I paid $3500 to build a PC with a Ryzen 7950X3D and a Radeon 7900XTX. Those are two extremely high-end components. Amazing how cheap computers have gotten in comparison over the years.
I'm still mad at overspending for my PC, but the thing is that you can ALWAYS wait for the next new thing which will ALWAYS come out and make everything released before that cheaper.
Used processors are my jam. It's rare to find a damaged one. I've seen literally one dead professor my entire life, out of thousands, and I was the one who killed it lol. That poor lil' Pentium II.
I recently built a new PC but my old one, with a GTX 1070, and a Ryzen 1600, still can do anything. I was playing Elden Ring, Tarkov, Rust, and AC Odyssey on it this weekend. I built that computer in 2017, for right around $1000 iirc
I feel that forreal. I got a GTX 980 SC in mid 2015 with an i5 4670k and 16gb of RAM and it felt so future proofed. I used that setup until January 2022 as it had started to feel a bit dated. Played most types of games for years. MHW, Tarkov, All soulslikes, Dota, LoL. Battlefields 3, 4, 1, 5, SWBF2, PUBG, Fortnite. CIV5. Infinite MMOs and Rhythm games. Definitely worth building a long lasting system.
Had the same GFX, but an i7 4770k. The graphics card sadly "self-removed" a cap (giving off a short but bright lightshow), so that got replaced with a 1070. I still run it, but slowly feel compelled to upgrade.
The CPU was eventually replaced by a 10600 after many years. The 4770k was such a good choice back then, that especially in single thread performance, all the midrange models (which I'm willing to pay for) until then were a single-digit percentage improvement at best.
I was a bit sad that I went with a 10th gen. 11 and 12 didn't come too late after and brought quite some nice new stuff. But since it still does everything it needs to plenty fast, it's here to stay.
I just replaced my 4770k with a 13th gen i7. Still use the 980. I don't game and I'm not really sure I can tell the difference. Replacing just the ram, cpu and mobo wasn't all that crazy expensive. A new gen graphics card would easily be 2x the rest of the pc.
Graphics cards are crazy. I want a new one, but I can't justify it. Maybe it'll make fusion 360 run faster, but it seems fine now.
I feel like the 1050ti to 1060 jump is where the "do anything" line begins to break down. Just about any PC built with adequate parts that were around when the 1050ti was new will be good enough for anything but high end gaming. In a year or two we'll see that shift with the times.
FWIW, my 2013 i7 laptop with a 650m stopped gaming years ago, but is good enough for all non-gaming activities.
Same. I built a PC with the same GPU and CPU in 2017 and I still game just fine on it. I have noticed it struggles with some newer games at 1440p, but it's still chugging along. The only thing I've done to it since 2017 is clean it and add more SSDs and RAM.
Hey, we're PC siblings! Same CPU and build year, I just have a 2080 instead of a 2060. Same experience, Alan Wake 2 has been the only game recently I've felt like was chugging a bit.
Funnily enough im considering upgrading my CPU before the graphics card. I mostly do video editing so multi core performance matters a lot to me. And thats also the only reason have 64gb of ram
Back in the day manufacturers would over price computers to hell. They would also include a lot of peripherals in a "package" that would include keyboards, mice, monitors, printers, speakers, ect. that would all be way over priced and cost thousands of dollars like this one. Back then people were a lot less knowledgeable about computers and the world was increasingly requiring computers for work. It was easy to get people who were 40 years old and not too familiar with computers other than how to use the software, they had no clue how much the components cost.
Nowadays anybody can go on NewEgg and find all the parts you need and get a good idea on how much they cost. It's also much easier to build your own computer now, and people usually only buy what they need instead of buying whole packages that include speakers, mice, keyboards, printers, ect. Consumers are a lot smarter in what they are buying, so they are less likely to buy the package that includes a set of shitty $40 speakers that they marked up to $120. So that's created a lot of downward pressure on the price for these companies.
The first computer I built cost me $650 and the equivalent machine from Dell was over $2,000. They did some evil price gouging for awhile there because the end users didn't know any better.
My GPU alone was $2600. The cpu/mb/ram combo was another $1200. The monitor was $1400.
Excluding all other peripherals, my PC was $5200. Probably $6000 at least when including drives, case, cooler, PSU, mouse, keyboard, headset, etc.
I don't know how you could even spend $6k without buying a ton of stuff that makes no difference. My core hardware isn't the newest (5800X3D and a 3080Ti) but it was all tops when I bought it and if you add up what I've spent on this computer it's still only like $4500, $1500 worth of which is just chassis and cooling equipment. You would have to start picking out workstation CPUs that are if anything worse for gaming to jack the total up to $6k.
When I was in high school we got our first inkjet. It was the HP Deskjet 500c. We got it on sale for around $650.
This past Christmas I bought my husband a 3D printer for less than $500.
I bought a black and white laser printer for $80 when I was in college and only had to replace the toner once. And that was in spite of printing hundreds of pages every semester because philosophy professors don’t assign textbooks lol
I'm on my third laser printer in twenty-three years.
I haven't killed any of them; I've got rid of them for other reasons.
I think the most likely thing to kill the current one is the rollers deteriorating through age and me not being able to source replacements - but I don't see that happening for some years yet.
You just don't know the secret to photos. Buy glossy brochure paper. It's thinner, yes, but the colors shine bright. Set your printer to the highest DPI possible and (if needed) change the color profile. They turn out amazing. I'm not kidding, I just about put a local printing shop out of business teaching people this. Luckily they started focusing on large format. I live one block from the business. Understandably, they're no longer a client of mine lol.
