source: t29-www/en/devices/univac9400/costs.shtm @ 31

Last change on this file since 31 was 31, checked in by sven, 16 years ago

VERSION 5.8.0 GAMMA
===================

Im Rahmen des Zieles, alle Spezialseiten in das Seitendesign zu
integrieren (wie es mit der Univac-Kosten-Seite bereits gemacht
wurde) wurden zunächst alle englischen Extraseiten umgewandelt.

  • Spezialseitenredesign:
    • /en/devices/: Alle Seiten geändert
    • /shared/css/fresh.design.css: Einige Styles dafuer hinzugefuegt.
    • /en/inc/menu.inc.shtm: Extra-Anweisungen hinzugefuegt
    • /en/inc/head.inc.shtm: Fixes
  • Korrektur der Sprachabhängigkeit des Magnetdrahtspeicherbildes:
    • /shared/photos/rechnertechnik/speichermedien/magnetdrahtspeicher.jpg: Neues zweisprachiges Bild generiert
    • /en/computer/storage-media.shtm und /de/rechnertechnik/speichermedien.shtm dafuer geaendert
  • Andere allgemeine Berichtigungen (Fehler, etc.)

-- Sven @ workstation

  • Property svn:keywords set to Id
File size: 7.8 KB
Line 
1<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
2     "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
3<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en">
4<head><!--#set var="title"        value="What was the price one had to pay for an UNIVAC 9400?"
5   --><!--#set var="location"     value="univac-kosten"
6   --><!--#set var="part"         value="extra"
7   --><!--#set var="url_de"       value="geraete/univac9400/kosten.shtm"
8   --><!--#set var="title_de"     value="Wie viel kostete eine UNIVAC 9400?"
9   --><!--#set var="prev"         value="/en/computer/univac9400.shtm"
10   --><!--#set var="prev_title"   value="Univac 9400 overview"
11   --><!--#set var="next"         value=""
12   --><!--#set var="next_title"   value=""
13   --><title>technikum29 - <!--#echo var="title" --></title>
14
15   <!--
16     Some notes about prices:
17
18       * USD to German Mark currency rate: 3,6 DM = 1 US $
19         Taken from http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_Mark#Wechselkurs_zum_US-Dollar
20         with the value of the year 1970
21
22       * Price of a VW bug: 2000 US $
23         Taken from http://dev.technikum29.de/mails/archive/0016.html
24
25       * Problem: Car number must match to german car number. If calulating the right
26         way,
27           German price / (currency rate) = USD price
28           USD price / (USD price of VW bug) = No. of VW bugs
29         you'll get a lower VW bug number.
30         Therefore I calculated the wrong way:
31           No. of VW bugs * (USD price of VW bug) = USD price
32         Which makes the currency rate between USD and German Marks quite strange.
33         But the USD number is always even, thats good ;-)
34
35   -->
36
37    <!--#include virtual="/en/inc/head.inc.shtm" -->
38    <link href="/shared/css/details.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet"/>
39    <meta name="keywords" lang="de" content="" />
40    <meta name="DC.Title" content="technikum29 - <!--#echo var="title" -->" />
41    <style type="text/css">
42      /**
43       * Like the german page original, this site uses, as the first one, the
44       * complete t29 design. Thus it's currently only imitating the whole style,
45       * instead of including the complete menu file, etc.
46       **/
47      .univac-kosten #content {
48        min-height: inherit;
49        margin-bottom: 5px;
50        padding-bottom: 348px;
51      }
52    </style>
53    <meta name="t29.SVN" content="$Id: costs.shtm 31 2008-08-19 16:30:34Z sven $" />
54    <meta name="t29.germanoriginal" content="14.08.2008/v5.8" />
55    <meta name="t29.thistranslation" content="09.08.2008/v5.8.0" />
56    <meta name="t29.comment" content="Only design (Sidebar)" />
57    <!--
58        Changelog of this file:
59          * 14.08.2008/v5.8BETA based on 09.08.2008/v5.8BETA: Initial translatio
60     -->
61</head>
62<body>
63<!--#echo encoding="none" var="heading" -->
64<div id="content">
65    <h2 class="center"><!--#echo var="title" --></h2>
66
67    <p>40 years ago, computer systems were incredibly expensive. The prices in the
68       following abstract are taken from the original UNIVAC price list from 1968
69       to 1970. To visualize what this mainframe is worth, we also investigated the
70       prices of a Volkswagen Type 1 (commonly known as beetle), a typical economy
71       car produced in Germany in the 1960/70s. In 1970, a 55&nbsp;HP model degustated
72       about 6000&nbsp;DM. In the USA, it was selled for approximately 2000 US&nbsp;$.</p>
73
74    <table cellspacing="1" width="100%">
75      <colgroup>
76        <col width="10%" />
77        <col />
78        <col width="15%;" align="right" />
79        <col width="15%" />
80        <col width="20%" />
81      </colgroup>
82      <tr>
83        <th>model number</th>
