Apple fans are so homosexual.
It boggles my mind as to why you can be so passionate about a machine… Move on my friend and get a life.
As I recall I true IBM wasnt that cheap in those days either. the original IBM PC 5150 was well above $2880 wtih 64k and 160kb drive. adjusting for inflation that can’t be cheap. unless you went with the commodore, tandy, and atari offerings it really wasn’t for the average person.
I remember when Jerry Pournelle used to say that most computers cost $2500 and the one you really want is around $5000
“How much for a 20-year-old laptop?! I am getting so tired of the Apple “snob” appeal. What else would motivate someone to pay that kind of money for something that would otherwise sell on EBay for 20 bucks? That is no place for a computer for the masses. I will probably never own one.”
An original, excellent condition Model T Ford is worthless as a vehicle, but priceless as an antique. Albiet, that’s an extreme example, but an unopened Apple //c is still a collectable. I would have donated it to one of those “history of computing” museums, actually, than sell it on ebay to someone who would dare open it.
“There was no reason for them to open that package. It must be nice to have that kind of money to just flush down the toilet.”
I’ll grant that it is odd to spend collectable-premium for fanboy product, but to get that “fresh out of box” experience…? It’ll be worth it for some people.
(I am curious how/why it was unopened all these years - hopefully not a recall or something)
Good for you, Jeff, Enjoy! 
I owned one of the original “fat” macs (512K model). With an external floppy and printer. I was able to get a good deal at $3,000 for the whole package. One cool thing about the original macs was the fact that the entire development team had their signatures on the inside of the case. I think there were about 30 signatures. It was a good machine but it was quickly replaced by the Mac Plus, which a lot of the software for the Mac was written for. I ended up selling that machine in the early 90’s for a few hundred dollars.
“it’s amazing how precisely the final auction value tracked the adjusted for inflation value of this 23 year old computer”
It didn’t, it’s just a coincidence.
I have zero sentimental attachment to computers or gadgets so maybe I’m delusional but to my mind the greatest advancement in computing is that the hardware is essentially a commodity business. There are no advancements in the OS or even software arena that would surprise a well-read tech guy transported here from 1988 but the fact that you can purchase a machine for a few hundred dollars and have access to such a wealth of information and tools, would I think, blow a few minds.
The original mac was actually developed with a cost ceiling in mind. The engineers reluctantly exceeded it by several hundred dollars but then, right before it was released, the company simply added $500 to the price for a marketing budget really putting out of reach. The idea being that early adopters would pay anything. The most important part of the vision, as a machine affordable for (okay still pretty well off) friends and family, was betrayed.
My problem with mac pricing today isn’t that it is overpriced some much as that there is little middle ground. You have to spend $2,000 to get dedicated graphics. On the laptop side the extra money you spend on a black MacBook gets you at least decent graphics card on a pc. That blows chunks.
That reminds me of my first computer… the Apple ||gs.
Steve want to sell you the “Mac expereince”. Thus, it will cost you more than say PC with Windows/Linux. You have to pay the Apple tax to unlock the OS X.
“There are no advancements in the OS or even software arena that would surprise a well-read tech guy transported here from 1988”
I think you would have to move that up to 1993 or 4, because talk of USB would of started around then. Yea you have daisy chaining before but USB flash drives are new compared to other pocketable media.
Also 1988 is a little to early for going from fidonet and BBSes to the Internet and the way that has changed computing.
I would really like an old Next computer. It is pretty amazing to think that the internet was created on one of those guys.
Sorry, Macs do not track with PC pricing, they have come slightly “closer” in price, but still, well over the mark. I recently (month ago) had this debate with a mac fanboy in a forum, claiming that it is a mere 10% increase, here is my reply:
The $599 cheapest Mac is about $365 in the PC world (The PC HD is faster (7200RPM), couldn’t find one with 5400 RPM that the Mac has and I couldn’t find a 1.82GHz CPU like the Mac, so it had a 2.0GHz CPU for the comparison)
The iMac, at $1199 is $671 in the PC world (The video card comes with 256 MB Ram instead of the 128 MB on the Mac, couldn’t find the same chipset with the lower RAM total and the Mac’s DVD/CD drive is slower)
Both PCs come with Windows XP (Vista would raise the price $30), the iMac one comes with a 20" LCD, I priced one from Viewsonic (could have saved $30 by going with Acer, a good brand, but not as known as Viewsonic)
For the $365 PC, the Mac Mini is 64% more
For the $671 PC, the iMac is 78% more.
And, on the iMacs, if I want 2 GB of ram and a 500 GB hard drive, $299 more. For the PCs, $47, over 6 times more cost for the Macs.
On the Mac Mini, for 2GB ram and 160 GB HD, $300 more. For the PC, $34, the Mac is a staggering 9 times as much for the upgrade.
That is on the cheapest macs, the more expensive ones simple make the difference absurd.
The money in not even close. Now, if Apple had taken the Vista flop (I have several machines with Vista, I like it, but then, I threw a lot of money at the PCs) to release OS X at $199 for PCs (a premium over the Apple price…) I would upgrade all of the machines to OS X and used bootcamp for Vista and XP. (with hopes to eliminate them during the next upgrade cycle)
First PC I coded on - TRS Model 1 (w/16k upgrade)
First PC I owned - TI-99/4a (gift, loved that machine)
First PC I bought - Apple ][c
First x86 PC - 386sx
First G3 PC - eMac (blue w/15" CRT)
Look how he hugs his dongle!
Yes but they still are dongles. Macs are just toys in my opinion. You can’t play with them like a pc. For example yo modify core components and watch your computer slowly die or you just increased your start up speed by 10 fold b/c windows likes running a lot of junk (its ADD I tell ya!). Macs are cool but they are just shiny toys.
Where’s the lesson exactly?
Gee - some guy bought an old, and probably useless computer. As a human, I’m glad that he’s happy, but otherwise who cares?
[Request: Please stop writing catchy headlines for the sake of it.]
“Macs are cool but they are just shiny toys.”
Isn’t that what Vista is? A shiny toy that is broken most of the time.
Sorry, I haven’t had a very good experience with Vista 64. It’s a heap of junk. At least my MacBook Pro worked out of the box. I spent almost a year trying to fix Vista.
“$1295 for a 512K Amiga 1000? Man you got taken dude! Amigas suck in comparison to the awesomeness that was Atari ST.”
I seriously nearly fell off my seat. (not starting flame war(I promise))
someone said:
I still have my //c tucked away. It was a blast carrying around and connecting to color TVs and programming Basic in. How I long for those days!
NOT!!!
I wrote a data acquisition system on a Apple IIe in Basic. The first thing I did was write a pre-compiler so variables could be something human readable and not A1… Z99, and subroutines could be Call Something instead of Call 11230.
Folks - the i/t technology wasn’t great back then – you were just young…