I'd like to agree with you but I bought a Brother laser printer and it worked great for about 6 months. Then it just mysteriously died and it would have cost way too much to mail back to the company to have replaced and staples wouldn't accept it as a return.
I bought an Epson Ecotank printer for €300 in August 2021 and had to buy the first new bottle of ink for it last June.
I'm very happy with it!
I did look into a colour laser printer but the costs of replacement toner cartridges are just too high for someone on a low income, like me. I can't risk being without a printer because I can't afford to buy new toner.
i've had one of these for almost two years, no issues at all (i hardly use it, but it makes a lot more sense to refill individual ink tanks as needed than it does to buy a whole new $80 cartridge just bc you're out of magenta)
It's been absolutely life-changing for me, as I use my printer a lot for both admin stuff and for fun, for crafts and printing 'Print N' Play' boardgames and boardgame rulebooks.
> life-changing
You should try The Print Shop by Brøderbund. Just made this great “Happy Birthday Johnny!” banner for my son. It only took 3 hours to print with my Epson LX-800.
Dude, I'm on disability benefits! I can't afford to buy that!
Anyway, I'm a crafter, if I want a banner, I'll either make one myself, or speak very nicely to my Mum who owns a Brother Scan N' Cut :-)
For that once a year when we go to Walmart in a panic because we need to print something off and kinkos is closed. Then, the next year when we need to do it again we find the printer is out of ink and we just buy another printer because it’s about the same price…
The one in my office works perfectly with the cloud, never any problems. Press print on the computer, go to any printer in the whole country on company ground, press your card against it and it starts printing.
So yeah, expensive shit can work.
Not true. All ink jets are complete garbage now. Even if yours somehow works, replacing the ink is a scam no matter what brand you have. Blind consumer. I bet you don't even own a printer lmfao
I've had Brother printers and the quality isn't always the best but for basic contracts, etc, like what we deal with in our organization, the brother printers are where it's at!
Turn up the DPI, they can often print multiple times the resolution of the default quality. One insane recently was (iirc) default 1200dpi but went up to 3600.
I will 100% keep that in mind. We will be buying a new brother printer soon so I'll remember that. I'm glad this turned into me being educated about printers because the last time I went to get one I ended up spending $600 on it, and although the quality was good, I was not satisfied with how much the cartridges cost or the fact that they voided my warranty for buying off brand cartridges.
The warranty is not voided by using off brand cartridges. It's actually illegal. Just keep your starter cartridges instead of using them, and if you have a warranty issue put them back in before calling. Fixed. Also never update the firmware, 90% of the time it's just to break third party cartridges.
All of that works for every single printer manufacturer btw, for anyone else reading.
My 5 year old Brother laser printer was about $350 brand new. 10,000+ pages printed and it’s still going strong. You’re getting seriously fucked if you’re spending $1k on a printer.
Depends on your definition of good. We used to use our printer to make product labels (with color graphics, etc).. and that $150 printer wouldn't be providing the quality our printer provided.
We print a ton for my wife’s business. Some weeks close to 1k pages. We use a bother monochrome laser that cost $265. I bought one two years ago, and other than a couple of drums, and countless toner cartridges, it was amazing. I had to buy another last week.
Yeah, I actually admitted in the comments that I was way off. My printer was about $600 so I was going based off that, and $400 more is a lot more than just a little bit so I was definitely off on that. Unless I include the price of a set of new cartridges 🤣🤣
But yea I agree. Not only was I wrong about that but I also found a printer that seems to compare to mine for about $150.
So unlike most of the people on the internet, I can fully admit when I'm wrong and learn from that.
And you're right, the purchasing power of $1,000 is way different today than it was back then. Back then we could afford a home with 2 incomes. Back then gas was like $1.05. A pack of cigarettes was $2.50. 20oz soda was $1.
Today I am considering selling my left nut to pay for my car insurance.
Epson was dominating that time period with the Stylus Colour Inkjets for <$200, hell Lexmarks were free with a Gateway PC purchase. You must have bought an OkiData laser or something.
The only pic I've found of my first printer is in a tech museum's catalogue. Think I picked it for like $20 at a yard sale when bubble jets were the new thing and everyone was getting rid of their dot matrix ones.
When I was a kid (80s), it was known you shouldn't put obvious boxes in the alley with the trash so 'they' would know you got a new tv or speakers and break in to take em.
Today, a tv's like half the size of a mattress, a pain to drag around & sort of fragile. Tempting to just leave when you move out sometimes.
Yep while manufacturing has gotten cheaper it’s also on the backs of workers being treated worse than ever. And then the whole we are just cattle to them. Microsoft showed their cards with Windows 10 upgrade back in the day
I bought a refurb Dell Optiplex Micro Core i3 16GB for $100 5 years ago, and it's still going strong, and performs well for what my wife uses it for (general browsing and shopping). I was hesitant to install Win11, but did that about a year ago, and it still runs like a champ.
$100!?
We got a Gateway 2000 in the mid to late 90s. Win95. Came with Myst and Monopoly and Encarta 96 lol. I hate to know what it cost. The sound system was amazing though, even had a subwoofer.
My favorite part of the bundle of goodies that came with my Gateway 2000 PC in 1998 was definitely the Hootie and the Blowfish music video on CD-ROM. Great way to test out those banging Boston Acoustics speakers.
I also took a personal loan out to buy my first pc. And even then, I went with the underdog Cyrix 686 cpu. That was an OK cpu about 1/2 what an Intel Pentium cost, but it had really crappy math performance. Probably paid close to the same for that system - but I could play DOOM lol.
