Re: How much did apples cost new?

[salfter@chakotay.ncc74656.org (Scott Alfter)]

In article <Y5oO4.383$R4.14938@news1.news.adelphia.net>,
Walter H. Allen <waltallen@adelphia.net> wrote:
>Citing Compute! from July 1985,  here is a tidbit I found...
>
>From a company called Harmony Video and Computers-
>    Apple IIe w/Drive $819.95
>    Apple IIc $879
>    Imagewriter $468
>    1200 Modem {baud I presum} $416

July '85 was when I got my first IIe (well, my parents bought it, but I had
nearly exclusive use of it and took it with me to college four years later). 
At the BX (AAFES) at RAF Lakenheath, the IIe with extended 80-column card,
Monitor II, and DuoDisk (I think this was a bundle that Apple called the
"IIe Professional System," or something like that) ran for about $1500.  The
Imagewriter sold for about $500.  IIc and Macintosh systems were also
available, but the Mac was too expensive for what you got and we were
concerned about the IIc's (lack of) expandability (we bought the IIe to
replace a TI-99/4A for which upgrades had become scarce and expensive).  I
suspect that these prices were the same throughout AAFES; how they compared
to stores off-base, I don't know (though the price you mentioned for the
Imagewriter was a little bit lower).

(When we got back home and tried to set up the system, we found that we
needed a serial card to set up the printer...one hadn't been sold with the
system.  Fortunately, we didn't have to make the long haul back to
Lakenheath...the A/V shop at Upper Heyford (where we were stationed at the
time) had Super Serial Cards for about $130.)

(This was an American-spec system...120V power, NTSC video, same as you'd
buy in the States.  We didn't look into local (.uk) stores to see what
prices they had; dealing with 240V equipment upon returning to the States
would've been a pain (yeah, wiring a step-down transformer in reverse
would've worked, but why bother?).  The two issues of _Orchard_Computing_ I
have in my collection don't have any system prices, either.)

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