Back in 1995, we paid equivalent of almost $4000 for a PC with 133 MHz Pentium processor - don't remember the RAM or HDD, but it came with Windows 95. Since we lived somewhat rural back then, libraries were woefully outdated on the computer/IT department - both as far as books and actual PCs go.
The one bookstore we had, didn't really carry much of those things either. Most of my learning came through various PC magazine tutorials, and ordering books via said magazines. Or more realistically - trying to find out what other people worked or dabbled with IT in my little town, and trying to learn through them. Everything was very, very DIY and bootstrapped.
And just for the sake of nostalgia - one of the local PC-enthusiasts had parents that worked at the municipality, and managed to argue that we (the local PC "community") needed a space of our own. So we got this run-down part of an older school building, rent-free, for maybe 7 years.
As long as we paid the utility for that part, and any internet connection, we could pretty much do as pleased. You had probably a dozen or so guys pretty much living there, playing various game over LAN. Doom, Quake, Age of empires, and what not.
Another part of guys were mostly tinkering with websites, software, or what not. Still vividly remember all the Borland boxes laying around. And of course, the more free spirited guys "Buy what? No, let me show you our warez".
But you know what - we made money, real and good money, from just churning out websites. There were really no beauty standards, little (to no) functionality, and hosting was usually done via some local dude that run a bunch of servers out of his shop.
A PC was actually not necessary getting started. I wrote my first Web-site (called "homepage" in those days) in 1994 on my Atari ST I had purchased in 1989. I uploaded it via FTP to my university Web space and checked it via telnetting to the text-based browser Lynx[1] on the university's remote host. Later I used Lynx directly on my Atari ST. This was all done via a 1,200 baud modem.
I don't think parent necessarily meant "PC" like that, but rather than you needed to buy a pricey device to get into the space.
For example, the Atari ST launched at June 1985 for the price of $800. Adjusted to today's prices (via https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm), that would be ~$2200, which is a lot for most people.
So I think the point still stands. The barrier to entry was acquiring the device in order to be able to do anything related to it.
In 1994 my Atari ST was already 5 years old. I don't know what such legacy used hardware cost in 1994, but I would guess at least half, if not a quarter, of the launch price in 1985. So in today's money betwen $550 and $1,100. Not little for a teenager or young adult, but not terribly expensive either.
However, I would admit, that an Atari ST and a 1,200 baud modem was far from being an ideal setup for getting started with the Internet. I therefore went most of the time to the university's computer lab, where I had my first contact with Unix. But what should you do when the lab was closed ...
Back in 1995, we paid equivalent of almost $4000 for a PC with 133 MHz Pentium processor - don't remember the RAM or HDD, but it came with Windows 95. Since we lived somewhat rural back then, libraries were woefully outdated on the computer/IT department - both as far as books and actual PCs go.
The one bookstore we had, didn't really carry much of those things either. Most of my learning came through various PC magazine tutorials, and ordering books via said magazines. Or more realistically - trying to find out what other people worked or dabbled with IT in my little town, and trying to learn through them. Everything was very, very DIY and bootstrapped.
And just for the sake of nostalgia - one of the local PC-enthusiasts had parents that worked at the municipality, and managed to argue that we (the local PC "community") needed a space of our own. So we got this run-down part of an older school building, rent-free, for maybe 7 years.
As long as we paid the utility for that part, and any internet connection, we could pretty much do as pleased. You had probably a dozen or so guys pretty much living there, playing various game over LAN. Doom, Quake, Age of empires, and what not.
Another part of guys were mostly tinkering with websites, software, or what not. Still vividly remember all the Borland boxes laying around. And of course, the more free spirited guys "Buy what? No, let me show you our warez".
But you know what - we made money, real and good money, from just churning out websites. There were really no beauty standards, little (to no) functionality, and hosting was usually done via some local dude that run a bunch of servers out of his shop.