4 ms·

There are many posters that complain about Borland Builder´s price tag, but what they may not realize is what Microsoft charged back then for Visual Studio C/C+

by jll29 4y ago

There are many posters that complain about Borland Builder´s price tag, but what they may not realize is what Microsoft charged back then for Visual Studio C/C++ (plus the MSDN subscription fees) was likewise a lot. You got piles of books and piles of floppy disks (later piles of CDROMs) for that. Only recently, free development tools have become available that rival commercial offerings. But most serious developers do not care about a few thousand dollars in tooling cost, because the main determinant of software cost is developer salaries and nothing else. Since they are typically six digit dollar amounts, the cost for tools like editors, IDEs, compilers and libraries pales in comparison or becomes a rounding error.

godot 4y ago
For companies I think you're right; but a price tag of a few thousand dollars was a strong deterrent for students or hobbyists/learners to get into doing those development. I think the web was great for learners in the 90s/00s because no special tools were necessary. All you needed was Notepad and a browser. If you did some CGI/Perl or PHP you may also need a $5-$20/mo web host account, that's about it.
- zakki 4y ago
  And todays students will shape the future. If something not relevant with student’s now, it will not relevant with student’s future. Finally that thing will be forgotten.
  - pjmlp 4y ago
    Most students don't have any issues getting pirated stuff on street bazaars, so price isn't really an impeding factor.
badsectoracula 4y ago
Borland's prices were much cheaper. Check the price list[0] from 1997, when the original BCB was made. The cheapest (Standard, the version that i used in the linked blog post) was only $99.95 (which remained the same until around 2003 and BCB5). Nowadays the cheapest is $1599[1]. Delphi also had similar prices. In comparison Microsoft's prices for Visual C++ 97 were much higher, at least according to this old post[2]. The cheapest might have been $99 like Borland's but that was for the learning edition which could only be used by students for non-commercial purposes (Borland's $99 versions of Delphi and BCB did not have that restriction) and the next cheapest was $499 - practically five times more expensive. [0] http://web.archive.org/web/19970605053133/http://www.borland.com/bcppbuilder/ordering/ http://web.archive.org/web/19970605053133/http://www.borland... [1] http://web.archive.org/web/20230220010556/https://www.embarcadero.com/app-development-tools-store/cbuilder http://web.archive.org/web/20230220010556/https://www.embarc... [2] https://www.itprotoday.com/windows-78/microsoft-sets-pricing-visual-studio-97 https://www.itprotoday.com/windows-78/microsoft-sets-pricing...

by jll29 4y ago

godot 4y ago

For companies I think you're right; but a price tag of a few thousand dollars was a strong deterrent for students or hobbyists/learners to get into doing those development. I think the web was great for learners in the 90s/00s because no special tools were necessary. All you needed was Notepad and a browser. If you did some CGI/Perl or PHP you may also need a $5-$20/mo web host account, that's about it.

zakki 4y ago
And todays students will shape the future. If something not relevant with student’s now, it will not relevant with student’s future. Finally that thing will be forgotten.
- pjmlp 4y ago
  Most students don't have any issues getting pirated stuff on street bazaars, so price isn't really an impeding factor.

badsectoracula 4y ago

Borland's prices were much cheaper. Check the price list[0] from 1997, when the original BCB was made. The cheapest (Standard, the version that i used in the linked blog post) was only $99.95 (which remained the same until around 2003 and BCB5). Nowadays the cheapest is $1599[1]. Delphi also had similar prices. In comparison Microsoft's prices for Visual C++ 97 were much higher, at least according to this old post[2]. The cheapest might have been $99 like Borland's but that was for the learning edition which could only be used by students for non-commercial purposes (Borland's $99 versions of Delphi and BCB did not have that restriction) and the next cheapest was $499 - practically five times more expensive. [0] http://web.archive.org/web/19970605053133/http://www.borland.com/bcppbuilder/ordering/ http://web.archive.org/web/19970605053133/http://www.borland... [1] http://web.archive.org/web/20230220010556/https://www.embarcadero.com/app-development-tools-store/cbuilder http://web.archive.org/web/20230220010556/https://www.embarc... [2] https://www.itprotoday.com/windows-78/microsoft-sets-pricing-visual-studio-97 https://www.itprotoday.com/windows-78/microsoft-sets-pricing...