1990 IS the time of 286 crap as far as branded machines for sale in high street shops to normal general public goes, 25mhz 386 machines cost more than Macs and that's a fact sorry. People did not want to send cheques for £1000/$2000 for some cobbled together 16mhz 386SX crap with PC speaker sound built in some small time shed of a backstreet business via 2" square adverts in black and white text lost in PCW magazine 
IBM 486? ha ha even the Amstrad PC2386 was $4500 with 20mhz 386 with 4mb RAM and 64mb hard drive, if IBM sold a 486 in 1989/90 it would have been more than a CRAY-1 my dear fellow (and they would have proved time travel is possible to the future and back )
PC was not cheap, some of you forget just what a rip-off price those crappy PCs were in the very early 90s. PC sales rocketed due to hype/overpriced Mac only competition left by 1994 If Commodore had sold their A1400 at Xmas 1993 they would have cleaned up at £500-600 for a 28mhz 4mb, 3.5" IDE hard drive, CD-Rom setup in a smart 3 box design like slimline PCs. They sold you CD32 toilets for £399 instead oops!
Oh and Wing Commander was shit! Feel sorry for the morons who spent £2000 on a 286 with various extras just to play that heap of dog shit game :roflmao:
PC2386 source
This fellow will have to disagree. The IBM was sold at costco in 1990 (386 model) for $1300 dollars. I know as my brother and I both purchased one. The Cray is a silly comparison (we had one at Rockell where I worked, It took three floors in a high rise with all the drives, tapes, and memory). We had plenty of IBM computers of all models. You really think the average person would buy a 3000 in 1990? You are dreaming. I was making about $90,000 a year and did not buy one because of cost and I could not do work on it. Most personal use was limited to low end, so I guess the little chart will have to be redrawn to compare what different groups were buying. How about engineering, music, video, home use, gaming, etc. You may be to young to remember these things, so I can only assume you are trying to divulge your info from the internet, but you are clearly wrong.
