In terms of relative purchase power, in 1987 you could build a "newest processor" 80386 with a then-huge 80Mb drive in a tower case with you basic setup and pay

In terms of relative purchase power, in 1987 you could build a "newest processor" 80386 with a then-huge 80Mb drive in a tower case with you basic setup and pay about $3,000 when building it yourself. According to my inflation calculator, that's $6,182.61 in today's dollars. In 1987, PC's Limited (later renamed Dell) 386-16 included a 16MHz Intel 80386 CPU, 1MB RAM, a 1.2MB floppy drive, a 40MB hard drive, and a monochrome video card for $4,799. We just tend forget how powerful and cheap Moore's law made things. In terms of relative inflation-adjusted dollars, many of us old-timers back in the day have already spent as much or more than Apple is asking multiple times on 'prosumer' machines when you factor in inflation. (That said I don’t need that much machine right now and am running on a Dell laptop at the moment...)