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Wasn't that enormously expensive? Was it purely for fun or did you recoup your investment?
by beamatronic 9y ago
Wasn't that enormously expensive? Was it purely for fun or did you recoup your investment?
- armadsen 9y agoIt sure was. The Lisa originally sold for $10,000 in 1983. The price dropped to about $5k (IIRC) for the Lisa 2 which came out the same day as the original Mac, but that was still very expensive. 128K Mac ($2500) + Lisa 2 ($5000) = $7500 in 1983 (~$18,600 in 2017 dollars).
- adventured 9y agoTo put that into perspective, in the early 1980s the average new car was around $7,000 to $8,000 and the median new home price was ~$75,000 in 1983. It'd be like a personal computer costing $30,000+ today, in relation to those other major purchase items.
- dreamcompiler 9y agoTrue. But the first time I saw a Mac in person, I knew it was going to change the world and I had to develop for it. I spent all my savings on a Lisa and a Mac. It's hard to describe today just how radically impressive that first Mac was.
- GeekyBear 9y agoJeff Han's 2006 Ted Talk featuring a multitouch demo was the only other time I've seen a user interface demo and instantly knew a UI paradigm was going to be a very big deal. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ac0E6deG4AU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ac0E6deG4AU
- GeekyBear 9y agoIn comparison, the Xerox Star was a mere $16,500, which would be a bit more than $40,000 today.
- flyGuyOnTheSly 9y agoJesus, that's as much as I paid for my brand new car recently...
- dreamcompiler 9y agoYes! But I was a student at UT Austin, which had a special student purchase agreement with Apple. Steve Jobs even came to campus and gave us a pep talk about it. So I got my whole setup for something like half price.