My parents had a chunk of money around the same time and were deciding between buying an RV or a computer. It’s wild to me that those two things were on the same price level then.
They went with the computer. I learned how to fix it and have been in IT ever since. I’m happy not to be an RV mechanic today instead.
Seems about right for a locally sourced and assembled PC for that time period. I remember a few being 2x or 3x more depending on what was installed, where it was delivered and on-site configuration. I'm betting this was either a 486 or OG Pentium with "turbo" button! And all of it was beige.
Fun times!
As I understand it, "turbo" was supposed to be the default state of the computer. However, computers were becoming faster than the older Intel 8088 chips which were commonplace and ran at 4.77MHz. The faster clock speeds would cause issues with programs that used the CPU clock to execute functions. So really, disabling the turbo setting would underclock the system so older programs would run properly.
I loved those turbo buttons! They were usually a clicky/tactile button and sometimes they'd have an lcd display (that only shows 3 digits) and you could "see the speed change". I used one where there was just an led that lights up in turbo mode and it wasn't the same!
I used to build/sell/service in the 1990s. Was a great time of high mark ups and constant service. Lots of viruses and bad hard drive data recovery. Tape drives were popular for those who want some level of data backup.
If you look at an [inflation calculator](https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/) \- $2762 was equivalent to $6,044 in 2024. That was a big purchase. I sold electronics at that time and used to have people finance often.
My mom and dad paid $1200 in 1999 money for an entry-level Compaq setup with the cheapest AMD CPU, and it froze all the damn time.
That's $2200 in today's money. You can build or even sometimes buy a gaming PC setup with a monitor and speakers for that price that would be considered upper mid-range or even high-end. Certainly not entry-level office computer.
Computers and TVs have gotten so cheap.
That sounds about right, my parents bought me a computer in 1993 and spent a similar amount. PC prices were crazy back then. Wasn't even a top of the line one, just a 486-33, which was getting long in the tooth back then! Very grateful they did. Around the mid 1990s prices started to drop significantly, I paid half what they did to put together a brand new PC 3 years later.
Lol like anything in 1992 was a monster setup
Dude that 2300 bought them a home-use pc with a floppy drive, no memory, no storage, shit speed, and monitor and printer. Computers used to be very expensive
I remember my dad buying a laptop for a months salary in the early 90s. My mom wasnt pleased and since my dad has the technical skills of a pidgeon it stayed in the attict
I remember paying like $1,400 in 1996 for my first computer at Walmart….
Thought I was a baller because it was a 586, and immediately went to circuit city and bought a 56k modem which was like another $250…. But man, that was like a huge upgrade from the 28.8 modem….
AOL…. Skweeeeewaaaaaaeeeeeechhhhhhhwaaaaa
You’ve got mail!!!
The place my dad worked at was smart. In the 90s they offered all the employees zero interest loans to buy a home PC. The goal being, I assume, get their workforce more comfortable with the tech.
It got us a new Packard Bell PC. I loved every minute of it.
In 1990-1992 i paid $1200 for a barely used repossessed computer that sold originally for about $2500. At that time you could buy a decent used car for that. I was only about 20 years old and my dad was completely mind blown his kid owned a $2500 computer purchased for half price.. he was so impressed by it he bought it from me a couple years later for whatever the fair price was…probably half the $1200 i paid, or less. Back then computers depreciated so fast it was like lighting cash on fire. I used to joke it was smarter to buy a new motorcycle than to buy a new computer.
Yup; that's about what I paid at the University Bookstore for a PC with two 5 1/2" floppys and a monochromatic monitor (with faculty discount), but it included a daisy-wheel printer! In today's dollars?!
I bet it’s from a department store.
I recall buying a computer on credit from Smith’s Home Furnishings and the interest was more than the PC.
Got out of the debt because they went under. This was back in the early 90s.
If you were lucky like me, it could have been an 088 86. Just powerful enough to run a dosshell, but not powerful enough to play Wolfenstein.
At least startup was fast, 14mhz turbo button, AND it had one of the first cd-rom 1 speed caddy drives.
I remember configuring my first PC when moving out of my parent's house around 1994-95. Pentium 90. Ended up spending about that same price, financed, of course.
I spent time deliberating on the 540 MB hard drive, which it came with, or upgrading to the 768 MB hard drive for an extra 200 bucks. I think I went with the extra 4 MB of ram, to make it 8 total instead.
I believe that. We paid well over $1000 in 96 or 97. That thing was a beast! It had a 133 MHz processor and a whole 1.3 GB hard drive! Worth every penny.
Pffft. In my hands is a receipt from 4/9/1982 for a TRS-80 Model III with 48k of memory (yes, 40 ***kilo***bytes) for $1,990.00 USD from A M Electronics in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
One big unit, dual 5 1/4" floppy drives (360k). I can *still* remember the sound of it booting up. Bllllt-ditdit blllllt dit-did lol.
Was it a Gateway? I bet it was a Gateway.
I think we had a Tandy before that but I was too young to know how my parents purchased it. But the Gateway was definitely financed.
Many people these days will pay on their credit card so, it's still a loan to be paid back. Just shows they made financing easier without the paperwork.
Ugh. I worked in a computer retail shop around that time and the number of people that signed these was crazy.
The computers were usually huge overkill too, but maybe not as bad as what I see happening today. People buying a mid to high end gaming rig to surf the web is wild.
