At 02:10 -0800 01/30/2003, Howie S wrote: >It's a Thunder 24, and it's a 12" card. Thus worthy of the ATI trade-up >program eh? >It's kind of funny to see a card this large, it looks impressive in a way. I >can imagine what it cost new, probably twice what a good vid card costs now.
More like 20 times. That's 20X. $2000 - $3000 was not uncommon for a top of the line NuBus card back when. Scary, huh? When Apple switched to PCI, Radius and Raster Ops were (almost) the only players left standing in the NuBus card market (Lapis and Villagetronic may still have been around). At that time, the Radius Thunder IV GX line started at about $2000 and went up to around $3000 IIRC. The Radius Thunder 24/GT which was the same card as a Thunder IV GX 1152 but without the DSP daughter board was about $1000 or maybe as low as $800 (IIRC, I also feel like maybe that should be $1500; it's been so long, an old MacWorld or MacUser would clear it up). The price of the 24/GT dropped to $500 when Radius was running a clearance. The "consumer" line of video cards, the Precision Color Pro 24 line, went for about $300 - $600. I'm not sure what the SuperMac Thunder 24 went for, but I believe it was SuperMac's premier card at the time, so it probably commanded similar prices, in an era earlier than the Thunder IV GX. It's kind of confusing since both SuperMac and Radius made cards with "Thunder" and "24" in the name. If you're ever buying in the used NuBus market you really have to know your cards to get what you expect. I felt lucky to get a discontinued E-Machines Futura II SX for $250 after SuperMac bought E-Machines. The switch to PCI was a real boon. Even so, for about a year after the switch, Mac video cards were still in the $600 - $800 range for PCI cards. Jeff Walther -- SuperMacs is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | Service & Replacement Parts [EMAIL PROTECTED] | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> SuperMacs list info: <http://lowendmac.com/supermacs/list.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/supermacs%40mail.maclaunch.com/> --------------------------------------------------------------- >The Think Different Store http://www.ThinkDifferentStore.com ---------------------------------------------------------------
