Seeing these prices reminds me how the C64 became so popular during this period - it was just a computer/keyboard which plugged into your TV - similar capabilities at a much lower price.
I think they were positioning these TRS-80's more for business markets while C64 for the home? That was a mistake obviously as IBM was firmly there already. Same mistake Philips made in Europe with MSX and after that PC. The home market was fine, but making the systems very expensive for the business market was a crap strategy as you could buy an IBM compatible (with horrible graphics/sounds, but he, we are talking business here) for the same price as for instance the 8250 or 8280; why buy the latter?
That went on for Amiga/Atari as well; for the entertainment market (graphics, video, audio and games) these systems were excellent and great value; upping the price with the Amiga 2000 for instance and selling it 'for the business market' was a nail in the coffin.
The C64 was more comparable with the TRS-80 Color Computer, which was extremely mediocre by comparison but only modestly cheaper.
In fact it kills me they charged $100 extra just for extended BASIC. But I guess in retrospect I'm glad my parents sprung for it as Bresenham's was a bit out of my league when I was 6.
> The C64 was more comparable with the TRS-80 Color Computer, which was extremely mediocre by comparison but only modestly cheaper.
The CoCo & its UK clone the dragon 32 had 64 K ram (it took a while to figure that one out), a better screen and a much better processor (the 6809) on which you could run (with some fiddling) os/9.
Those were redeeming features. The C64 was a fantastic gaming machine with hardware sprites and a really nice audio chip, the CoCo/Dragon was the better machine if you wanted to learn how to program.
Computers back then were not as simple to compare as they are today, depending on what you wanted to do with your computer then one or the other was the better choice.