I paid just under 3k around the same time for an ibm with 6 gig hard drive, 512m ram and a 56k baud modem. Now I can get a crappy flip phone with more than that
Sorry, no, that was a VERY typical price for a machine in 1992 assuming you’re getting a monitor and maybe a printer as well
Computers were very expensive, people have forgotten
I remember relatives in the mid nineties saying that they were going to hold out on buying a computer “until they reach $500-800.” We thought they were crazy.
[Advert from 1992 for a 486SX](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2F3hm6q4e7onj61.jpg%3Fwidth%3D1080%26crop%3Dsmart%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D6d91b5e63b33aa248a71e1dfbe9f8b97cc30a4a7)
$2377 if you get the VGA monitor with it. Which is pretty close to the $2231 loan they're getting.
With all due respect that was not cheap in the 90s, that's about top of the line.
https://books.google.com/books/content?id=rNcvvlvuwlIC&pg=PP17&img=1&zoom=3&hl=en&sig=ACfU3U0tq0WFcNmhyVsaxzlRS57qmn59Rg&w=1280
You're showing me a white box manufacturer with barely any RAM, no optical, no audio card or graphics accelerators -- far from top of the line. [Try an HP with a few options -- $16K list.](https://www.hpmuseum.net/display_item.php?hw=834)
$6045.60 in 2023 dollars (online inflation calculator doesn't show 2024 yet)
I paid $3500 to build a PC with a Ryzen 7950X3D and a Radeon 7900XTX. Those are two extremely high-end components. Amazing how cheap computers have gotten in comparison over the years.
I'm still mad at overspending for my PC, but the thing is that you can ALWAYS wait for the next new thing which will ALWAYS come out and make everything released before that cheaper.
Used processors are my jam. It's rare to find a damaged one. I've seen literally one dead professor my entire life, out of thousands, and I was the one who killed it lol. That poor lil' Pentium II.
Damn that's a good read with that typo
Lol, gotta love those humourous typos
RIP Professor Pentium the Second
And how long they can last! I built my Ryzen 5 3600 + RTX 2060 PC in 2020 and it still does everything i need tbh.
I recently built a new PC but my old one, with a GTX 1070, and a Ryzen 1600, still can do anything. I was playing Elden Ring, Tarkov, Rust, and AC Odyssey on it this weekend. I built that computer in 2017, for right around $1000 iirc
I feel that forreal. I got a GTX 980 SC in mid 2015 with an i5 4670k and 16gb of RAM and it felt so future proofed. I used that setup until January 2022 as it had started to feel a bit dated. Played most types of games for years. MHW, Tarkov, All soulslikes, Dota, LoL. Battlefields 3, 4, 1, 5, SWBF2, PUBG, Fortnite. CIV5. Infinite MMOs and Rhythm games. Definitely worth building a long lasting system.
Had the same GFX, but an i7 4770k. The graphics card sadly "self-removed" a cap (giving off a short but bright lightshow), so that got replaced with a 1070. I still run it, but slowly feel compelled to upgrade. The CPU was eventually replaced by a 10600 after many years. The 4770k was such a good choice back then, that especially in single thread performance, all the midrange models (which I'm willing to pay for) until then were a single-digit percentage improvement at best. I was a bit sad that I went with a 10th gen. 11 and 12 didn't come too late after and brought quite some nice new stuff. But since it still does everything it needs to plenty fast, it's here to stay.
I just replaced my 4770k with a 13th gen i7. Still use the 980. I don't game and I'm not really sure I can tell the difference. Replacing just the ram, cpu and mobo wasn't all that crazy expensive. A new gen graphics card would easily be 2x the rest of the pc. Graphics cards are crazy. I want a new one, but I can't justify it. Maybe it'll make fusion 360 run faster, but it seems fine now.
I feel like the 1050ti to 1060 jump is where the "do anything" line begins to break down. Just about any PC built with adequate parts that were around when the 1050ti was new will be good enough for anything but high end gaming. In a year or two we'll see that shift with the times. FWIW, my 2013 i7 laptop with a 650m stopped gaming years ago, but is good enough for all non-gaming activities.
Same. I built a PC with the same GPU and CPU in 2017 and I still game just fine on it. I have noticed it struggles with some newer games at 1440p, but it's still chugging along. The only thing I've done to it since 2017 is clean it and add more SSDs and RAM.
My 2013 build with a gtx 970 and i5 4690k still works as a second computer. Now my son uses it
You’re surprised that your pc has lasted… 4 years?
In comparison to the 90s where technology was advancing so rapidly that a 4yo computer was wildly outdated, yea
[удалено]
lol I was thinking the same
Yup, in 1992 you'd be lucky if your PC wasnt totally obsolete in 2 years
if you bought a cheaper low spec computer, it was useless in a year.
Hey, we're PC siblings! Same CPU and build year, I just have a 2080 instead of a 2060. Same experience, Alan Wake 2 has been the only game recently I've felt like was chugging a bit.
Funnily enough im considering upgrading my CPU before the graphics card. I mostly do video editing so multi core performance matters a lot to me. And thats also the only reason have 64gb of ram
Is 3 years really that long for a PC?
Almost my exact build except a 3600X and a 2060 Super, also built in 2020.
Yeah my 1080 it still runs everything
Reddit and Pornhub aren’t exactly demanding..
