It did take it quite a while to get really cheap tho - I remember reading a PC magazine article in the late 90s declaring the arrival of the till-then mythical

It did take it quite a while to get really cheap tho - I remember reading a PC magazine article in the late 90s declaring the arrival of the till-then mythical "$1000 PC" era - computers used to cost $2-3k, and these are USDs of 2-3 decades ago (probably worth double in today's dollars). if you spend $1k on a pc desktop today you'll get absolute top of the line hardware, even $500 will get you a solid mid-range desktop. only in the last ~5 years with the arrival of netbooks did we start seeing PCs get really, really cheap.