cjh (10/29/82)
In response to your message of Fri Oct 29 01:14:00 1982:
Your statement that "the cost of a personal computer is two or three orders
of magnitude greater than the cost of books" is way off base. When I \entered/
college (1971) I was budgeting a minimum of $100/yr for textbooks (and that
was none too generous---the basic texts for organic and bio chemistry were
>$15 each). This would suggest that personal computers cost >$10-100K, which
is of course ridiculous. Your figures are out of line even if you compare
individual textbooks with computers today (Kernighan&Ritchie on C is $16, and
that's a modest-sized paperback---are personal computers $1.6-16K? (well, yes
if you go for a lot of options).
But note that the above are also ignoring that CMU is specifically
expecting that some company, in return for the placement and the huge quantity
order, will give them a break---I seem to recall mention of $200-800 each when
ordered for all undergraduates, which is certainly no less than I would budget
for 4 years of textbooks were I entering college today.
CHipUcca (10/30/82)
Ahem. By order of magnitude, I meant "power of ten". Dunno if that's the usual usage. Oh, well. So, working from your 1971 budget of $100/yr, that's $4000 - $40k. Sure enough, the 8k PDP-12 (like a PDP-8) that we used then cost $40k. Somebody just sent me mail pointing out that textbooks cost about $30 today. Yup, that's what I (or rather DEC) pay today. (Oh, above, I compared 4 years' worth of book budget to 1 machine.) $30 x 4 courses x 2 sememsters x 4 years gives $960. I'm sorry, I don't call that adequate to buy a machine that I would want to do serious work, study, or thinking on. Of course, if, as you say, the 'donating' company gives some kind of break that gets the price down to the $800 or so that you mentioned, yah, we're back in the game. Now, I suppose that doubling the cost of miscellaneous expenses might be considered justifiable, depends on the school and its tuition costs, and room and board and all. Put it this way: I have wanted my own computer since way back then. I only have one now because DEC (my employer) had some funny little LSI-11 systems that weren't selling well, so they sold them to the employees for a pittance; my configuration has 60kb main memory, 2 single-sided floppies, and a *DECwriter*, all for $750! After taking into account mortgage payments and all those good things, I decided I could squeak in a two-year loan because I had just finished paying off my college loan from 1975 (yet another school). But buy one of the various systems on the market today? Not a chance. Can't touch 'em. For under $1000 I can get a machine that is missing a good many keys, or missing a good deal of memory, or missing what-have- you. Or I could spring for $3500 to get the same amount of main and disk storage, CRT, printer, and modem as I have now. Note that my CRT and modem are loaners. Bleah! Well, there are the figures I was using, and the assumptions I as making about the power of the system. I guess I'll go read some more now. -- Kenn
mem (10/31/82)
c Hold on. Kenn, last I knew, is decvax!goutal. So why does this article by him say it is from decvax!cca!csin!Ucca ? Are you using some funny alias there, Kenn ? Huh?
jreuter (11/03/82)
During my senior year I could expect to pay $120 per quarter for books. That's almost $400 for that year alone. My reasonably complete home computer system cost less than 10 times that and was much more useful than the non-Unix systems around here (someone just give me Unix for that thing....). Some of the more specialized books (Digital Logic Design Using Bit Slice...) cost on the order of $35. Even the entering Frosh are getting stuck with $25-$30 introductory books like calculus! Jim Reuter
thomas (11/06/82)
Luckily, I've passed the point in my educational career where I have to buy books every quarter. The books I paid $20 for 3 years ago are now selling for $40 and $50 EACH!! Even the C language book is now $20. I bought it for $12 only a couple years ago. This is disgusting! I wouldn't be surprised if reading a book on an electronic medium is soon cheaper than buying the hardcopy. I know it's cheaper to Xerox most books than to buy them (of course, it's illegal). You can now get a whole computer for less than I paid for my first calculator (a HP-25), and it's more powerful. =Spencer