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Remember the memory crunch of 1988?

Back when the PC was just a toddler, memory prices dropped after spiking. “About 1985, the personal computer market was tremendously overextended,” Texas Instruments spokesman Stan Victor told the Chicago Tribune. “There were a lot of manufacturers, all fighting for the same 10-percent share of the market. Then, demand for computers started slowing, and the computer manufacturers found themselves with ...

Jon Peddie

Back when the PC was just a toddler, memory prices dropped after spiking. “About 1985, the personal computer market was tremendously overextended,” Texas Instruments spokesman Stan Victor told the Chicago Tribune. “There were a lot of manufacturers, all fighting for the same 10-percent share of the market. Then, demand for computers started slowing, and the computer manufacturers found themselves with a tremendous inventory. So they stopped buying chips. For about six months, there was no demand. People started selling chips for whatever price they could get.” That flipped, and in 1988 there wasn’t enough RAM to meet demand. OEMs were
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