I was transferring some old business files to new boxes yesterday when I can across a purchase receipt that was somewhat amusing while being somewhat stomach turning at the same time. It was the receipt for my first laptop, purchased in 1997 from a local company.

At a total price of $3,639.39, that’s a whopping price to pay compared to today’s pricing. Wait till you hear what almost four grand bought you back then.

Here’s the receipt. Click to enlarge.

As you can see by the receipt, she had a 12.1″ display, a whopping 16MB of RAM (memory), a 33.6 Fax Modem (what the hell is a modem), and a giganturaous 1.44MB Hard Drive. You may laugh at the chip size but a Pentium 200MHz MMX chip was considered the latest and greatest technology at the time, especially for gaming. Think you could run any of today’s games on this computer? Think again!

Compared to today, I can get for example a brand new Dell Inspiron 15R with a 15.6-inch widescreen high-definition (HD) display, the new 2nd Generation Intel® Core™ i3 Processor, 3GB Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1333MHz and a 320GB4 hard drive (5400RPM) for $549. Even the largest MacBook Pro is right around $2,499.

Thank goodness that computer prices have come down but what we used to have to pay was nothing but ridiculous. And where is my first laptop today? If it is not in a landfill somewhere, I’m sure it’s serving its purpose well as one of the world’s most expensive door stops.