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A good point, so I just looked it up. This April 1991 ad [0] shows 386 desktops with a hard drive at around $2000 in 1991 prices, and the comparable 486 models with a hard drive start at $7300.

To put that in perspective, $2000 in 1991 is $3700 in today’s dollars, and the 486 would be a staggering $13,500 today.

[0] https://books.google.com/books/about/InfoWorld.html?id=0FAEA...

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Interesting, I do remember 2000+ dollar computers in that time period, but $3700!?

Although '91 is earlier than I got back into PCs, strongest memories are probably more around '93, '94. The 486SX might have been the ~$2000 computer at that time. I remember later having the AMD 386/40 and 486/100 made better performance affordable.

At that time you could get a moderate 386 system at Walmart or Radio Shack for around $800. These were pretty common consumer systems for kids just on their way to college.

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