Money | Life Lessons | Technology
Assembling My First PC in 1992 Taught Me Something About the Slippery Slope of “Just a Little Bit More”
Lots of small upgrades add up to a big price increase — and it’s still true today
When it comes to buying phones or computers, my two teenage sons are very different. One buys only what is necessary, and the other gets carried away by going up-market, only to regret his purchases later.
The idea of getting swept along and going for too high a specification made me think back to the first PC that I assembled.
Back in July 1992, I wanted a faster PC-compatible computer than the 11 MHz add-on board inside my Amiga, so I assembled a much faster machine capable of running Windows 3.1.
Even though it is laughable by today’s standards, a 25 MHz 486SX processor felt fast in those days.
I still have the invoice — you have to check out the prices! How about a 52 MB (0.052 GB) hard drive for £139 + VAT?
Things were different in those days
It was an era when I bought computer parts by looking through magazines, making a list, then phoning up to place an order.
Each category had many choices, and the prices varied over a wide range.
For example, the motherboard and processor were typically anywhere from £70 to £700, with several steps along the way. In my case, I could have saved £80 by settling for a slower 386 chip, or gone for the faster 486DX for ‘just’ £80 extra.
It was a similar story with things like hard drives, RAM, and monitors.
The point is that, for each individual component, the next price point was not all that much more compared to the total price.
That led to this kind of thinking:
“If I’m paying out all this money, I might as well spend a little bit more and get a faster processor and a bigger hard drive!”
Before long, every single component gets nudged up one or two steps, and you end up with a computer costing twice as much.
I learned to keep my eye on the total price and avoid temptation, and I think that lesson still holds true today.
Thank you for reading! 💛