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Posted: 6/8/2023 10:26:17 PM EDT
[#1]
Quote HistoryQuoted: You have to think in terms of new tech and it's long term entertainment value. A vcr in 81 was good for 15 years. A dvd player in 1999 was good for 15 years and blu ray is just now fading out. One day streaming will eclipse its 15 year life for something new. Lol. My exwife got me my first dvd player for Christmas in 99. It felt awesome going into the DVD section at Blockbuster instead of renting VHS tapes like the poors. The selection was still kind of meek though so usually ended up with a tape or two as well though. 
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Posted: 6/8/2023 10:27:02 PM EDT
[#2]
What were they using before vcr’s , projectors ?
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Posted: 6/8/2023 10:28:10 PM EDT
[#3]
Quote HistoryQuoted: Microwave ovens were about the same price at that time. See my thread I just posted. |
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Posted: 6/8/2023 10:29:54 PM EDT
[#4]
We used to rent VCRs from the library when I was a kid. I remember when my parents bought one sometime in the mid 80's and I believe they paid $400 for it.
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Posted: 6/8/2023 10:30:42 PM EDT
[#5]
The Atari system was 700 dollars something at Sears, in? 83?
Couldn’t afford it, I want to say I bought a vcr in 85’ Craig with manual tracking and manual sharpness for 350?? It lasted until 2001, bought a Toshiba with automatic tracking I was amazed for $140 at Best Buy in 2001. I still have it. |
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Posted: 6/8/2023 10:31:11 PM EDT
[#6]
I bought a new 50" tv this week for $200. Kinda crazy how cheap they've gotten.
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Posted: 6/8/2023 10:31:33 PM EDT
[#7]
 That's about $2000 in today's Biden bucks. |
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Posted: 6/8/2023 10:31:41 PM EDT
[#8]
Quote HistoryQuoted: What were they using before vcr's , projectors ?  The first ones were sold in the late 70s. It was pretty revolutionary, because prior to that - you really did have to be home and in front of your TV when your favorite program came on, or you'd miss it. The idea of buying your own VHS tapes with movies already on them, came later. I want to say that Top Gun was the first one that was widely available, but I'm not 100% sure. |
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Posted: 6/8/2023 10:34:06 PM EDT
[#9]
I remember when the first auto-tracking VCRs came out.
You could buy a regular Sony or Panasonic for $500 or whatever. OR, you could buy the auto-tracking version for $1500. Hmm... I only had about $20 back then, so it was an easy decision for me. |
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Posted: 6/8/2023 10:34:06 PM EDT
[#10]
$1,000 in 1981 is nothing. As I recall, a U-Matic cost $2,000 in the late nineties.
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Posted: 6/8/2023 10:35:30 PM EDT
[#11]
TI SR-10 four function calculator was around $300 in the early 1970's. Took a bunch of newspaper deliveries to buy one.
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Posted: 6/8/2023 10:40:13 PM EDT
[#12]
Quote HistoryQuoted: Big screen Plasma TVs were 5 figures when first released. My boss paid $17000 for one in 2002. Pioneer 50”. Bought at Best Buy. One year later I bought the exact same tv from plasmahouse.com for $5000. |
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Posted: 6/8/2023 10:40:14 PM EDT
[#13]
That was a drop in the bucket compared to "darn well worth it" Curtis Mathis TV's in 1981.
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Posted: 6/8/2023 10:42:33 PM EDT
[#14]
Paid $750 ish in 84. that was the going rate. Try getting a TV then. Expensive. People gripe about prices now, they are rally low on tech. My folks talk about their first color TV, it was a beast. It was several months pay at the time.
Our first flat screen was a 42 inch and cost over $900. You can probably get comparable now for under $200. BTW, 20 years old an it is still working well. |
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Posted: 6/8/2023 10:48:33 PM EDT
[#15]
Quote HistoryQuoted: I remember around 1986 renting one for a weekend from U Haul. Came in a big plastic kind of pelican case. I remember, early 80’s, standing out in a parking lot for about an hour while my parents debated whether to go with the VHS or Beta Max. They chose wisely and we put the VHS on the flatbed trailer. |
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Posted: 6/8/2023 10:48:36 PM EDT
[#16]
Sony Betamax machines were very expensive. It was Betamax vs. VHS. My prediction at the time was VHS since it's popularity soared from the beginning. Sorry Sony!