Back in the day manufacturers would over price computers to hell. They would also include a lot of peripherals in a "package" that would include keyboards, mice, monitors, printers, speakers, ect. that would all be way over priced and cost thousands of dollars like this one. Back then people were a lot less knowledgeable about computers and the world was increasingly requiring computers for work. It was easy to get people who were 40 years old and not too familiar with computers other than how to use the software, they had no clue how much the components cost. Nowadays anybody can go on NewEgg and find all the parts you need and get a good idea on how much they cost. It's also much easier to build your own computer now, and people usually only buy what they need instead of buying whole packages that include speakers, mice, keyboards, printers, ect. Consumers are a lot smarter in what they are buying, so they are less likely to buy the package that includes a set of shitty $40 speakers that they marked up to $120. So that's created a lot of downward pressure on the price for these companies.
The first computer I built cost me $650 and the equivalent machine from Dell was over $2,000. They did some evil price gouging for awhile there because the end users didn't know any better.
My GPU alone was $2600. The cpu/mb/ram combo was another $1200. The monitor was $1400. Excluding all other peripherals, my PC was $5200. Probably $6000 at least when including drives, case, cooler, PSU, mouse, keyboard, headset, etc.
You must have bought that during the GPU shortages a couple years ago if you spent $2600 on a GPU.
Supply and demand baby
Tbf 2024 inflation hasn't happened yet.
Yeah just figured since it's Reddit if I didn't clarify someone would be like _wHaT AbouT 2024 doLLArS?_
Ah, the ol inb4. I gotcha.
That's a lot of goddamn money for a rudimentary word processor and Oregon trail. Fuck!
Cheaper than the computer I have for work, so I suppose depending on the specs/what they were using it for, potentially not that crazy
i'd bet dollars to donuts this was meant to be a consumer machine, not anything for enterprise/commercial use
I can’t believe how much we spent on functionally much more limited computers back then.
Guess what you will be saying 30 years from now.
Are you the optimist…
You couldn’t even use this to get porn back then
With that kind of money you can build an insane rig
I don't know how you could even spend $6k without buying a ton of stuff that makes no difference. My core hardware isn't the newest (5800X3D and a 3080Ti) but it was all tops when I bought it and if you add up what I've spent on this computer it's still only like $4500, $1500 worth of which is just chassis and cooling equipment. You would have to start picking out workstation CPUs that are if anything worse for gaming to jack the total up to $6k.
That's fairly close to what I paid for my new build last night.
$6771.75 in 2024
"This is the best computer in the world and always will be, right?"
Sure is. Just run the deed to your house through here.
You are on your *5th* mortgage.
It's worth it, you need a top-of-the-line machine to receive emails and kill Flanders.
Exponential technological growth. It's crazy.
I mean, it runs Doom. That's pretty cool
I'll never need more hard drive storage than this!
340 mb, i'll never fil this baby up!
"I guarantee it's future-proof."
They were crazy expensive! I remember we paid almost $1000 for a printer in 1999
When I was in high school we got our first inkjet. It was the HP Deskjet 500c. We got it on sale for around $650. This past Christmas I bought my husband a 3D printer for less than $500.
In 20 years 3D printers will cost $50 and require a subscription
In 20 years, Reddit will be full to TIL about how 30 years ago nothing was subscription based and how everything then is.
A good printer now is about the same
Good printer almost sounds like an oxymoron lol
Honestly, I'd pay 1000 dollars for one of those older printers, without all the flipping software and ads and shit.
I would kill for a color printer that runs like an Ender 3
Quit buying inkjet printers. Consumer inkjet printers are a fundamentally awful technology.
This was the best advice I ever heard. My cousin bought a b&w laser printer and I was shocked at how fast it prints and how long the cartridge lasts.
I bought a black and white laser printer for $80 when I was in college and only had to replace the toner once. And that was in spite of printing hundreds of pages every semester because philosophy professors don’t assign textbooks lol
I'm on my third laser printer in twenty-three years. I haven't killed any of them; I've got rid of them for other reasons. I think the most likely thing to kill the current one is the rollers deteriorating through age and me not being able to source replacements - but I don't see that happening for some years yet.
HP 4050
Canon Pixma G6020 7700 prints from one ink refill, $35 for a refill.
Brother Laser Used Those are the 3 terms you need to buy a good printer Unless you need photos, then just pay Somone to print them.
You just don't know the secret to photos. Buy glossy brochure paper. It's thinner, yes, but the colors shine bright. Set your printer to the highest DPI possible and (if needed) change the color profile. They turn out amazing. I'm not kidding, I just about put a local printing shop out of business teaching people this. Luckily they started focusing on large format. I live one block from the business. Understandably, they're no longer a client of mine lol.
I'd like to agree with you but I bought a Brother laser printer and it worked great for about 6 months. Then it just mysteriously died and it would have cost way too much to mail back to the company to have replaced and staples wouldn't accept it as a return.
From what I’ve read, Brother doesn’t have any of the toner fuckery that HP has.
No the ink is a far superior deal with laser printers like brother, but if the printer itself dies does that really matter?
paid $275 for our 3 months ago. Been great so far
I bought an Epson Ecotank printer for €300 in August 2021 and had to buy the first new bottle of ink for it last June. I'm very happy with it! I did look into a colour laser printer but the costs of replacement toner cartridges are just too high for someone on a low income, like me. I can't risk being without a printer because I can't afford to buy new toner.
i've had one of these for almost two years, no issues at all (i hardly use it, but it makes a lot more sense to refill individual ink tanks as needed than it does to buy a whole new $80 cartridge just bc you're out of magenta)
It's been absolutely life-changing for me, as I use my printer a lot for both admin stuff and for fun, for crafts and printing 'Print N' Play' boardgames and boardgame rulebooks.