84        <th>Name</th>
85        <th>price in DM</th>
86        <th>price in US $</th>
87        <th>Number of equivalent Volkswagen beetle</th>
88      </tr>
89      <tr>
90        <td>3019</td>
91        <td>Main processor cabinet (CPU and console)</td>
92        <td>258,000 DM</td>
93        <td>86,000 $</td>
94        <td>43</td>
95      </tr>
96      <tr>
97        <td>7010 *)</td>
98        <td>Plated wire storage  24  KB (minimum)</td>
99        <td>272,000 DM</td>
100        <td>90,000 $</td>
101        <td>45</td>
102      </tr>
103      <tr>
104        <td>7010 *)</td>
105        <td>Plated wire storage  131 KB (maximum)</td>
106        <td>900,000 DM</td>
107        <td>300,000 $</td>
108        <td>150</td>
109      </tr>
110      <tr>
111        <td>716</td>
112        <td>Punch card reader</td>
113        <td>70,000 DM</td>
114        <td>22,000 $</td>
115        <td>11</td>
116      </tr>
117      <tr>
118        <td>768</td>
119        <td>High speed printer</td>
120        <td>252,000 DM</td>
121        <td>84,000 $</td>
122        <td>42</td>
123      </tr>
124      <tr>
125        <td>5024</td>
126        <td>Disk drive controller</td>
127        <td>128,000 DM</td>
128        <td>42,000 $</td>
129        <td>21</td>
130      </tr>
131      <tr>
132        <td>8414 **)</td>
133        <td>Removable disk unit (6 drives)</td>
134        <td>764,000 DM</td>
135        <td>254,000 $</td>
136        <td>127</td>
137      </tr>
138      <tr>
139        <td>5017</td>
140        <td>Tape controller</td>
141        <td>121,000 DM</td>
142        <td>40,000 $</td>
143        <td>20</td>
144      </tr>
145      <tr>
146        <td>861</td>
147        <td>UNISERVO  12  (master)</td>
148        <td>102,000 DM</td>
149        <td>24,000 $</td>
150        <td>17</td>
151      </tr>
152      <tr>
153        <td>861</td>
154        <td>UNISERVO  12  (slave)</td>
155        <td>60,000 DM</td>
156        <td>20,000 $</td>
157        <td>10</td>
158      </tr>
159      <tr>
160        <td>862</td>
161        <td>UNISERVO 16</td>
162        <td>157,000 DM</td>
163        <td>52,000 $</td>
164        <td>26</td>
165      </tr>
166      <tr>
167        <td></td>
168        <td>UNISCOPE 100 (CRT terminal) ***)</td>
169        <td>15,000 DM</td>
170        <td>4,000 $</td>
171        <td>2</td>
172      </tr>
173      <tr>
174        <td></td>
175        <td>Hard drive  (40 MB), 1 unit</td>
176        <td>2,950 DM</td>
177        <td>1,000 $</td>
178        <td>0,5</td>
179      </tr>
180      <tr style="line-height: 200%;">
181        <th></th>
182        <th>Sum (with 10 hard drives) about</th>
183        <th>2,800,000 DM</th>
184        <th>940,000 $</th>
185        <th>470 cars!!</th>
186      </tr>
187    </table>
188
189    <p style="font-size: 90%;">
190      <span style="visibility:hidden;">**</span>*)  We have the semiconductor memory 7028, featuring 262 KB<br/>
191      <span style="visibility:hidden;">*</span>**) We have the successor 8425, with 5 drives<br/>
192      ***)  We have the UNISCOPE 200
193    </p>
194
195    <p>These incredible prices are originated from the very high
196       development costs and the low quantities. The illustration
197       on the right hand shows the curious value comparisation:
198       Arranging all these 470 cars successively would result in a
199       2.3 kilometer long chain of new cars! Therefore computer
200       firms earned quite well at these days and were able to
201       expand very fast.</p>
202
203    <p>The prices for random access memory are quite outstanding.
204       After the development of semiconductor memories at the early
205       1970s, RAM got much cheaper.</p>
206
207    <p>Companies closed deals with UNIVAC for maintenance and paid
208       more than 4,000$. Therefore it was cheaper for them to hire and
209       train own engineers for exclusively this purpose.</p>
210
211    <p>Enterprises could also lease the mainframes from UNIVAC, which
212       was quite common in the early days of EDP. Our mainframe with
213       10 hard drives and fully equipped RAM would cost about
214       18,000 US$ every month. Even at this time machine time was
215       settled to the second, like at today's high end super computers
216       where machine time can be purchased. Thus buying such a mainframe
217       computer was only affordable for very big concerns.</p>
218
219   <!-- absolut positioniertes Bildchen -->
220    <img src="/shared/photos/rechnertechnik/univac/kosten-gleichsetzung.jpg"
221         style="position: absolute; bottom: 5px; right: 0px;"
222         alt="An illustration: One Univac 9400 equals 470 cars!"  />
223
224</div><!--content-->
225<!--#include virtual="/en/inc/menu.inc.shtm" -->
226</body>
227</html>
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