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Check out those prices! That Atari 800 at $699 would be $2,150 today adjusted for inflation. I guess it was pretty capable but today you could have a hell of a

Check out those prices! That Atari 800 at $699 would be $2,150 today adjusted for inflation. I guess it was pretty capable but today you could have a hell of a computer for that price! The sewing machine at $300 is $920 today and looks basic as heck. I bought a computerized sewing machine last year for $400 which sews 40 stitches and is basically automated. You could get a basic Singer today for 85 bucks. Those microwaves would come in at about $1,200 in today’s dollars. Most of us spend about $50 on one today, granted the quality is probably crap. How did people afford to buy anything back then? I recall my parents getting the Beta Max player, big 30” TV and satellite dish back in the early 1980s (we lived in the country). Throw in a stereo and a few kitchen appliances and I think it would rival what they paid for our house!

refurb 4y ago
Yup, I remember my parents being very frugal but then realized they bought an Intellivision for us kids that cost $400 in the mid-80s, when the median household income was ~$20k. With household incomes being almost $70k today, that's like spending $1400 on a video game system today.
- Clent 4y ago
  This era had something called "layaway" -- put a percentage down and then you could make random incremental payments and take it home when it was fully paid for. This was used much more frequently than children of the era might remember.
- joezydeco 4y ago
  What's the price of a decent gaming PC these days? About the same?
  - HNDen21 4y ago
    I still remember what I paid for a PC in 1997.... $3500 for a dell with 128MB of ram, 400 MHz Pentium II, 10MB HD, zip drive, 21 inch monitor... My wife's company paid for half of it.. otherwise would have bough a cheaper one... 2 years later you could buy all that for less than half with a 1GHZ P III
  - justsomehnguy 4y ago
    Define 'decent'. Since ~ 1995 a decent PC (runs everything, not a mind blowing rig) were always around $2000 with monitor, with a sharp decline to $1000 around late '00 and a slight increase since then but there is nothing a $200 GPU with a decent CPU and enough amount of RAM can't what a rig $4000+ can't do, only slower.
- dicknuckle 4y ago
  Which people often do with PC builds. Not much different in terms of cost.
  - justsomehnguy 4y ago
    Depends. If my memory serves me well, I did a $320 build somewhere in ~2010 for a friend. For the giggles I launched F.E.A.R. on it. It worked.
samch 4y ago
Just from my memories, we didn’t have as much stuff competing for our income. There were no cell phones or ISP bills, and we didn’t have cable TV either. This made it easier to save a little bit every month to afford these more expensive items. It really was a simpler time. Also, if a sewing machine or microwave broke, you would get it repaired rather than replaced with a new one. It was expected that these big ticket items were long-term purchases. Because of that, people tended to care a bit more about the reputation of the brand and how easily you could get things serviced. Sears, for example, had service centers everywhere.
- throwaway0a5e 4y ago
  You also didn't have the internet hype machine (i.e. people with no experience in whatever you're asking about who feel compelled to answer anyway) telling you that you that your off brand blender with 99% the MBTF of the name brand one is vastly inferior.
  - stickfigure 4y ago
    The television advertising hype machine was running full force in the 80s, and most people watched hours of television every day. Do not imagine that information was more reliable back then. Despite the internet's imperfections, it is much easier to find good product information now.
    - throwaway0a5e 4y ago
      The TV commercial was trying to sell you something and you knew it. You don't know whether the moron on HN/Reddit/whatever actually believes what they're saying about a product or is lying to you to justify their own purchase. You can find product specs much easier these days but subjective product information is no easier to come by. Well, it's easier to come by, but you can't easily pick it out from the sea of BS.
- antiterra 4y ago
  I knew of a decent number of people with cable TV in the early 80s, but it was also not uncommon to have a powered antenna on the roof that you would rotate to the ideal orientation to receive a channel via a dial. I do remember a long period of time where it was common to rent the VCR along with the VHS video tape containing the movie you wanted to watch. This was even a thing for the Nintendo 64.
Lendal 4y ago
Go and live out in the country for a few months. Take nothing with you but the clothes on your back. You'll be amazed. You don't really need all the stuff you think you need. From my perspective growing up in the 70's if you had a microwave, a sewing machine, and an Atari machine, you were wealthy. This video is good evidence of that.
- SoftTalker 4y ago
  Very true. Growing up in the 1970s, we did not have a computer. I wrote papers and reports for school using a typewriter. We did not have a microwave. We did not have a dishwasher. We had a 14" TV. Home music system was a record player. No video games at home. The phone was mounted on the wall, provided by the phone company, shared by everyone in the house. We were very much middle class, my parents were probably more frugal than most but this was pretty typical of all my friends.
tyingq 4y ago
The low prices for bigger ticket items like college tuition and houses more than made up the difference. Yes, even after adjusting for inflation.
JustSomeNobody 4y ago
> How did people afford to buy anything back then? Because that was pretty much all you bought. Things were, indeed, simpler then. People didn't need McMansions to hold all their shit.
alamortsubite 4y ago
Yes, and those prices likely didn't include any peripherals. If you wanted a tape drive ("program recorder"), floppy drive, or modem you paid extra.
NonNefarious 4y ago
Remember that an Apple at the time, which lacked a great many of the Atari's capabilities, was about double that.
bluedino 4y ago
> Those microwaves would come in at about $1,200 in today’s dollars. Most of us spend about $50 on one today, granted the quality is probably crap. The family microwave when I was a kid was a Magnavox Carousel. It was BIG. It had a very simple dial to set the time and power. I despise todays kitchen appliances with membrane keypads and having to hit TIME 2 0 0 COOK My parents only got rid of that thing recently.
smm11 4y ago
I've mentioned a time or two that if you think it's a recession now, good thing you didn't experience the mid-70s or early-80s. And inflation? We bought stuff like a microwave, or TV, or game system maybe once, years apart.
api 4y ago
> How did people afford to buy anything back then? Gadgets and appliances were a lot more costly back then but housing, tuition, health care, and food were all quite a bit cheaper. We've had 30+ years of "disinflation" or "in-deflation" which is high inflation in everything you need and deflation in everything else. The common denominator in the things that have inflated is that they're hard to outsource.
- kube-system 4y ago
  Food was not cheaper back then, it is cheaper now. The food market is much more global and mechanized than it was in the 80s. When I was younger, "imported food" was a novelty because the local in-season food was all you could normally get. Now it's (hilariously) the opposite.
  - api 4y ago
    I stand a bit corrected on food but I think tuition and health care and especially housing are not debatable. Housing is particularly bad and overwhelms any improvements in food.
hinkley 4y ago
I learned about microwave ovens at my grandma's house. We couldn't afford one. She had one that was so old it had dials on it. https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_214291 https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nma... Given the bits of family finances I heard I'm sure she bought it new, not used. She had a stove the size of a fridge tipped over too. It had its own wall in the kitchen. I have never seen its like in any other house, movie or TV show (I did at one point rent a house that had the oven from Bewitched in it as recently as 2010. That was a weird beast of an oven. Burned the fuck out of my hand when I accidentally set it to 'broil' and touched the glass to see if it was on. Luckily it was my left hand but still)
- tinus_hn 4y ago
  For modern microwave ovens, the dials are actually the most expensive parts. The alternative computerized fake keys and display are much cheaper.
snorkel 4y ago
The microwave was relatively new back then, but it was so useful that everyone was willing to save up for one. Sewing machines and Atari 800 … not so much. Atari 2600 was worth the expense except for Pac Man and E.T. This was some years before consumer goods all being made in China and sold at bigger box stores and online at much lower cost. Sears was never seen as a bargain hunters store, and alas it didn’t last in the age of low margin consumer goods retailers.
kube-system 4y ago
The lower prices we pay now are the result of decades of outsourcing, automation, and value engineering. Back in the day, your average family didn't pay $1,200 for a microwave, they went without. We didn't have a microwave, or a dishwasher, or most of the other kitchen appliances people now enjoy. Those things were for rich people. We cooked popcorn on the stove and washed the dishes in the sink afterwards.

