1981 Personal Computer Catalog

edibobb writes "I just fired up my scanner and uploaded the 35-page 1981 (+/- 1 year) personal computer catalog from American Small Business Computers. 16K RAM for $22; 10 megabyte hard drive, 5 meg fixed and 5 removeable, with 14-inch platters; 25-character per second printer. Things have changed a bit since then!"

Made in USA?

[Bryan Ischo]

One thing I notice is that 20+ years ago alot more high tech development seemed to have been happening all over the USA, instead of being highly concentrated in just a few places as seems to be the case now. Printers from Florida? Word Processors from Oklahoma? I remember reading the the original MOS chips were manufactured in PA in the 1970s! If I bought a printer today and the box said that it was manufactured anywhere other than Taiwan or China, let alone Florida or Oklahoma, I'd be shocked!

Oh, that'll last.

[Lord Prox]

Me thinks he is hosting his site on some of that very same hardware from the catalogs. The site is /.ed with only 5 comments, this might be some kind of record.
BTW thanks for the mirror, quick thinking.

I think I will start selling /. insurance

Things were a lot different then....

[Anonymous Coward]

No threat of some lawsuit company charging you $699 for innocently using a nifty free OS.

Virus checker? Who needs it.

No DRM either

Credit Cards

[Traxton1]

Holy crap, people actually paid more to use credit cards back then? People don't even carry cash anymore. I wonder how freaked out people would be now-a-days if I told them I was adding 3% to their purchase.

Re:marketing

[Quill_28]

Or who they are marketing to.

I am guessing you were marketing to a more informed crowd.

Re:Made in USA?

[Lehk228]

Well part of that is due to the fact that you can lower your costs by moving your buisness nearer to your customers/supplyers, so it is good for everyone involved if they all move to centralized locations.

Bah, Cash only makes "the perfect budget"...

[brunes69]

.. for people who don't have enough sense to manage their money.

I have had a credit card since I was 18, I charge over $1000 on my cards a month.. I buy everything on credit card, including pay my bills. This way I maximize the free "points" my credit card gives me.

Guess how much I have paid in finance charges the past 6 years? I would say a max of 25 dollars *total*??? ( and that was only due to purposeful "letting it ride" for a few weeks since I was on vacation ).

50 dollars in finances for well over 600 dollars in rewards.

Seriously, credit cards are only "the devil" to people who have no will power. Just because I have thousands worth of credit in my pocket, doesn't mean I am about to go buy a car on my visa.

Not to mention if you charge something and you break it or it is stolen in the first 3 months, you can usually get a free replacement.. or if you get ripped off you can contest the charges. Try that with cash.

Re:Here I sit

[GlassUser]

Oh hell, that's absolutely amazing.

Re:Just look how advanced we are!

[dmaxwell]

Don't forget all of the eye candy, abstraction layers, and the replacement of assembly and C with high level languages...which are probably running on a virtual machine. And we can't blame it all on MS either. Everybody is operating that way.

For all that developers have a bit too much ease of use vs efficiency, today's PC has apps that just weren't possible with that old gear. Non-linear video editing and audio compression just isn't going to happen on a 12 Mhz 286.

In another 10 or 15 years, I believe that computing will cease to be sexy in any way shape or form. Don't get me wrong; advances will still be occuring but they won't be hot topics. Most major applications will have well understood methodologies for accomplishing them. APIs and architectures will be settled down more. That is the point where there will be value in making things a bit more efficient and maintainable. Hell, I even think the IP tulip mania will be mostly over with by then. But things will stay chaotic as long as Moore's Law still has steam in it.

Re:no promotions anymore

[devilspgd]

Congrats, you successfully identified the point I was trying to make. Good job, have a cookie.

If you advertise something as "Made in America", unless every single component was developed, manufactured and assembled in America, you'll get torn to pieces on a slow news day.

Re:no promotions anymore

[Billly Gates]

People cared about American jobs. Today people car about their wallets. Americans today are more greedy then back then.

It was Ronald Reagan that started the phase anyone who taxes or offers a higher price is a theif and that corporatism is a reward for sucess and creates jobs, etc.

The second factor is percentage of Americans who own stocks. I know former hard core democrats who are voting for Bush/CHeney, because they have 401k's and Ira's and want corporate rights upheld and lower taxes. They feel the greed system is for them and not the top 2% of all Americans sadly.

Anyway this is why the made in USA does not work. People want lower prices and view those who dont outsource as theives from their wallets as well as 401k's and Ira's.

Re:no promotions anymore

[nharmon]

Made in the USA doesn't work because we live in a global economy and there are industries that cannot be profitable in the United States. People need to learn to adapt. Why should I pay more for a sub-quality domestic product?

It's like saying you should buy Microsoft Windows XP instead of SuSE Linux (even though SuSE is now American) because Microsoft is an American company.

Copyright

[nightsweat]

Larry Lessig should use this as an example of how dumb our copyright laws are. As the RIAA and MPAA and most of Congress would have us interpret the law, this is a copyright violation.

Does that make ANY sense in the real world?

Re:no promotions anymore

[Bob Uhl]

It's not greed; it's intelligence. Why pay more for less? Americans produce shoddy products at high prices; others produce fine products at lower prices. Would you pay $1 for a moldy pear when the grocer's down the way sells good, tasty pears for a dime a dozen?

And the ownership economy is for everyone. That's a good thing. It means that workers have a voice because they are also owners. It's a better solution than unions, that's for sure. Ask my co-worker, who was once kicked out of a union (and thus lost his job) because he dared to work through his break.

Footnotes

[Ernesto Alvarez]

What amazes me is that the catalog is more "sincere" that modern ones.

Look at the footnotes, most of them are trademark acknowledgements (like "CP/M is trademark of the Digital Research Corporation"). Basically you get what you see.

Computers these days are really sold as black boxes, without specifications anywhere and with all kinds of hidden "features" (as in DRMed CDs).

Today, the footnotes would say something like "This device is not sold, it is licensed. Requires windows. Interface is proprietary and protected by DMCA. You agree to give us your soul by using the Product" in 1pt font in a hidden corner.