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Posted: 6/8/2023 10:48:58 PM EDT
[#17]
Quote HistoryQuoted: Yup. I believe the Tandy 1200 (8088-based) PC my Dad bought in 1985 was around $2000. Cost some additional exorbitant sum to upgrade it from 256k to 640k of RAM. I got a TRS-80 in 1978, worked all summer mowing lawns to upgrade it to 16KB. That upgrade cost $350 and they kept the old 4K chips as part of the deal, so it's $350 for 12KB, or $29 and change per KB... My math says that works out to $30.5 million per GB, so your typical 16GB laptop today contains just shy of $500 million of RAM at 1978 RAM prices. |
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Posted: 6/8/2023 10:49:58 PM EDT
[#18]
I remember my dad was super-pumped to see that "Once Upon a Time in the West" was coming up on one of the early cable channels. He tasked me with hitting the pause button on the wired remote as the commercials came on. Was a long night lol. I realize now that, for him, there had been no real easy (or cheap) way to see movies that you loved in the theater. He thought it was amazing.
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Posted: 6/8/2023 10:50:20 PM EDT
[#19]
My Dad paid over $600 for our first VHS player.
VHS tapes used to cost $39-79. My first Atari PAC man cartridge was $36 in the early 80s. Technology used to be really expensive, now it's far cheaper. thank you China labor camps. |
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Posted: 6/8/2023 10:53:12 PM EDT
[#20]
My granddad paid $800 for an adding machine when they first came out.
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Posted: 6/8/2023 10:53:45 PM EDT
[#21]
Quote HistoryQuoted: That was a drop in the bucket compared to "darn well worth it" Curtis Mathis TV's in 1981. We had a CM. Remember using pliers to pull and turn the power and volume pot. |
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Posted: 6/8/2023 10:56:54 PM EDT
[#22]
Quote HistoryQuoted: I think you rented the tapes and the machine. I had an RCA VCR which cost about $900:when I bought it. Movies were around $50 when they first came out. There were mom and pop video rental stores as well as Blockbuster. The mom and pop I rented always put out a flyer of movies to rent. If you got it in the store the titles included the porn movie titles. |
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Posted: 6/8/2023 10:56:54 PM EDT
[#23]
I remember my dad bought my mom an early windows 95 laptop. I remember it being over $2000 back then!
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Posted: 6/8/2023 10:57:55 PM EDT
[#24]
They were ground breaking back then. Let's say you liked to watch "The Grinch" at Christmas. You could record it or rent the VHS. Before that you had to wait until the next Christmas to see it
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Posted: 6/8/2023 11:07:11 PM EDT
[#25]
Should have seen what a CD player cost when the first came out.
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Posted: 6/8/2023 11:09:02 PM EDT
[#26]
My parents dropped over $700 in the late 70’s for one. Thing was bad ass! |
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Posted: 6/8/2023 11:10:01 PM EDT
[#27]
My rich aunt spoiled my older cousin dirty rotten. I remember her buying him all the latest tech at the time (Atari, Commodore 64, etc) including an Intellivision gaming computer. I hadn't even heard of that machine until I saw one at his house. He would never let me play it, either.
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Posted: 6/8/2023 11:13:57 PM EDT
[#28]
I was an early adopter in blu ray and I bought an early Pioneer Elite that was 1K. It took 5 minutes to load a movie, if it would load at all.
That was the last time I decided to be an early adopter. |
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Posted: 6/8/2023 11:15:01 PM EDT
[#29]
I remember paying a shit ton of money for a VHS of Top Gun when it first came out. Played it on my 19” Sony hooked up to a sound system with surround sound and 6 speakers. Yes, I live in the Hollywood Hills, was a bartender at the Biltmore, drove a 280z, did a lot of coke, pulled down a lot of ass and generally was the shit.
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Posted: 6/8/2023 11:18:13 PM EDT
[#30]
Quote HistoryQuoted: My rich aunt spoiled my older cousin dirty rotten. I remember her buying him all the latest tech at the time (Atari, Commodore 64, etc) including an Intellivision gaming computer. I hadn't even heard of that machine until I saw one at his house. He would never let me play it, either. I kept all my machines over the years except for my first one, pong. It got lost at moms house. They are in two boxes in the basement. Once I get the important shit done I'll figure out how to get that signal to a modern tv |
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Posted: 6/8/2023 11:18:56 PM EDT
[#31]
we bought a vcr in like 80 or 81.. I remember my mom bitching about it being pricey... my dad was recovering from back surgery so she shut up about it..
I have to admit.. I miss the days of renting movies... we'd get like 5 movies for a weekend... things were simpler then... |
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Posted: 6/8/2023 11:20:45 PM EDT
[#32]
My dad bought ours in 1978 for $999 - it was an RCA, plus a brand new 25" Magnavox console TV (forget the price for it).
