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Comment by igouy | Hacker News Reader

> Price is one of the main factors, for sure.

March 7, 1988 — "Smalltalk/V 286 is available now and costs $199.95, the company said. Registered users of Digitalk's Smalltalk/V can upgrade for $75 until June 1."

https://books.google.com/books?id=CD8EAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA25&ots=...

> … I can tell you, it was very, very slow…

And of-course you used the Smalltalk profiler to fix that?

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That's the developer license. The price to deploy was... close to absurd.

No, $199.95. You must be thinking of different software from a different vendor.

Here's the "Smalltalk/V 286" Digitalk License Statement —

http://stephane.ducasse.free.fr/FreeBooks/SmalltalkVTutorial...

And by 1991, with Smalltalk/V Windows and Smalltalk/V PM — "Smalltalk/V code is portable between the Windows and the OS/2 versions. And the resulting application carries no runtime charges. All for just $499.95."

(Advert on the last page of "The Smalltalk Report")

https://rmod-files.lille.inria.fr/Archives/TheSmalltalkRepor...

"Digitalk, Inc. announced new versions of Smalltalk/V DOS and Smalltalk/V Mac that include royalty-free runtime. Smalltalk/V Windows and Smalltalk/V PM are already royalty free. … Prior to this new policy, there was a per-copy charge for runtime applications."

September 1991 "The Smalltalk Report" p25

https://rmod-files.lille.inria.fr/Archives/TheSmalltalkRepor...

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