> Plug computing and Linksys routers weren't cheap, and the Pi was.
For their time (20 years ago), they certainly were cheap. $100 or so for a small power efficient box that could run almost a whole Linux distribution was an amazing bargain. Before that, you needed a good-sized desktop or server to do anything involving a Unix-like OS, or paid dearly for the convenience of a laptop.
And it wasn't much before that, that running Unix on any microcomputer was just a dream.
It's hard to comprend just how amazingly affordable computing has become in such a short amount of time.
Do you realise that a $100 is a fortune to the demographic that I specified? For that price, those devices are so out of reach that they might as well just not exist.
I remember that time in my life very well. I literally had around $50 in my local currency in the coin box, and that was it. Hand me down computers were unavailable where I was.
For their time (20 years ago), they certainly were cheap. $100 or so for a small power efficient box that could run almost a whole Linux distribution was an amazing bargain. Before that, you needed a good-sized desktop or server to do anything involving a Unix-like OS, or paid dearly for the convenience of a laptop.
And it wasn't much before that, that running Unix on any microcomputer was just a dream.
It's hard to comprend just how amazingly affordable computing has become in such a short amount of time.