ApplePoor

The Seagate ST-506 5.25" hard drive was 5 megabytes for $1,500. The controller for the Zenith/Heathit computer was also $1,500.

Started with a IIsi with 13" Apple color monitor for the wife in 1990. It was the first computer and monitor that worked out of the box with no issues. I said, at the time, they have something here.

Have continued to purchase Apple gear ever since. The product line today is like some ice cream shops with a flavor of everyone...

There have been glitches along the way, but basically everything has worked with custom memory, drives and interface cards over the years.

No way to tinker today, but that is not all bad. It means one commits at initial purchase to a fully loaded machine that is guaranteed to work with no trial and error on my part.

My 1990 IIfx fully loaded system was more expensive (face value on the dollars) than the new Mac Studio with the Apple monitor.

That OOPS moment taking your maxed out over $7K Mac Studio apart might not be appreciated by your cash flow...

Anyone know how long this monitor's power cord is? With two vintage 27" Apple monitors currently up on VESA mounts, the right one uses most of the six foot cord to the UPS.

My Apple IIFx cost close to $10,000 in 1991 dollars. It was the top Apple model and had the most memory (32 KB I think in 8 sticks) and "hard drive" (80 MB comes to mind) of the day, The Radeon video card and one color monitor (21" CRT if I remember right that was extremely heavy as I recall) were NOT included in that price. 

My 2013 six core MacPro with 64MB of ram and 1TB SSD was around $5,700 plus close to $1,000 for one 27" Thunderbolt Display. I had one already for a two screen setup using VESA mounts. OWC provided a 128MB memory upgrade and a 2TB SSD.

My fully loaded 16" 2019 MacBook Pro Intel was over $6,000 even with my military discount. The new fully loaded MacBook Pro M1 Max scales in at under $6,100 before my discount.

Looks like perhaps the $6k number is the target price for a Apple top model laptop. 

So I consider a fully loaded Mac Studio with a single Studio display (VESA base) a bargain at under $9,600 before tax or extended warranty with our deflated dollars. I also do not need to be superman to carry the computer or the monitor.

I ordered the Mac Studio M1 Ultra with 128Gb of memory and 4TB SSD and one Studio Display with VESA mount. A second one will be ordered in the fall. The system will be future proofed for me at my age (77).