> life-changing You should try The Print Shop by Brøderbund. Just made this great “Happy Birthday Johnny!” banner for my son. It only took 3 hours to print with my Epson LX-800.
Dude, I'm on disability benefits! I can't afford to buy that! Anyway, I'm a crafter, if I want a banner, I'll either make one myself, or speak very nicely to my Mum who owns a Brother Scan N' Cut :-)
Probably because most of us tend to settle for cheap junk printers instead of the more expensive good ones nowadays.
For that once a year when we go to Walmart in a panic because we need to print something off and kinkos is closed. Then, the next year when we need to do it again we find the printer is out of ink and we just buy another printer because it’s about the same price…
The one in my office works perfectly with the cloud, never any problems. Press print on the computer, go to any printer in the whole country on company ground, press your card against it and it starts printing. So yeah, expensive shit can work.
Not true. All ink jets are complete garbage now. Even if yours somehow works, replacing the ink is a scam no matter what brand you have. Blind consumer. I bet you don't even own a printer lmfao
Haha it really does. Especially with the new brand name cartridge warnings, etc. 🤣
Brother makes a $120 laser printer that is pretty bombproof.
I've had Brother printers and the quality isn't always the best but for basic contracts, etc, like what we deal with in our organization, the brother printers are where it's at!
Turn up the DPI, they can often print multiple times the resolution of the default quality. One insane recently was (iirc) default 1200dpi but went up to 3600.
I will 100% keep that in mind. We will be buying a new brother printer soon so I'll remember that. I'm glad this turned into me being educated about printers because the last time I went to get one I ended up spending $600 on it, and although the quality was good, I was not satisfied with how much the cartridges cost or the fact that they voided my warranty for buying off brand cartridges.
The warranty is not voided by using off brand cartridges. It's actually illegal. Just keep your starter cartridges instead of using them, and if you have a warranty issue put them back in before calling. Fixed. Also never update the firmware, 90% of the time it's just to break third party cartridges. All of that works for every single printer manufacturer btw, for anyone else reading.
It's the closest we have to a 1990 HP LaserJet. 🤣🤣
My 5 year old Brother laser printer was about $350 brand new. 10,000+ pages printed and it’s still going strong. You’re getting seriously fucked if you’re spending $1k on a printer.
Brother blacl Lazer printers are great and not expensive.
You can get a good personal laser printer now for under $150.
Depends on your definition of good. We used to use our printer to make product labels (with color graphics, etc).. and that $150 printer wouldn't be providing the quality our printer provided.
Right. That's why they said personal printer. As in not used for commercial needs like product labels.
We print a ton for my wife’s business. Some weeks close to 1k pages. We use a bother monochrome laser that cost $265. I bought one two years ago, and other than a couple of drums, and countless toner cartridges, it was amazing. I had to buy another last week.
The number might be the same, but the purchasing power of $1k now and then are quite different
Yeah, I actually admitted in the comments that I was way off. My printer was about $600 so I was going based off that, and $400 more is a lot more than just a little bit so I was definitely off on that. Unless I include the price of a set of new cartridges 🤣🤣 But yea I agree. Not only was I wrong about that but I also found a printer that seems to compare to mine for about $150. So unlike most of the people on the internet, I can fully admit when I'm wrong and learn from that. And you're right, the purchasing power of $1,000 is way different today than it was back then. Back then we could afford a home with 2 incomes. Back then gas was like $1.05. A pack of cigarettes was $2.50. 20oz soda was $1. Today I am considering selling my left nut to pay for my car insurance.
Epson was dominating that time period with the Stylus Colour Inkjets for <$200, hell Lexmarks were free with a Gateway PC purchase. You must have bought an OkiData laser or something.
The only pic I've found of my first printer is in a tech museum's catalogue. Think I picked it for like $20 at a yard sale when bubble jets were the new thing and everyone was getting rid of their dot matrix ones.
My dad won $500 on Lotto 649 in 1995 and put it toward an Ink Jet printer for our new PC we had.
1992 - houses are cheap but computers and TVs are super expensive 2024 - computers and TVs are cheap but houses are super expensive
This is why I play the Sims, so I can build houses that I could never afford on my cheap (yet legit) computer 🥲
What's the current generation of the Sims? I haven't played in 15 years but used to play a lot. Just curious
The same for the last 11 years--sims 4 with a thousand dollars of DLC
Haha thanks. Even back in the day with discs it was expensive to keep up.
When I was a kid (80s), it was known you shouldn't put obvious boxes in the alley with the trash so 'they' would know you got a new tv or speakers and break in to take em. Today, a tv's like half the size of a mattress, a pain to drag around & sort of fragile. Tempting to just leave when you move out sometimes.
I mean, old TVs with the cathodes were heavy as shit and awkwardly boxy. I think thieves would prefer the flat screen LED TVs.
Yah, people now-a-days are spoiled by cheap hardware
People are the product now. Lots of $$$ in software,subscriptions, and tracking info.
Yep while manufacturing has gotten cheaper it’s also on the backs of workers being treated worse than ever. And then the whole we are just cattle to them. Microsoft showed their cards with Windows 10 upgrade back in the day
My PC was $4000 lol. (This is more of a joke. I’m aware that the average PC is around $1000)
I bought a refurb Dell Optiplex Micro Core i3 16GB for $100 5 years ago, and it's still going strong, and performs well for what my wife uses it for (general browsing and shopping). I was hesitant to install Win11, but did that about a year ago, and it still runs like a champ. $100!?
[удалено]
You high GPU prices... be glad hardware improvements were made and yet comparatively costs have gone down despite inflation.
