Storage Cost Calculation

[Steven D'Aprano]

MRAB wrote:

> In 1981 the BBC Micro was released. There were 2 versions, model A with
> 16K and model B was 32K. The price difference was £100, so that's £100
> for 16K of RAM.

That doesn't follow. The model A might have been £1 (in which case you could
get 16K for £1) or it might have been £10000. All your calculation shows is
that model B was £100 more expensive.

There are three more-or-less equally valid statistics you could have used to
calculate the price of RAM: the average, minimum, or maximum. With only two
data points, it doesn't matter whether you use the mean or median to
calculate the average. Of the three, the minimum is probably the most
useful.

> Today you can get 16GB of RAM for about the same price.

Funny that you say that. I just googled for "price of RAM", and the very
first result talks about how much the price of RAM has *increased*
recently:

    Other components show similar increases — Kingston 8GB packs 
    have gone from $66 to $79, and Corsair's 16GB RAM packs are 
    up to $150, from $130. A year ago, 16GB of DDR3-1600 from 
    Corsair was $67, which gives you some idea of just how much 
    prices have already risen.

... Aaaaand my browser just crashed and I can't be bothered restarting it,
so you can do your own googling if you want the source :-)


-- 
Steven