Internet Archive has a bunch of scanned magazines from the period - such as https://archive.org/details/computer-shopper-june-1996-images.zip/page/n13/mode/2up

Internet Archive has a bunch of scanned magazines from the period - such as https://archive.org/details/computer-shopper-june-1996-images.zip/page/n13/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/computer-shopper-june-1996-image... and as you say, $1000 was on the low end. It's a real blast from the past. I'd forgotten you used to be able to pay $7000 for a laptop, and $100 for a 10-megabit ethernet card.