refurb 4y ago

Yup, I remember my parents being very frugal but then realized they bought an Intellivision for us kids that cost $400 in the mid-80s, when the median household income was ~$20k. With household incomes being almost $70k today, that's like spending $1400 on a video game system today.

Clent 4y ago
This era had something called "layaway" -- put a percentage down and then you could make random incremental payments and take it home when it was fully paid for. This was used much more frequently than children of the era might remember.
joezydeco 4y ago
What's the price of a decent gaming PC these days? About the same?
- HNDen21 4y ago
  I still remember what I paid for a PC in 1997.... $3500 for a dell with 128MB of ram, 400 MHz Pentium II, 10MB HD, zip drive, 21 inch monitor... My wife's company paid for half of it.. otherwise would have bough a cheaper one... 2 years later you could buy all that for less than half with a 1GHZ P III
- justsomehnguy 4y ago
  Define 'decent'. Since ~ 1995 a decent PC (runs everything, not a mind blowing rig) were always around $2000 with monitor, with a sharp decline to $1000 around late '00 and a slight increase since then but there is nothing a $200 GPU with a decent CPU and enough amount of RAM can't what a rig $4000+ can't do, only slower.
dicknuckle 4y ago
Which people often do with PC builds. Not much different in terms of cost.
- justsomehnguy 4y ago
  Depends. If my memory serves me well, I did a $320 build somewhere in ~2010 for a friend. For the giggles I launched F.E.A.R. on it. It worked.

samch 4y ago

Just from my memories, we didn’t have as much stuff competing for our income. There were no cell phones or ISP bills, and we didn’t have cable TV either. This made it easier to save a little bit every month to afford these more expensive items. It really was a simpler time. Also, if a sewing machine or microwave broke, you would get it repaired rather than replaced with a new one. It was expected that these big ticket items were long-term purchases. Because of that, people tended to care a bit more about the reputation of the brand and how easily you could get things serviced. Sears, for example, had service centers everywhere.

