(1988) Introducing the [re-writable] CDROM. Price: $5000

[s043487263]

ahahahah $5000 for one CDROM lol i just got 10 of them for under 10$ im gonna time travel back & become a billionaire

[TheAndroidNerd]

for that cost now you could buy over 30 terrabytesss of hard drives...fyi, i have 4.6 terrabytes

[MoreDanYouKnow]

sounds great. where can i buy one of these? will buying second hand save me any money?

[robloxlover55]

5 thousand Dollars? Are they out of there Fuckin Minds?

[rfvtgbzhn]

@robloxlover55 well, this was in 1988, harddisks where also not cheap at tht time, I guess that a 300MB HDD was about 1000$ back then, so a 5000$ CD-RW drive could have been a good investment if you have to store and rewrite big amounts of data, because you only needed a few disks to save the 5000$ on hard disks or tapes (a disks was available at 100$). And also I guess that the first CD-Rs where not of such a bad quality as most modern CD-Rs, so they could also be used for longtime storage.

[HoneycombAgent]

@robloxlover55 Well heck, even Blu-ray disc drives and media cost that much!

[ggzzbb]

This was probably the transition period when we went from building things that last to replaceable junk. Back in the day whatever you bought was meant to be used for lifetime whether it was a TV, a car, a washing machine or a telephone. That's before technology started advancing so rapidly and the business model adopted was replace instead of upgrade. Now upgrade means change the entire thing like your cellphone for an entirely new one, basically replacing it.

[sanderrodijk]

we hade a single speed cdrom drive it was dangerous to open the cdrom drive, you can be attacked my a cdrom who was flying out of the cassing

[qwert102030]

5000$ WTF!!!!



[xtremeteamcorp]

@qwert102030

I know it made me chuckle too.

[bannanahammer1]

OH SHIT 65 MEGABYTE STORAGE CAPACITY!!! i need that NOW

[talldude123]

@bannanahammer1 650 megabytes! When CD-RW discs first came out, they were 650MB, now they're 700MB.

[furryluv]

lol I just bought a SATA DVD-RW burner for $30!

[ogicabp4u]

@furryluv 30USD you got ripped off...OEM they sell for 20USD!!! They just can't shift the buggers any more...because of Blu Ray and SSD storage and HD storage capacity.

[furryluv]

@ogicabp4u There were several models ranging in price from $20 to over $30. I read reviews for the drives and the $30 one was the best compromise in terms of price and reliability. I'm from Canada though so we're always being charged more than Americans for the same products. Not disagreeing with you though. :3

[ogicabp4u]

@furryluv ...anyway not much in it. DVD RW drives are a cheap as David Cameron these days!!

[barc0deblankblank]

This is about CD-RW technology, hence 650MBs. MO-DISKs as they are called are Magneto-Optical, not plain Optical disks. They were used by professional fields due to their high cost and undying nature. You cannot hurt them, but you probably can't afford them either.

[Hunkola]

I remember the first CD-RW discs were around $10 each......the good ole days!

[adryanv]

Imagine now you can get a burner for less then 30 and a cheap DVD for less then a buck. How much we have moved on.:)

[roflschofel]

@adryanv Imagine now we no longer need to use optical media.

[adryanv]

@roflschofel so true.

[ogicabp4u]

@adryanv I imagine in 2050 people will be saying that about 'nanodiscs' ....complaining about how they can ONLY store every piece of information in the Cosmos since time began ...twice!!

[vartuos21]

Gotta love the hardware sales cycle. Brand new tech starts out ridiculously expensive, only available to the rich, and ever so gradually drops in price until even the lower middle class can afford it, at which point something way better and equally expensive comes out. Hello 3DTV!

The difference with 3DTV, of course, is that they're really not that expensive to manufacture, so they're really just sticking it to consumers. But that's how the cycle works. The rich get new tech first.

[pvx]

@vartuos21 IMO, iit's sometimes better to wait for the price of a technology to drop, because by then, said technology will be much improved and refined (thanks to the manufacturing procedure of "process optimization") and will eventually become a better value and have more capabilities than its first-gen predecessors that the rich early adopters rushed to buy (and in hindsight, get ripped off from :) ).

[slimmdogg420]

@pvx If everyone waited for the price to go down then the development would not advance very fast now would it?If we all thought like that new products would all be doomed from the get go.

[ogicabp4u]

@slimmdogg420 yup...that's why companies like IBM exist! So they can pay top dollar for technology...so the price can drop for us mere mortals. (I believe that's why the company was set up in the first place!)

[MorreskiBear]

I think I got $20,000 worth of these in my spare computer stuff junk box. Yay!

[Yahwehsninja]

changed the world

[nzoomed]

what a rip off, even back then! lol

[SCSNSE]

This isn't about a CD-ROM drive... it's about a drive that supports "rewritable" discs. Judging from the date, I assume this was a CD-MO drive, and not CD-RW?

[bishoplord]

If I put CD-MO as the title, would anybody beside you know what I was talking about? Even I had to Google CD-MO (Never heard of it). CD-Rom for $5000 was to grab your attention.

[nihonam]

@bishoplord this is how yellow press journalizdz do, lol

[goingwithzed]

@bishoplord think some called them worm drives...

[voiceofreason2008]

@SCSNSE i assume it would have been an early prototype of the CDRW not CDMO as it specifically says Laser optical meaning it would use the now defacto method of rewritable media

[bishoplord]

My very first CD-Rom (it was only a 2x) came bundled with software and games was something like $429 from The Good Guys. This was in 1994.

[crocodile2006]

@bishoplord WTF?!

There was CD-ROM's all the way back in 1985. Christ even my folks bought a PC with a CD-ROM in 1993 and they are tight arses

[intelharvest]

@bishoplord The Good Guys!!! Man, I haven't heard of them since....well, 1994. I think this is the closest we'll get to time travel, at least until 2212 AD. :D

[intelharvest]

Respond to this video... A rewritable CD drive. HA! never happen, what would you possibly use it for? And breaking the 640k barrier is about as useful as a can opener in a gun fight. Sheesh.

[SoCalyankeefan]

WOW