OMG: What we paid for computers in 1996

We hear plenty about inflation when it comes to prices for gas prices, food and that ever-rising electric bill.

But can you believe there's one area where prices fall every year? It's consumer electronics.

The website The Consumerist found a vintage Best Buy ad from 1996 , 15 years ago. And it is simply amazing how much we paid for such low technology back then.

Little Computer for a Lot of Money

For $2,000 you got a 166 megahertz Packard Bell PC, with barely enough working memory to say, "You've got mail." Forget about watching videos.

For another $150 you could buy a US Robotics modem to get an even speedier phone line connection to the Internet.

A whopping $2,500 got you a Toshiba laptop, with an 11-inch black and white screen. Today's $250 netbooks are 10 times faster.

Need a printer? How about $279 for an inkjet that you could buy today for less than $50.

For your music in these pre iPod days, it was your choice of a Sony CD Discman for $69 or a cassette Walkman for $59.

And to tell your friends about all this cool technology, you could buy a $49 analog cellular -- yes the word was cellular -- phone. At least in 1996, they didn't look like bricks anymore.

Thanks again to The Consumerist for that trip down memory lane...to a time 15 years ago when technology was clunky, slow and expensive.

And in retrospect, often a case of don't waste your money.

View the ad below (Note to mobile viewers:open story in Internet browser to see):

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