with prices being some 25 times higher in 1993 than 1898, for price increase of 2400% over those 95 years.
THE PROJECT GUTENBERG PRICE INDEX FROM 1875 TO 1989
[With estimates up to and including 2010.]
This part contains a short chart of all the prices paid by the Project Gutenberg supporters for drives from 1971 to 1993, and then charts of the Consumer Price Indexes from 1875 to 1989.
The Project Gutenberg Drive Price Chart is about one page long and is followed by a series of charts for each year from 1875- 1989, with a few additional estimates for 1990-1993.
Many of you have seen the figures I have presented as evidence
of the fact that current trends lead to HOLDING THE LIBRARY OF
CONGRESS IN THE PALM OF YOUR HAND WITHIN THE AVERAGE LIFETIME.
[Of course if they will let you HAVE the Library of Congress].
These figures range from the first 5 megabyte hard drives used in our very first mainframe, through the first 5M Apple drive, to the same drive running on an IBM, to our current 1.2G drive that cost less than ANY of our previous drives and has storage for twice as much data.
Of course, since I used only the real prices we paid for drive after drive, it was only a matter of time until the cost/price index would begin to play an important role, and we now have a database of drive prices long enough that the $3,000 price for the Konan 5M External ST506 Apple Hard Drive Kit in 1979 was a mere half of what it would be in today's 1993 dollars. Thus:
The first 5 1/4 hard drive we got [Seagate-ST506] should be at $6,000 in today's pricing index, or, conversely, we should see that the $850 we paid for a Toshiba 1.2G drive is really only:
$425 per 1200 megabytes. . .in 1979 dollars.
The Database of Project Gutenberg Drive Costs: