Here’s
a list that will make you proud of your $200 Chromebook! Or at least
happy that you never paid these kinds of prices. When you talk about
expensive personal computers, they fall into two categories. First,
there’s the luxury models designed with bling for conspicuous
consumption. Sure, you can impress people with a gold-plated laptop, but
why? Then there are the innovations of the past. An entirely new way to
compute was never cheap, and certain models had a lot of research and
development to cover, even though they seem archaic now. For context,
when I was in college in the ‘70s, the school only had one computer, and
you weren’t allowed to see it unless you were taking a computer class.
There were three offered: BASIC, COBOL, and FORTRAN. But you could buy a
personal computer -if you had the bucks. This one cost twice as much as
my degree.
5. 1975 IBM Portable Computer – $19,975
If
you’re looking at the price and wondering what type of incredible
technology existed back in the mid-70s to warrant such an expensive
price tag, know that the 1975 IBM Portable Computer cost what it did
because it was the first “mini computer”. It wasn’t as portable as
notebooks are today, but it was aimed at the scientific community,
specifically researchers flush with grant money.
The self
contained computer had a magnetic tape drive, 5 inch CRT display that
could output 16 lines of text with 64 characters each, a cartridge tape
hard drive capable of storing 204 KB, and a PALM circuit board
processor. If you adjust its 1975 retail price for inflation, the IBM
5100 portable computer would cost about $88,000.
There are
nine other rather expensive computers to see at Money Inc.
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