| > I recall another programmer being irritated by the letter and writing his own basic interpreter and asking $5 for it (which was far less than what Gates was asking). What price was Gates asking for? I did a quick calculation using: http://www.dollartimes.com/inflation/inflation.php $5 in 1976 works out as just over $20 in 2013. HNer wmf has left a comment below: > Yes, today there are open source versions of pretty much all developer tools (and that's something to celebrate, since I remember when a "cheap" C compiler was $500). If this was in 1976 - $2000 for a cheap C compiler. I had a quick look at the price of the Intel C/C++ compiler - $699, but the annual renewal fee is $249. In 1976, that would be roughly $175. Her is an article with estimates of the development cost of the Linux kernel. http://www.linuxfoundation.org/sites/main/files/publications... I had a quick peek for an estimation of the cost of a compiler, but no luck. |