Old computer catalog

#1 Sun, 18 Nov 2007 - 21:52 68kMLA

Found a catalog from CompuAdd from Fall 1988 - just after my high school graduation.

Who can forget such classics as a 110 MB Miniscribe full=height hard disk for the low price of $895?

#2 Sun, 18 Nov 2007 - 22:38 68kMLA

heh. Yeah, I recall that my dad paid $500 to upgrade from 512 KB to 640 KB RAM in our first PC, and another $500 to get the CGA video instead of monochrome.

Later, I recall my own astonishment when storage dropped below $1 per Megabyte. I bought a 540 MB hard drive for $520 for my 486. Just astounding.

#3 Sun, 18 Nov 2007 - 22:46 68kMLA

yeah... I remember when our office got their first computers...black and white boxes with Dual 8" floppy drives, no hard drives, a green monitor, and a keyboard that weighed 10 pounds

Times have sure changed!

#4 Mon, 19 Nov 2007 - 00:44 68kMLA

Scan it! Scan it! Scan it! I would love to go through that!

#5 Mon, 19 Nov 2007 - 01:08 68kMLA

I found an old Yellow Pages from 1984 and there's a computer store in there that has a drawing of a Lisa on there and says it's an "official Lisa dealer".

#6 Mon, 19 Nov 2007 - 01:29 68kMLA

I have 5mb and 10mb Corvus drives in my collection.

#7 Mon, 19 Nov 2007 - 05:29 68kMLA

My first PC was a Tandy 1000EX with 256K connected to a Commodore 1084S monitor.

You could add one proprietary card to it. To be able to add two cards, an expansion card could be added for $150. This also added 128k RAM to it as well. There were sockets for another 256k RAM for another $150.

Other fun cards I bought for the computer. These are specific to the 1000EX:

300kbps internal modem - $19. It was old and slow back then too.

Serial card - $100

1200kbps internal modem - $100

External 720k floppy drive - $149

Never bought a hard drive for it - they were external only and were $500+ for 40MB.

#8 Mon, 19 Nov 2007 - 06:27 68kMLA

I actually paid $1000+ for a 100 megabyte Rodime hard drive (what a POS that was). I had no fear of spending in those days. Trouble is, I was just charging it all.

#9 Mon, 19 Nov 2007 - 07:21 68kMLA

Haha, Rodime drives...I remember those. They seemed to fail within two years of purchase.

Anyone remember a drive company called Jasmine? Same story. I think they may have used Rodime mechanisms.

#10 Mon, 19 Nov 2007 - 07:29 68kMLA

I've heard of Jasmine. I didn't think they were around for too long, were they?

#11 Mon, 19 Nov 2007 - 18:10 68kMLA

I believe they were around only in the late 1980s. The second edition of Macintosh Bible raved about them but the third one said that the company was filing for bankruptcy. Bible #2 came out around 1989 and #3 in 1990-1991, and since they were Mac-related they couldn't have come along any earlier than 1984, probably more like 1986 if they entered the SCSI market.

Also, on the old computer catalog subject, I got some Mac Warehouse "best of" lists in the copy of Print Shop I got today in the mail. These were circa 1993.