desktops and laptops. Some of the old IBM laptops I rebuilt years ago are still pretty cool . . . but simply too slow to be usable now.
And you should see my scrap gold stash from all the discarded memory and CPUs. Gotta be a few hundred $$ of gold there.
Not sure how this forum works with quotes but this is in reply to shinobi.
Was it that flood in Thailand that wrecked the factorys that drove up prices ??
It’s very possible. I honestly do not recall what caused that increase. Just remember prices went up and remained up. I had one heck of a time back then buying SSDs, had to resort to buying on eBay from sellers who underpriced their (albeit brand new) drives.