throwaway0a5e 4y ago
You also didn't have the internet hype machine (i.e. people with no experience in whatever you're asking about who feel compelled to answer anyway) telling you that you that your off brand blender with 99% the MBTF of the name brand one is vastly inferior.
- stickfigure 4y ago
  The television advertising hype machine was running full force in the 80s, and most people watched hours of television every day. Do not imagine that information was more reliable back then. Despite the internet's imperfections, it is much easier to find good product information now.
  - throwaway0a5e 4y ago
    The TV commercial was trying to sell you something and you knew it. You don't know whether the moron on HN/Reddit/whatever actually believes what they're saying about a product or is lying to you to justify their own purchase. You can find product specs much easier these days but subjective product information is no easier to come by. Well, it's easier to come by, but you can't easily pick it out from the sea of BS.
antiterra 4y ago
I knew of a decent number of people with cable TV in the early 80s, but it was also not uncommon to have a powered antenna on the roof that you would rotate to the ideal orientation to receive a channel via a dial. I do remember a long period of time where it was common to rent the VCR along with the VHS video tape containing the movie you wanted to watch. This was even a thing for the Nintendo 64.

Lendal 4y ago

Go and live out in the country for a few months. Take nothing with you but the clothes on your back. You'll be amazed. You don't really need all the stuff you think you need. From my perspective growing up in the 70's if you had a microwave, a sewing machine, and an Atari machine, you were wealthy. This video is good evidence of that.

SoftTalker 4y ago
Very true. Growing up in the 1970s, we did not have a computer. I wrote papers and reports for school using a typewriter. We did not have a microwave. We did not have a dishwasher. We had a 14" TV. Home music system was a record player. No video games at home. The phone was mounted on the wall, provided by the phone company, shared by everyone in the house. We were very much middle class, my parents were probably more frugal than most but this was pretty typical of all my friends.

tyingq 4y ago

The low prices for bigger ticket items like college tuition and houses more than made up the difference. Yes, even after adjusting for inflation.

JustSomeNobody 4y ago

> How did people afford to buy anything back then? Because that was pretty much all you bought. Things were, indeed, simpler then. People didn't need McMansions to hold all their shit.

alamortsubite 4y ago

Yes, and those prices likely didn't include any peripherals. If you wanted a tape drive ("program recorder"), floppy drive, or modem you paid extra.

NonNefarious 4y ago

Remember that an Apple at the time, which lacked a great many of the Atari's capabilities, was about double that.

bluedino 4y ago

> Those microwaves would come in at about $1,200 in today’s dollars. Most of us spend about $50 on one today, granted the quality is probably crap. The family microwave when I was a kid was a Magnavox Carousel. It was BIG. It had a very simple dial to set the time and power. I despise todays kitchen appliances with membrane keypads and having to hit TIME 2 0 0 COOK My parents only got rid of that thing recently.

smm11 4y ago

I've mentioned a time or two that if you think it's a recession now, good thing you didn't experience the mid-70s or early-80s. And inflation? We bought stuff like a microwave, or TV, or game system maybe once, years apart.

api 4y ago

> How did people afford to buy anything back then? Gadgets and appliances were a lot more costly back then but housing, tuition, health care, and food were all quite a bit cheaper. We've had 30+ years of "disinflation" or "in-deflation" which is high inflation in everything you need and deflation in everything else. The common denominator in the things that have inflated is that they're hard to outsource.

kube-system 4y ago
Food was not cheaper back then, it is cheaper now. The food market is much more global and mechanized than it was in the 80s. When I was younger, "imported food" was a novelty because the local in-season food was all you could normally get. Now it's (hilariously) the opposite.
- api 4y ago
  I stand a bit corrected on food but I think tuition and health care and especially housing are not debatable. Housing is particularly bad and overwhelms any improvements in food.

hinkley 4y ago

I learned about microwave ovens at my grandma's house. We couldn't afford one. She had one that was so old it had dials on it. https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_214291 https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nma... Given the bits of family finances I heard I'm sure she bought it new, not used. She had a stove the size of a fridge tipped over too. It had its own wall in the kitchen. I have never seen its like in any other house, movie or TV show (I did at one point rent a house that had the oven from Bewitched in it as recently as 2010. That was a weird beast of an oven. Burned the fuck out of my hand when I accidentally set it to 'broil' and touched the glass to see if it was on. Luckily it was my left hand but still)

tinus_hn 4y ago
For modern microwave ovens, the dials are actually the most expensive parts. The alternative computerized fake keys and display are much cheaper.

snorkel 4y ago

The microwave was relatively new back then, but it was so useful that everyone was willing to save up for one. Sewing machines and Atari 800 … not so much. Atari 2600 was worth the expense except for Pac Man and E.T. This was some years before consumer goods all being made in China and sold at bigger box stores and online at much lower cost. Sears was never seen as a bargain hunters store, and alas it didn’t last in the age of low margin consumer goods retailers.

kube-system 4y ago

The lower prices we pay now are the result of decades of outsourcing, automation, and value engineering. Back in the day, your average family didn't pay $1,200 for a microwave, they went without. We didn't have a microwave, or a dishwasher, or most of the other kitchen appliances people now enjoy. Those things were for rich people. We cooked popcorn on the stove and washed the dishes in the sink afterwards.