Ghery, Much higher people had to pay for such goods in some countries. I'm not 100% sure of what I am writing here, but I give at least 90% for that it is close to the right. In 1976 for my 18th birthday I got from my parents CASIO-FX17 (it is still in order). As I remember my father month salary was about 2000 PLZ and he had to spend about 8000 PLZ for that calculator. There were no people visible taxes those times in Poland so 2000 you should understand as after taxes.
I understand the socialistic economy that way: "Divide all prices and salaries by 10 and keep your hand on borders." That way anything your people do you can sell abroad getting 10 times more than you have to pay them. The goods made in your country have normal prices for your people, but any imported goods are 10 times more expensive for them. I suppose 2000 PLZ could be changed (on black market) to about 25$. There were special shops with imported goods destined to collect any $ people have (you had to pay $ (not PLZ) there). To perform their task it is even possible that the goods in that shops had lower prices than abroad. So I suppose FX17 price was about $100 (50...200 ?) there. And something I'm 100% sure: in 1988 working at Gdansk Technical University I could buy two 8748 microcontrollers for my month salary. Best Regards Piotr Galka MicroMade Poland ----- Original Message ----- From: "Pettit, Ghery" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, April 04, 2008 7:13 PM Subject: Completely off topic, but this came from a discussion at work today... > We all get excited about Moore's Law as it relates to shrinking feature > sizes on chips, etc. But, have you stopped to think about what the cost > of our toys has done over the years? > > The HP-35 pocket calculator came out in 1973 (fall of 72?). The initial > price was $395. Now, $395 for a pocket calculator would seem high > today, but stop and think about what that represented then. When I > graduated from college in 1975, the typical starting salary for a EE > graduate was about $1000 per month. Gross. Before taxes. Probably > something less in 1973. That HP-35 represented 40% of a new EE's salary > for a month in 1975. And people bought them. Would you pay 40% of your > monthly salary for a pocket calculator today? Would you even pay that > much for a laptop computer? > > When it comes to computing devices, these are the good old days. > > Have a nice weekend. > > Ghery S. Pettit, NCE > Intel Corporation > > - > ---------------------------------------------------------------- > This message is from the IEEE Product Safety Engineering Society > emc-pstc discussion list. Website: http://www.ieee-pses.org/ > > To post a message to the list, send your e-mail to [email protected] > > Instructions: http://listserv.ieee.org/request/user-guide.html > > List rules: http://www.ieee-pses.org/listrules.html > > For help, send mail to the list administrators: > > Scott Douglas [email protected] > Mike Cantwell [email protected] > > For policy questions, send mail to: > > Jim Bacher: [email protected] > David Heald: [email protected] > > All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: > > http://www.ieeecommunities.org/emc-pstc - This message is from the IEEE Product Safety Engineering Society emc-pstc discussion list. Website: http://www.ieee-pses.org/ To post a message to the list, send your e-mail to [email protected] Instructions: http://listserv.ieee.org/request/user-guide.html List rules: http://www.ieee-pses.org/listrules.html For help, send mail to the list administrators: Scott Douglas [email protected] Mike Cantwell [email protected] For policy questions, send mail to: Jim Bacher: [email protected] David Heald: [email protected] All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: http://www.ieeecommunities.org/emc-pstc
