Retro Scan of the Week: “10 Megabyte Hard Disk: $3,495”

May 1st, 2006 by Benj Edwards
NES Power Glove Manual

Before you get excited about the low, low price for ~10,000,000 bytes of random-access magnetic data storage, make sure you read the fine print. Turns out the $3,495 price is for a refurbished unit only. The new 10 megabyte hard disk retails for a whopping $4,495. Oh, and there’s another catch: the price is in 1980 dollars (US). Adjusted to 2005 dollars, that comes to around $11,415.77. Ouch.

And this isn’t one of your 3.5″, half-height 5 1/4″ or even full-height 5 1/4″ hard drives either. No; it’s a hulking, old-school, non-Winchester jobbie that takes interchangeable disk cartridges.

I want one.



11 Responses to “Retro Scan of the Week: “10 Megabyte Hard Disk: $3,495””

  1. Jakanden Says:

    Holy crap lol

  2. The World of Jakanden » You think PC parts are expensive now.. Says:

    […] Thanks RedWolf […]

  3. RadarScope Says:

    Good thing you put the ‘humor’ tag on that one. That is funny. Really makes you appreciate the adoption of technology by the average person over the years, though.

  4. S Beall Says:

    In 1985 Ampex came out with a Capricorn drive that sported 330Meg
    of capacity in a small 90 pound Head disk assy, 16 inch platters and 1/3 horse 2400 rpm synchronous motor to spin it all up….I won’t even go into
    the CDC RSD-80 or XMD-825 and how much fun they were.

  5. Terry Says:

    Awesome. I use an old hard drive as an ottoman at home. It weighs well over 50lbs, is two feet high, and three feet across. I think it was about 10megs of storage, maybe 50.

    Kids these days…

  6. 10MB Hard Disk for $3,495 » gadgetsrss Says:

    […] That’s right, a 10MB hard disk for only $3,495 back in 1980 — and it’s refurbished to boot. A brand new unit would have cost you $4,495. If adjusted to 2005 dollars, that’s $11,415.77 (new)/$8876.11 (refurbished). View the full-sized advertisement here. And this isn’t one of your 3.5″, half-height 5 1/4″ or even full-height 5 1/4″ hard drives either. No; it’s a hulking, old-school, non-Winchester jobbie that takes interchangeable disk cartridges by gadgetsrss | posted in Weird, Computers Trackback URL | Comment RSS Feed Tag at del.icio.us | Incoming links […]

  7. Bjorn Nitmo Says:

    I love Vintage Computing and Gaming and it bugs me that other sites rip off stories without giving credit. I noticed a clone of this entry on OhGizmo! today which gave credit to TechEBlog who doesn’t give credit to VC&G. ARGH! If a newspaper ripped off a story from another newspaper everyone would freak out so why is it okay for other blogs to steal VC&G’s stories?

  8. RedWolf Says:

    Yeah.. it’s a shame that people copy other people’s work without proper credit.

  9. mmmj Says:

    And to think that my 500-GB internal hard drive only cost $200 (about $100 back then).

    http://www.techdreams.org/2007/11/10-mb-hard-disk-for-3398-3495-hard.html

    Charles Babbage would probably turn in his grave if he saw the 10-MB hard drive, and the scientists at ENIAC that are dead now would probably turn in their graves if they saw computer nowadays.

  10. R.P. Says:

    To think that I actually went to school to learn how to work on these things. Back in the 80’s if you had 2 of these chained together you had “mass” storage.

    Along with a system that had 16K of memory, an 8 port serial adapter, 150 cps dot matrix printers, now you’re talking!

  11. Miriam toney Says:

    Hey there just wanted to give you a quick heads up.
    The words in your article seem to be running off the screen in Firefox.
    I’m not sure if this is a format issue or something to do with browser compatibility but I figured I’d post to let you know.
    The layout look great though! Hope you get the issue solved soon. Kudos

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