In another thread In response to someone asking about inflation, the good colonel posted this excellent post on how far things have advanced yet come down in price since the eighties.
What stood out to me was not the value increase but the technology improvements.
I wondered again. If cars have improved so much? And they have. Seriously, compare a 1974-1984 of the same model car. They are vastly different, though they have come up in price there is way better value.
Why not the C-172? It has fuel injection also but most people don't feel it has improved significantly. I like the new ones but I don't think they are nearly improved enough. Certainly not to the point of being comparable in advancement to highway vehicles.
I'd like to add HO scale trains while going up in price quite a bit have become computer controlled remotely so you can run several on the same track.Colonel Sanders wrote:Today you spend far less money to get far more desktopI don't know of anything else that is the same price as in 1980.
computer (thousands of times more computer) than you
did in 1980.
This is true of both hardware and software.
Also - in 1980, what would home fast internet access cost?
If you had phoned up Bell in 1980 and asked for fractional T3
to your house, they would have laughed and laughed.
And in 1980, what would an iPhone have cost? The CIA
didn't have anything like it - including the hardware, software
and cell phone tower/network infrastructure - regardless
of the billions you might be prepared to spend.
Let's say in 1980 that you wanted an electronically-controlled
fuel-injection system on your car or motorcycle. Not available
at any price. Motorcycles sucked in 1980 compared to today.
Cars sucked in 1980. Compare a 1980 Corvette with a
ZR-1. Compare a Mustang II (Pinto) with a 2012 Shelby
GT500. Foreign stuff was equally junky in 1980.
Let's say in 1980 that you wanted GPS, ANR headsets and a
huge glass panel on your 172/182 or homebuilt. Yeah, you
couldn't get that, either.
Let's say you wanted to buy an economical, reliable piston
helicopter that would carry 4 people. In 1980, everyone
would laugh at you. Today you buy an R44.
I couldn't get a 3-blade composite prop at any price in 1980.
It's revolutionized the aerobatics we can fly without breaking
the crankshaft. Compare the all-composite MX2 today with
the top-of-the line aerobatic aircraft in 1980 - no comparison!
There are many, many things that are thousands of times
cheaper/better than they were in 1980. Don't give me the
crap about the "Good Old Days" - I lived through them, too.
I chuckled when someone mentioned Air Canada being in
aviation for 75 years - my grandfather soloed 95 years ago,
and aeroplanes were total pieces of sh1t back then.