Is the Ipod really too expensive?

I remember when they first came out, 20 meg hard drives were considered huge ("Why do you need so much space? You'll never fill it even half up!").

So 160 gig would be 8,000 first-generation hard drives. I forgot how much they sold for, but you can assume at least $150 (in early-to-mid 1980s dollars). That would be $960,000, or $1,873,470 in today's dollars.

So yeah, you got a deal!

 

I like my 4-gig iPod. Excellent audio quality. Great for audio books, podcasted radio programs, and Teaching Company lectures. But I cannot imagine watching movies on an iPod's microscopic screen!

 

My first hard drive was an RK07 and held (drum roll please) a whopping 256KB. Note that was KB, not MB. The RL01 was a huge step forward at 1MB, then the giant RL02 at 2MB. Whoooeeee, how will we ever use all of that space?!? Times have changed.

Tom

 

the concept of watching video on an ipod evades me. i didn't even know they made ipods with hard drives that large! i'm out of the loop i guess.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(qbee42 @ Oct 3 2007, 12:37 PM) [snapback]520682[/snapback]</div>

I'm confused. According to the service manual, it looks like it held the equivalent of 13 MB (8-bit words). Yeah, I know they used 16- and (shudder) 18-bit words, but a bit's a bit.

Also, while I couldn't imagine watching, say "Pirates of the Caribbean" on my iPod, I have used it to watch teevee shows I was curious about. Also, I downloaded some Pixar shorts because, hey, it's Luxo Jr! And some Homestar Runner shorts because: A) They're free, and B) Just because I can.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(burritos @ Oct 2 2007, 12:33 PM) [snapback]520453[/snapback]</div>

I'm going to guess he had a position like floor sweeper, since that isn't anywhere close to reality.

In 1985 you could buy a Fujitsu Eagle SMD hard drive, which had a formatted capacity of around 380MB, for $10,000. It fit in a standard 19" rack and was about 11" tall. I remember this because I bought one at one of my first jobs out of college. You could buy these with Emulex Unibus SMD disk controllers that emulated DEC hardware, for a much lower price than the DEC disk drives and disk controllers. Sun sold these with their early 68K based workstations, like the 68010-based Sun 2s and 68020-based Sun 3s, except with Multibus and VMEbus disk controllers.

Three Eagles = $30,000 and fit in a single 36" tall 19" rack. Yeah, that's real close to a room full of equipment and a million dollars for 1GB.

A few years later, maybe around 1988 I bought myself a CDC Wren III 167MB hard disk drive from a surplus computer store. I paid around $800 for it. So in about three years the price dropped from $26 per megabyte per storage to closer to $5.

 

And now its around $.00001 per meg. Since you can now buy a 500gig hdd for around $100.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(priusenvy @ Oct 3 2007, 02:00 PM) [snapback]520752[/snapback]</div>

Ah, but that's for a mini. For a PC, hard drives were still pretty expensive.

 

Heck, I'm looking at getting a USB flash drive. Don't need much, just for install files and the like. I walk into Sam's Club and see I can get 4 528mb drives for one price and up to 8 Gigs for $79.

I understand I can get a 1 Gig chip for my E815 so I could store a TV show on that. Just amazing.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(aaf709 @ Oct 3 2007, 01:16 PM) [snapback]520805[/snapback]</div>

Ah, if only there were a TV show worth storing!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Oct 3 2007, 12:22 PM) [snapback]520674[/snapback]</div>

It's not bad at all. Someone else mentioned that the resolution is high. Probably just as high as NTSC TV.

I just held my iPhone (at arms length) up to my TV (across my living room). The iPhone screen looks just as big.

 

I can remember paying $200 for a high-end Sony Walkman in 1990. I don't think $299 is too much to pay for an iPod. But I like the $79 iPod shuffle the best. It holds a lot of music, has a long battery life, and it's tiny. I just turn it on and go. It shuffles the music, which is cool, and if I don't like the song I just click next to hear another one. I got one for free and I like it a lot more than I thought I would. The old 60gb video iPod stays at home most of the time, but does go with me on trips.

 

I don't like apple products and I really don't like apple software. For one reason, I downloaded 20 songs from iTunes a while back when you could get a free download with Pepsi caps, but now, none of the songs I downloaded will work because I don't 'have the liscense' for them. I used to be able to play them, but several months ago, I couldn't anymore (didn't I own the songs for my limited use of them in digital format only playable on apple craptastic software???). Anyways, I later found and downloaded them from one of those most likely illegal peer-to-peer file sharing networks so that I could listen to the music again. I don't trust itunes enough to purchase songs from there now.

My wife has an iPod, and I have gotten to know it, and I have used it, but I don't really see what the hype is all about yet. I don't care much for the physical interface, and I hate the apple software that is used to manage the songs, but it does hold a lot of music and is easily portable. But the bottom line is that I would rather listen to the buses and cars on the street than spend 1-4 day's pay on an apple product.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(MarkMN @ Oct 3 2007, 05:26 PM) [snapback]520861[/snapback]</div>

Mark,

Your real beef should be with DRM (Digital Rights Management) not Apple.

It is almost impossible to make DRM user friendly - by concept. With DRM, control over your purchases is now made by RIAA and MPAA. Not you. Not even Apple.

Fortunately some of the recording industry is starting to realize this, and are licensing iTunes and other stores to sell music without DRM. Good 'ol MP3s. Which will play on anything. Forever. Kinda like an old CD!

 

I have over 155GB of music on my iTunes. And with the program, there is only 148GB of space on this new 160GB iPod. Yet, I got it, and now have almost all my music on it. So it's worth it to me.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Stev0 @ Oct 3 2007, 08:40 AM) [snapback]520625[/snapback]</div>

well steveo, we might want to redo the math a bit.

IBM price for a 5 MB hard drive was $1700 in 1982. i have a price list for their PC. but then again, prices do change... a 512 kB RAM upgrade was $800

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(burritos @ Oct 4 2007, 10:24 AM) [snapback]521250[/snapback]</div>

i had 2300 songs on mine. only took 10 months to go thru them once. but only listened to them when was in car with SO. all other times driving alone, i listened to other ipod that only had podcasts on it.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(burritos @ Oct 4 2007, 10:24 AM) [snapback]521250[/snapback]</div>

Probably longer than the average person keeps an electronic device before throwing it away in favor of something better.