> Low end in 1992 would have been a 386,
Low end of the sales offers (even though I guess you could still buy a bit lower too), but not low of end of the installed base, which was probably predominantly 286.
Low end of the sales offers (even though I guess you could still buy a bit lower too), but not low of end of the installed base, which was probably predominantly 286.
The very first PC/AT was at most 3 years old at that point & still worth a couple grand. Any 286 would be at least mid-range, as a 386 would probably still cost high 4-figures $.
My boss at the time told me they paid $10k for that computer when it was new & the equipment it controlled would cost $1-2m to replace (I want to say it was a microspectrophotometer but my memory is blurry), so they had to keep that 386 around & in working order. Luckily these were apparently very reliable computers.
Okay, but that's not representative. 80286 maximum sales period just started in 87 and lasted until 90.
In 87 at my place, in homes (I am not talking about the office world), everybody I knew (the ones who owned a computer, that is) was still using non-PC 8-bit computers (in the 1 to 4 MHz range). Then a bit later there would be the start of the non-PC 16-bits (Atari/Amiga) era (skipped by many) during which PCs were still more expensive and er... uncool, and only after that the PC started overtaking the non-PC into homes.