Even if you just bought the Commodore cassette deck and connected the computer up to your existing television, you were looking at $200 for a usable configurati

Even if you just bought the Commodore cassette deck and connected the computer up to your existing television, you were looking at $200 for a usable configuration. Yes, that would be a basic configuration. Disk drives and color monitors are luxuries if we're talking about the lowest of low end here. In fact, the C64 is a bad example because it was not the cheapest system available, and many other low-end systems allowed you to use the standard cassette deck you already had as storage. The point is: Yes, you're right, a basic computer is cheaper today, but the price is roughly comparable and not anywhere near the realm of "unattainable except through years of saving up".