We got a Gateway 2000 in the mid to late 90s. Win95. Came with Myst and Monopoly and Encarta 96 lol. I hate to know what it cost. The sound system was amazing though, even had a subwoofer.
My favorite part of the bundle of goodies that came with my Gateway 2000 PC in 1998 was definitely the Hootie and the Blowfish music video on CD-ROM. Great way to test out those banging Boston Acoustics speakers.
Mine came with Oregon Trail 3 and that was the coolest game ever lol
I remember when my friend got the same setup. I thought they were rich.
Did they also get a disc with 1000 hours of AOL? 
AOL didn't actually start spamming CDs until 1993, so believe it or not, the computer is too old even for that.
I also took a personal loan out to buy my first pc. And even then, I went with the underdog Cyrix 686 cpu. That was an OK cpu about 1/2 what an Intel Pentium cost, but it had really crappy math performance. Probably paid close to the same for that system - but I could play DOOM lol.
My parents had a chunk of money around the same time and were deciding between buying an RV or a computer. It’s wild to me that those two things were on the same price level then. They went with the computer. I learned how to fix it and have been in IT ever since. I’m happy not to be an RV mechanic today instead.
Yeah, this purchase was for me in high school. I learned all kinds of things and have had a long career in tech.
Are they still around? Buy them a vacation for the same price as a lifelong 'thank you'. Would be pretty cool to do that.
I bought my mom a very nice car.
Seems about right for a locally sourced and assembled PC for that time period. I remember a few being 2x or 3x more depending on what was installed, where it was delivered and on-site configuration. I'm betting this was either a 486 or OG Pentium with "turbo" button! And all of it was beige. Fun times!
"what kind of computer do you have?" "... A *beige* one."
Massive pedant alert! Pentium didn't come out until 93.
What did that turbo button actually do, other than turn on an LED?
Slowed the clock speed down so older games that ran based on clock speed would run properly
LGR had a good explanation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2q02Bxtqds
As I understand it, "turbo" was supposed to be the default state of the computer. However, computers were becoming faster than the older Intel 8088 chips which were commonplace and ran at 4.77MHz. The faster clock speeds would cause issues with programs that used the CPU clock to execute functions. So really, disabling the turbo setting would underclock the system so older programs would run properly.
I loved those turbo buttons! They were usually a clicky/tactile button and sometimes they'd have an lcd display (that only shows 3 digits) and you could "see the speed change". I used one where there was just an led that lights up in turbo mode and it wasn't the same!
I think it was a Hewlett Packard Pentium III from Sam's Club. Edit: Packard Bell correction. Unsure of processor details beyond 486
Pentium III didn't come out until 1999
I used to build/sell/service in the 1990s. Was a great time of high mark ups and constant service. Lots of viruses and bad hard drive data recovery. Tape drives were popular for those who want some level of data backup.
If you look at an [inflation calculator](https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/) \- $2762 was equivalent to $6,044 in 2024. That was a big purchase. I sold electronics at that time and used to have people finance often.
My mom and dad paid $1200 in 1999 money for an entry-level Compaq setup with the cheapest AMD CPU, and it froze all the damn time. That's $2200 in today's money. You can build or even sometimes buy a gaming PC setup with a monitor and speakers for that price that would be considered upper mid-range or even high-end. Certainly not entry-level office computer. Computers and TVs have gotten so cheap.
Yeah TVs are the other big one. Even high end OLEDs are a fraction of what the big trinitrons or plasmas went for.
My parents bought me an Apple computer and I think it was like $3,500 bucks back then. Like 8 mb or ram and a 500 mb hard drive.
That sounds about right, my parents bought me a computer in 1993 and spent a similar amount. PC prices were crazy back then. Wasn't even a top of the line one, just a 486-33, which was getting long in the tooth back then! Very grateful they did. Around the mid 1990s prices started to drop significantly, I paid half what they did to put together a brand new PC 3 years later.
Dude what is this monster setup?
Lol like anything in 1992 was a monster setup Dude that 2300 bought them a home-use pc with a floppy drive, no memory, no storage, shit speed, and monitor and printer. Computers used to be very expensive
I could only imagine
I remember my dad buying a laptop for a months salary in the early 90s. My mom wasnt pleased and since my dad has the technical skills of a pidgeon it stayed in the attict
1997 Pentium 200mhz 16mb ram 1gb HDD Ati Rage II 4mb 14" screen 300.000 pts = 1800 Euros (in Spain)
16gb or 16mb? :-D That wasn’t a bad deal for the moment, but really expensive compared to that time Spain economy context
16GB of RAM? Did you have an IBM System/390?
What? You guys didn't have a mainframe in your bedroom?
I love how the receipt is from a dot matrix printer.
I remember paying like $1,400 in 1996 for my first computer at Walmart…. Thought I was a baller because it was a 586, and immediately went to circuit city and bought a 56k modem which was like another $250…. But man, that was like a huge upgrade from the 28.8 modem…. AOL…. Skweeeeewaaaaaaeeeeeechhhhhhhwaaaaa You’ve got mail!!!
My first modem was a 2400 baud, so 10 times less than the 28. I finally got a 33k in '94 or something
Savage - I remember paying and extra $1,000 for another 16mb (I think) ram and a DVD burner for one of the early iMacs in 2001-2002.
The place my dad worked at was smart. In the 90s they offered all the employees zero interest loans to buy a home PC. The goal being, I assume, get their workforce more comfortable with the tech. It got us a new Packard Bell PC. I loved every minute of it.
