What makes it seem that it moved much more slowly — look how long 8-bit machines held on — was just how much it cost to get into a system. Platforms had long li

What makes it seem that it moved much more slowly — look how long 8-bit machines held on — was just how much it cost to get into a system. Platforms had long lives then because people were not keen on seeing their investments disappear out from under them. Note that an Apple //c cost about $1300 in 1984, the equivalent of $3600 or so today. You're going to want to see just how long you can keep that going even though technology improvements are flying by outside your door, and they really were doing that back in the day. There were multiple, barely-interacting tech markets running concurrently.