Does anybody remember how much the A501 was in 1987?

[ImmortalA1000]

Advert would be nice but really I need to know the launch RRP both in the USA and in the UK of the A501 in 1987 for some research.

The A501 is a requirement in 1987 to play Dungeon Master, I need to put the cost of playing Dungeon Master into context for the time.

[Marce]

the a501 never was very expensive
I estimate around 75 -100 usd in today money

[ImmortalA1000]

I wasn't sure what the original launch price for the actual A501 by Commodore was, the figure £99.99 including VAT in the UK comes to mind but not really sure enough to put it in my documentary. I guessed that as DRAM costs between 512k and 1mb machines around that time were that sort of price difference well before the DRAM shortages/price hikes of Summer 88 for 256k DRAMs. Maybe Commodore made their own DRAMs so even with the cost of packaging and trapdoor PCB it was cheaper than what competitors had to charge for upgrade (Archimedes and ST 512k/1mb models of the same machine).

Third party ones were really cheap though by the time 1mb games started appearing in any sort of quantity, Dungeon Master is the only early game I remember needing 1mb Amigas. Also I think the DRAM price madness only affected 256k chips (some sort of weird tax set by the West on the 256k chips to try and level the playing field with Japanese imports having a huge slice of the DRAM market in the USA or something). Many later third party expansions used 4 1mb DRAMs on tiny PCBs for the trapdoor not the 16 chip full sized trapdoor expansions of 1987.

I will have to see if I can find a mail order advert or news item from an issue of CU Amiga/Amiga format for late 1987. Quite an important detail I need to be sure of for my ST video.

[dirkies]

C+VG magazine dec '87, page 120, ad mentions "a500 1mb upgrade" for £99

I do not remember any of my Amiga friends (in Belgium) having an A501 before Q3 1988 though. Price sounds right, once one guy had it, for copying disks in 1 go with only 1 drive, most had an a501 in the weeks that followed!

[dirkies]

And i add f/a 18 interceptor was the first game I remember in 1988 that made a difference with an a501 installed. (Intro music)

[Keops/Equinox]

Originally Posted by Marce

the a501 never was very expensive
I estimate around 75 -100 usd in today money

Marce: £99 in 1987 is around £220 in today's money, that's around $245 USD.

And that's because the British Pound has collapsed recently. It would have been around $300 USD using last year's British Pound rate. That was significant money for a kid in 1987 (at least it was for me back then)

[dirkies]

I remember my dad bought it pretty quickly, so the price must not have been that excessive, about 5000 BEF which back then (Sept '88) translated to around £85.

[Marce]

Originally Posted by Keops/Equinox

Marce: £99 in 1987 is around £220 in today's money, that's around $245 USD.

And that's because the British Pound has collapsed recently. It would have been around $300 USD using last year's British Pound rate. That was significant money for a kid in 1987 (at least it was for me back then)

I understand your point , but no
the A501 expansion never was expensive and fact is that everyone which had an Amiga 500 in the era had the A501 expansion
that could never have been 300 dollars of today
otherwise nobody would have bought it

btw, in 1987 nobody or just a few crazy weirdos had an Amiga 500, was the time of the spectrum and the C64

and if you bought an Amiga in 1987-88 you would leave totally disadvantaged because all the Amiga games from those years were pitiful and inferior to the 8 bit computers

therefore what could happen in 1987 is totally irrelevant

[Keops/Equinox]

Originally Posted by Marce

I understand your point , but no
[...]
that could never have been 300 dollars of today

Well, I don't know what to tell you, £99 in 1987 is £220 is 2022 ($245 USD), I'm not making it up. 3 people posted about that price range in the thread.

Feel free to post an ad from that period if you find one.

[dirkies]

Originally Posted by Marce

and if you bought an Amiga in 1987-88 you would leave totally disadvantaged because all the Amiga games from those years were pitiful and inferior to the 8 bit computers

therefore what could happen in 1987 is totally irrelevant

You are clearly not from that era! there were many awesome games back then: marble madness, fa18 interceptor, DOTC, arkanoid, faery tale, Gianna sisters, firepower etc etc
See: https://www.lemonamiga.com/games/lis...list_year=1987

[Keops/Equinox]

Found 3 Ads from 3 different retailers in a French mag (Dec 1987) mentioning 1095F, which is around 168 Euros (£140)



Same month:

520 ST: 2990 F (equivalent to 460 Euros)
A500: 4690F (720 Euros)

The memory expansion for an A500 cost 23% the price of the stock machine.

(all in 1987 money)

[Keops/Equinox]

7 months later, June 1988, still the same prices:

520 ST: 2990 F

A500: 4700 F
512k expansion: 1095 F




So to answer your former question: "I need to put the cost of playing Dungeon Master into context for the time"

In summer 1988, that's 2990 F ($450 USD) on an ST and 5895 F (890 USD) on an Amiga 500. That's roughly twice the price.

In 2022 money, that's $957 and $1892.


Funny coincidence, I bought my kids a mid range PC for around $950 last Christmas and they are really happy with it.

[Megalomaniac]

Unless equipment was especially cheap in the US, $75-$100 in 1987 is nowhere near accurate. When Commodore UK started throwing in a free A501 with the A500 they claimed it was saving us £100, which sounds about right. Puts it into some context if it cost twice as much to play Dungeon Master on an Amiga as it did on an ST...

[Keops/Equinox]

August 1989, UK:

£ 129 ($149 USD)


£ 113 ($131 USD)

[Marce]

watching these old papers the A501 was almost half the price of the 1084s monitor
that's not means 300 u$ of today money

now Id say in term of real money the A501 was something around 120-150 usd of today money

[scuzz]

The original price on my boxes is quoted as 79.99 UK


https://www.scuzzscink.com/amiga/scu..._221218_53.jpg


I have a few like this.

[Keops/Equinox]

Around £70-80 in April 1990:

[Daedalus]

Originally Posted by Marce

watching these old papers the A501 was almost half the price of the 1084s monitor
that's not means 300 u$ of today money

now Id say in term of real money the A501 was something around 120-150 usd of today money

Well, show us your sources and calculations then, and people will be more likely to accept what you're saying. Otherwise it will be dismissed as nonsense.

[Daedalus]

I don't have any magazines handy from 1987, but an April 1990 copy of CU Amiga has the A501 listed as £99, which was around $160 in 1990 (the exchange rates weren't as close back then as they are today). So, adding US inflation to that figure puts it around $370 in today's terms. Not cheap.

To be more accurate for the US market of course, a source of a price for the A501 in a US publication would be beneficial.

[Weasel Fierce]

Originally Posted by Daedalus

I don't have any magazines handy from 1987, but an April 1990 copy of CU Amiga has the A501 listed as £99, which was around $160 in 1990 (the exchange rates weren't as close back then as they are today). So, adding US inflation to that figure puts it around $370 in today's terms. Not cheap.

To be more accurate for the US market of course, a source of a price for the A501 in a US publication would be beneficial.

Amiga World from September 89 notes an A501 for 149 dollars in one of the ads. About 356 dollars adjusted for inflation.
Theres also another 512k A500 ram upgrade offered for 160

Computer stuff was spendy back then.