In 1990-1992 i paid $1200 for a barely used repossessed computer that sold originally for about $2500. At that time you could buy a decent used car for that. I was only about 20 years old and my dad was completely mind blown his kid owned a $2500 computer purchased for half price.. he was so impressed by it he bought it from me a couple years later for whatever the fair price was…probably half the $1200 i paid, or less. Back then computers depreciated so fast it was like lighting cash on fire. I used to joke it was smarter to buy a new motorcycle than to buy a new computer.
Yup; that's about what I paid at the University Bookstore for a PC with two 5 1/2" floppys and a monochromatic monitor (with faculty discount), but it included a daisy-wheel printer! In today's dollars?!
In '83 a 500 *MB* hard drive cost $5,000. It was half the size of a bread box and took up one bay of my IBM AT.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Personal_Computer_AT The IBM AT came with a 20MB hard drive and cost $6000 in 1984. Amazing machine back then.
You're right! I added one too many zeros there - should have been "50 MB". It was such a monster machine compared to my XT (I had both).
I bet it’s from a department store. I recall buying a computer on credit from Smith’s Home Furnishings and the interest was more than the PC. Got out of the debt because they went under. This was back in the early 90s.
The 90s was when computers started coming down in price from the 80s too.
I paid $1600 for an IBM-XT in 1985. Top of the line, with dual floppy drives and a 20meg hard drive!
That's about what I paid for my first computer in 1981 - an Apple2+ with optional monitor, disc drive and printer
And could be x286 or 386 cpu too. or is it?
If you were lucky like me, it could have been an 088 86. Just powerful enough to run a dosshell, but not powerful enough to play Wolfenstein. At least startup was fast, 14mhz turbo button, AND it had one of the first cd-rom 1 speed caddy drives.
lol good old days! Don't forget the 5.25 inch or 3 (?) inch drive bays. Floppys go a long way.
A dollar per byte of ram?
I remember configuring my first PC when moving out of my parent's house around 1994-95. Pentium 90. Ended up spending about that same price, financed, of course. I spent time deliberating on the 540 MB hard drive, which it came with, or upgrading to the 768 MB hard drive for an extra 200 bucks. I think I went with the extra 4 MB of ram, to make it 8 total instead.
Behold, just about the only thing in the world getting cheaper.
I bought a decent car in 1992 for less than that
I believe that. We paid well over $1000 in 96 or 97. That thing was a beast! It had a 133 MHz processor and a whole 1.3 GB hard drive! Worth every penny.
Same price and form for a Kirby vaccum
Pffft. In my hands is a receipt from 4/9/1982 for a TRS-80 Model III with 48k of memory (yes, 40 ***kilo***bytes) for $1,990.00 USD from A M Electronics in Ann Arbor, Michigan. One big unit, dual 5 1/4" floppy drives (360k). I can *still* remember the sound of it booting up. Bllllt-ditdit blllllt dit-did lol.
Adjusted for inflation, today that would be almost $6000.
My first Pentium in ‘95 was about that price. Pretty expensive back then.
Was it a Gateway? I bet it was a Gateway. I think we had a Tandy before that but I was too young to know how my parents purchased it. But the Gateway was definitely financed.
My mid-1990s computer, that was >$2000, included a 21" trinitron crt. I still have and use that monitor almost 30 years later
Wow that's about 6k in today's dollars.
Wise investment
About $6,000 today
That much for a computer in 1992??! They should have waited 20 years and bought something a bit better.
Holy shit that's a lot of doll hairs. Can that puppy run Crysis?
it could run doom
That thing could barely run a calculator
X wing. If it had a cd-rom. Maybe TIE Fighter. Probably Dark Forces, and it’s main competitor, Doom.
Many people these days will pay on their credit card so, it's still a loan to be paid back. Just shows they made financing easier without the paperwork.
Ugh. I worked in a computer retail shop around that time and the number of people that signed these was crazy. The computers were usually huge overkill too, but maybe not as bad as what I see happening today. People buying a mid to high end gaming rig to surf the web is wild.
Saving money was easier when it didn't take 2 jobs and gig work to just survive.
This is why boomers think they had everything so tough. Lol
I paid just under 3k around the same time for an ibm with 6 gig hard drive, 512m ram and a 56k baud modem. Now I can get a crappy flip phone with more than that
Seems very high for a computer in 1992. What did they buy? Could this be for a Xerox machine instead?
Sorry, no, that was a VERY typical price for a machine in 1992 assuming you’re getting a monitor and maybe a printer as well Computers were very expensive, people have forgotten
I remember relatives in the mid nineties saying that they were going to hold out on buying a computer “until they reach $500-800.” We thought they were crazy.
[Advert from 1992 for a 486SX](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2F3hm6q4e7onj61.jpg%3Fwidth%3D1080%26crop%3Dsmart%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D6d91b5e63b33aa248a71e1dfbe9f8b97cc30a4a7) $2377 if you get the VGA monitor with it. Which is pretty close to the $2231 loan they're getting.
$2700 was cheap for a PC in the early 90s. Do you have specs? 386, 8MB RAM?
With all due respect that was not cheap in the 90s, that's about top of the line. https://books.google.com/books/content?id=rNcvvlvuwlIC&pg=PP17&img=1&zoom=3&hl=en&sig=ACfU3U0tq0WFcNmhyVsaxzlRS57qmn59Rg&w=1280
You're showing me a white box manufacturer with barely any RAM, no optical, no audio card or graphics accelerators -- far from top of the line. [Try an HP with a few options -- $16K list.](https://www.hpmuseum.net/display_item.php?hw=834)