Denys writes:

> Oh crap, now I have to disagree with Wirt.  He could not have spent
$165,000
> on
>  a series 33 in 1977, or a million dollars, for the simple reason that in
> 1977,
>  the series 33 did not exist.  It came out in 1979.

I just went and looked at the nameplate. Denys is correct. I misspoke. The
nameplate date has February, 1979 on it.


> I installed the first series 33 in Canada in the spring of 1979
>  and the thing cost about CND$145,000 at the time.  That included the
console,
>  256KB of RAM, a 120MB disk and about 4 ADCC ports.  We added a 7970E Low
Boy
>  tape drive almost immediately.  I do not remember what the rate of
exchange
> was
> at that time, but I think Wirt's estimate is somewhat high, unless he had
> lots of other stuff on the order.

The original order consisted of a Series 33 with 256KB of RAM (which had to
be upgraded to 512KB almost immediately), a 120MB HP7925 disk, an HP7970E
tape drive, and an HP2608A printer, plus training for two at HP in Cupertino
(although only one person was ever sent to training). All of these components
are still here, in one room, and still partially connected to one another,
and could be reassembled in just a few minutes into a working system.

I don't remember the exchange rate in 1979 either, but it seems to me that it
was fairly close to 1:1, Canadian to US dollars. If that's true, then my
memory regarding the cost of the system is likely to be quite accurate. The
HP2608A printer, by itself, was an expensive item, something on the order of
$15,000.

Indeed, if you take Denys' estimated initial cost for his system
(CND$145,000), add in the tape drive and printer, upgrade the memory, and
account for an exchange difference, my originally quoted price of US$165,000
may even be a bit low.

Wirt Atmar