5 Aug
2022
5 Aug
'22
10:35 a.m.
Any ideas on why businesses didn’t pick up the H11 in
1980?
[priced too high for hobbyists]
Wikipedia says:
1978: H11 US$1295 (kit) or US$1595 fully assembled ("4kword base system”)
display advert <http://www.decodesystems.com/heathkit-h11-ad-1.gif> $1295 kit +
postage/freight, bare system, 8KB (4kword), 6 Q-bus slots free. ROM ?
1981: IBM 5150(PC) US$1,565 for "16 KB RAM, Color Graphics Adapter, and no disk
drives.”
( I only saw 5150’s with 2x 5.25” 360KB floppies included - otherwise, can’t run
programs & store files)
Note that those are nominal prices. In terms of purchasing power USD 1595 in 1978 equated
about USD 2200 in 1981
(https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1978?endYear=1981&amount=1595)
Otherwise agree with your observation on packaged, off-the-shelf software being the main
driver. In small business before the IBM PC, Visicalc drove Apple II uptake; Wordstar,
C-Basic 2 and DBase drove CP/M uptake.
Would LSI-11 hardware with LSX, ed and nroff have been competitive in small business? The
experiences of John Walker (of AutoCAD fame) suggests not:
https://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/marinchip/