Was a BIG pile of money then. I recorded as many horror and sci fi movies and horror hosts as I could. My dad recorded all the boxing matches and I still have the VHS tapes - and they are still watchable. |
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Posted: 6/8/2023 11:21:38 PM EDT
[#33]
Quote HistoryQuoted: we bought a vcr in like 80 or 81.. I remember my mom bitching about it being pricey... my dad was recovering from back surgery so she shut up about it.. I have to admit.. I miss the days of renting movies... we'd get like 5 movies for a weekend... things were simpler then... Yes they were. Not having a social media army telling everyone what to like/say/believe was quite liberating. |
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Posted: 6/8/2023 11:25:36 PM EDT
[#34]
Quote HistoryQuoted: I remember paying a shit ton of money for a VHS of Top Gun when it first came out. Played it on my 19" Sony hooked up to a sound system with surround sound and 6 speakers. Yes, I live in the Hollywood Hills, was a bartender at the Biltmore, drove a 280z, did a lot of coke, pulled down a lot of ass and generally was the shit. |
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Posted: 6/8/2023 11:31:43 PM EDT
[#35]
Quote HistoryQuoted: Not unusual for them to be that price back then. I remember when they came out and when Betmax came out. Super expensive and HUGE machines. Correct. I remember my dad getting a Sony two piece VCR (tuner separate from deck) and that sucker was around $1200 in 1982. Same time when VHS movies to purchase were about $100 each. |
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Posted: 6/8/2023 11:33:52 PM EDT
[#36]
I remember when my uncle paid over a grand for a huge camera and separate shoulder pack with VCR.
He took it into the movie theater and recorded ET. |
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Posted: 6/8/2023 11:42:28 PM EDT
[#37]
We bought our first VCR in 1985, a Panasonic, paid $700 from Montgomery Wards.
Then in the early 1990's I bought another one with dual record level meters and made 4 hour high quality stereo music tapes.... |
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Posted: 6/8/2023 11:43:34 PM EDT
[#38]
I have one of these on my desk at work, it cost $1,500 in 1975. That is $8,700 today.
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Posted: 6/8/2023 11:43:43 PM EDT
[#39]
Our first VCR was split in half, and you could take the tape half and connect a video camera.
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Posted: 6/8/2023 11:44:50 PM EDT
[#40]
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Posted: 6/8/2023 11:45:10 PM EDT
[#41]
I bought a VHS VCR and 19" COLOR TV in '82 for a little over $1,400.00, if I recall correctly.
I recorded a lot of stuff, like motorcycle racing and movies, in "real time" and paused the recording during commercials. I also rented a lot of videos, and was kind enough to rewind. You could buy a machine that would rewind a VHS tape and do nothing else. I think people bought these believing they would save wear on the recording "heads" in their VCRs. |
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Posted: 6/8/2023 11:46:52 PM EDT
[#42]
Quote HistoryQuoted: I think you rented the tapes and not the machine. I had an RCA VCR which cost about $900 when I bought it. Movies were around $50 when they first came out. There were mom and pop video rental stores as well as Blockbuster. No, we rented the player from the gas station in our neighborhood. We also had a couple mom and pop videos stores. |
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Posted: 6/8/2023 11:48:00 PM EDT
[#43]
12:00
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Posted: 6/8/2023 11:48:42 PM EDT
[#44]
The first "IBM Compatible" desktop computer that I bought in around 1988 for my side business cost $5k and was probably less powerful than the phone that I'm using to type this post.
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Posted: 6/8/2023 11:50:22 PM EDT
[#45]
Quote HistoryQuoted: 12:00 12:00 - 12:00 - 12:00 - 12:00 - |
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Posted: 6/8/2023 11:54:20 PM EDT
[#46]
Quote HistoryLol we had that one. Remember turning the little plastic dials to set the timers? |
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Posted: 6/8/2023 11:57:49 PM EDT
[#47]
Ummm yeah, so what?
It gave me the ability to save some shows. It was great! |
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Posted: 6/8/2023 11:59:04 PM EDT
[#48]
I worked at Radio shack in 1985 or so. My boss was stoked about all the money we were going to make selling $700 VCRs. He stacked up a bunch like a fort by the front door, added a banner and pointed lights at VCR stonehenge
Two hours later some guy walks in and blacks out and falls face 1st into the display. New VCRs flying everywhere. I Lol'd |
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Posted: 6/9/2023 12:06:57 AM EDT
[#49]
How many people remember being the remote? Hey kid, change the channel, hey kid, play that back.
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Posted: 6/9/2023 12:11:54 AM EDT
[#50]
Quote HistoryQuoted: My boss paid $17000 for one in 2002. Pioneer 50”. Bought at Best Buy. One year later I bought the exact same tv from plasmahouse.com for $5000. The first one I installed for a customer was a Fujitsu. 40” or a little smaller and weighed a freaking ton. It took two of us to lift it onto the wall mount. It had a separate control box and a big ass cable that ran to it. (Very similar to the early Pioneer) They paid in the mid 20s for it and I was nervous as hell installing it. |
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