Maybe they were I don' remember exactly, but you also have to put the price in the context of that era, when oscilloscopes were only available form the establis

Maybe they were I don' remember exactly, but you also have to put the price in the context of that era, when oscilloscopes were only available form the established manufacturers costing thousands of $, and before the era of community FOSS HW designs enabling devs to pool their knowledge for free. So even 500$ for a high quality hobbyist USB scope with good SW was considered affordable and definitely not overpriced. 500$ price was actually very disruptive to the established scope industry. And developing those 500 scopes and SW at western wages, doesn't come cheap, and since the SW was free, the only way to recoup the R&D and turn a profit was through the margins on HW sales