Ram was relatively cheap between 1985 and 1987 hovering around $100-150 using 256Kbit chips. Then 1987 anti dumping laws lined up with fabs upgrading to lower y

Ram was relatively cheap between 1985 and 1987 hovering around $100-150 using 256Kbit chips. Then 1987 anti dumping laws lined up with fabs upgrading to lower yielding new 1Mbit chips and things got crazy. In 1988 256K chips went from $3.5 to $7 in less than a month. Some companies coped better than others - Atari was the first to offer computer shipping with 1MB below $1000. Tramiels little secret was smuggling ram from Japan and skirting anti dumping restrictions :) https://forums.atariage.com/topic/207245-secret-atari-dram-resale-operation-revealed-by-fbi/ https://forums.atariage.com/topic/207245-secret-atari-dram-r... https://web.archive.org/web/20180817061246/https://www.atariarchives.org/atarileaks/ https://web.archive.org/web/20180817061246/https://www.atari... TLDR up to $6Mil a month of smuggled ram from Japan by Atari to make money on a side :) https://web.archive.org/web/20171220171525/https://www.atariarchives.org/atarileaks/timeline.html https://web.archive.org/web/20171220171525/https://www.atari... "Source [an informant to the FBI who is apparently an Atari employee] remembers the first DRAM shipment arriving in 1988 was sold to Sun Micro Systems in Milpitas, CA. Source was told to deliver this shipment by [redacted]. [redacted] told Source to leave all [redacted] including his [redacted] and to take [redacted] which had an Atari logo on them. When Source delivered the Integrated Circuits, [redacted] cashier's check from Sun Microsystems to deliver to Atari, and the payee's name was left blank."