Historical memory prices 1960-2026 • Hacker News Board

Re: Historical memory prices 1960-2026

#71

Post by ssl-3 » Mon, Jun 29, 2026, 1:46 AM UTC

RachelF wrote: post #64

Gigachad wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A useful task isn't a fixed thing though. Everything the 2012 computer did you can still do today with the same amount of ram we had back then.

No, not if it involves a web browser. Most web sites today will not work on a 2012 web browser. The PC stopped existing in isolation, for most useful tasks now, it needs an Internet connection.

I use a Thinkpad T530 for reasons that are very important to me. It is the only laptop that I have, so it is what I use for every manner of portable computing.

It still does all the things I want it to do, including using modern websites with modern browsers on modern operating systems (including Windows 11).

The T530 was released in June of 2012.

Re: Historical memory prices 1960-2026

#72

Post by altairprime » Mon, Jun 29, 2026, 1:54 AM UTC

Unfortunately, this is unadjusted prices, and this failed to annotate where the cartel years and when the cartel was 'broken up'. Not a bad assignment's work but clearly lacking the domain awareness necessary to report the complete story through graphs.

Re: Historical memory prices 1960-2026

#73

Post by jagged-chisel » Mon, Jun 29, 2026, 1:56 AM UTC

linzhangrun wrote: post #66

Note that the chart scales by powers of 10

So, it’s on a logarithmic scale

Re: Historical memory prices 1960-2026

#74

Post by Aurornis » Mon, Jun 29, 2026, 2:11 AM UTC

mancerayder wrote: post #62

If my memory serves me correct (no pun intended), when I was a kid I remember bugging my mom to buy me like 2 or 4 1 MB modules, it was at least 50 bucks or 100 bucks each. Now everyone's going to talk about how cheap everything is by comparison - but someone needs to talk about how oppressively hungry browsers and OSes are compared to in the past. This is no HIMEM.SYS

There’s been a sharp divergence in memory requirements. Talk to developers and they think that 32GB is the bare minimum these days, with 64GB or more preferred. They’ll point to Electron and Chrome tabs and everything else.

Then you sit down with an average computer user on their 8GB RAM MacBook Neo and they’re in love with how fast and smooth it is, even with their chrome tabs and the company Slack up and Spotify in the background.

I still have an older 8GB machine to kick around with on the go when I don’t want to haul the expensive laptop. It’s fine, even for a lot of development.

Re: Historical memory prices 1960-2026

#75

Post by xeromal » Mon, Jun 29, 2026, 2:20 AM UTC

ElFitz wrote: post #35

levocardia wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, you really need "dollars per amount of RAM you need for standard computing tasks." Windows 11 requires a bare minimum of 4 GB of RAM, Window 10 only needed 1 GB.

I still don't get where all that memory goes.

For windows 11, it seesms to be antivirus scanning. That's what's always blowing up my RAM

Re: Historical memory prices 1960-2026

#76

Post by Gigachad » Mon, Jun 29, 2026, 2:22 AM UTC

IshKebab wrote: post #14

anonymousiam wrote: post #9

It certainly doesn't look as bad as it really is when presented on a log scale chart.

Going up is worse though because software has gradually got less and less memory efficient.

It'll get more efficient now people aren't upgrading. Software will be exactly as efficient as it needs to be to run on most peoples computers.

Re: Historical memory prices 1960-2026

#77

Post by omgwtfbyobbq » Mon, Jun 29, 2026, 2:23 AM UTC

Fr0styMatt88 wrote: post #60

Were we really paying more for RAM per GB in the late 2010s than we are now? Just really doesn't feel like it. Interesting.

We're paying more now than we paid in the late 2010s, but less than we paid in the early 2010s.

Re: Historical memory prices 1960-2026

#78

Post by pishpash » Mon, Jun 29, 2026, 2:29 AM UTC

fernly wrote: post #3

Says, not inflation-adjusted. With reason; adjusting those 1960-1980 prices for inflation would make the graph a lot taller. Pricing "per GB" before 1990 is unrealistic, though; nobody thought in GB or purchased GB quantities, or conceived of GB systems. I remember a moment circa 1973 when I saw an IBM CE about to do an upgrade on a 370 system at Cal Berkeley. He had a box with several carefully-packed, large circuit…

Also maybe you want price per average program footprint size...

Re: Historical memory prices 1960-2026

#79

Post by pishpash » Mon, Jun 29, 2026, 2:32 AM UTC

markus_zhang wrote: post #68

mancerayder wrote: post #62

If my memory serves me correct (no pun intended), when I was a kid I remember bugging my mom to buy me like 2 or 4 1 MB modules, it was at least 50 bucks or 100 bucks each. Now everyone's going to talk about how cheap everything is by comparison - but someone needs to talk about how oppressively hungry browsers and OSes are compared to in the past. This is no HIMEM.SYS

I think it would be better if one has the discipline to just use older machines and play older games and only visit certain websites that can be visited on older version of browsers. A second-hand 16GB laptop can go a long way. But yeah that probably sucks from time to time, especially for young people.

You can do a lot on old machines but developers also need to optimize a bit. Youtube almost plays on a 20-year-old machine, which means with some effort it'll play just fine. Most the other sites work just fine.

Re: Historical memory prices 1960-2026

#80

Post by SilverSlash » Mon, Jun 29, 2026, 2:39 AM UTC

This is extremely misleading and not very useful. It makes little sense to use pricing per GB during decades when RAM was at most in MBs. In that case, why not talk about price per TB or PB? Then the line will look pretty much flat and horizontal.