Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

It's very simple: Because these machines were for the most part cost-cut to the very bone for people to be able to afford buying them at all.

When I bought my first Amiga, an Amiga 500 was the most I could afford. When I could afford to add a (sidecar) harddrive, that was all I could afford. If I were to wait until I could afford an Amiga 2000 and an internal harddrive, that might have been cheaper than the combination but it would have meant waiting a couple of years to get one at all.

These were the market realities these machines were built for. And, yes, that made it a lot less attractive for machines targeting business customers.

But I'll note not so much because of the cost of the boxes - my first harddrive cost almost as much as Amiga had cost. Used. It'd have been almost as expensive as an expansion card for a big box, because the controller was pretty much a full computer on it's own, and the drive itself was ridiculously expensive.




Join us for AI Startup School this June 16-17 in San Francisco!

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: