Re: Apple computers - Did they really reduce the prices?

[Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca>]

On Thu, 11 Jun 2009, The Wizard of Oz wrote:

> Neil Jones wrote:
> > Few days ago I saw news item claiming that Apple is reducing prices of
> > their computers across the board.  When I tried to go to their website,
> >  I got a message saying that they are updating their store information
> > and asked to return back.  Today, I go to the site and did not see any
> > difference in the prices at all.  All they did is present the cheaper
> > models (polycarbonate shell) first and then take you to the expensive
> > models (aluminum shell).
> >
> > I have been watching the prices for a few months (planning to buy one
> > for my kid), but the prices have not changed at all.  It looks like an
> > Apple gimmick here.
> >
> > NJ
>
> 	Considering the Apple// (Apple2 - like the name of the news group) 
> line was killed off around the early 90's I'd say yeah there is a drastic 
> reduction in prices. The ][+ went from a $4600 computer (the first one I ever 
> bought) to a $5 computer. It's still a good machine. It does what it does 
> very well. Much more stable than modern PCs or Macs. I don't recall an 
> Apple// in anything but a plastic or fibreglass shell.
I was going to say that I'm not sure whether the Apple was all that
expensive or not.  After all, circa 1977, it was expensive, but so
were the alternatives.  The alternatives weren't the all in one unit
of the Apple II, so their price might be illusionary, since you had
to buy quite a big of different items to get what was in the Apple.

And the Apple II was definitely a price drop from minicomputers, that
people had to pay for and live with if they'd needed a computer, up
to a few years before the Apple II hit.

So you definitely got a good deal for going with the Apple II in
1977.

And yes, they probably did drop in price over time.  They ramped up
production, so the costs were shared over many more units.  The later
models in the II line better integrated things, so they could cut costs
and probably reduce the price.

Another way of looking at it is that the Apple II was cheap compared
to what the company released later.  I can't recall how much the Apple
III cost, but the Lisa was something like $10,000.  The original Macintosh
was a drop in price, relatively speaking, but it had a single drive
that only did one side of the floppy, and only 128K of RAM.  It cost
a lot to make it really useable.

The trick to getting a good price is to buy used.  Let someone else
pay the full price, and then get it after a patient wait of a few years.
That's how I finally got an Apple II, and later an Apple IIGS.  Until
I bought a "netbook" last fall, I hadn't bought a new computer since
1989.  The used market happily supplied what I needed.

   Michael