[ardit33]

1k was a cheap / barebones computer. (Celeron, or AMD K4 chip, with not much memory, and maybe a floppy disk and slow CD reader). A good one (in the 90s at least) was at least 1.5k-2k, which is 2.8-4k now.

[michaelt]

Internet Archive has a bunch of scanned magazines from the period - such as https://archive.org/details/computer-shopper-june-1996-image... and as you say, $1000 was on the low end.

It's a real blast from the past. I'd forgotten you used to be able to pay $7000 for a laptop, and $100 for a 10-megabit ethernet card.

[ardit33]

Yep, thanks for the link! Good laptops were 4-5k minimum. Thats like 7-8k now.

[ldng]

And they used to be obsolete within 3 years, tops.