A little spare time to think. Remembering my Chevy Vega..

A friend of mine had a Vega back in the day, and considering
that he drove the living dog crap out of the thing, I think it held
up ok. I mean he tortured that car, and drove it like it was a
four banger race car. He tortured everything he drove.
His gas pedal had two positions. Idle, and full throttle. :/

I think I knew this guy. Did he have red hair?

 

And in '73, a computer with a fraction of the capabilities of a common
laptop
today would half fill a room and cost $40,000, if not much much
more.

Technology advancement does change things a bit.

 

As I said, I never even *added* any oil to mine. I'm not aware of
this feature you speak of on any model.

 

You might be a tiny bit off. 20 years ago, a 250MB hard drive cost about
$500 and RAM was going for $50 a MB. At the rate, a 1 TB hard drive and
6 GB of RAM would cost around $2.4 million. Well, that's what my
calculator sez anyway.

Just a bit.

 

In 1973, the computer we had in the University CS department had a 16K byte
memory, a 2 micro-second cycle time and cost $300,000. My cell phone is
orders of magnitude more powerful. I would say you are off by quite a bit.

 

Then again, both of you guys didn't seem to notice the "if not much
much more"
part.

 

I've always thought the VW's were overpriced. And there was that
feeling--in
my family anyway--that a VW wasn't a "real car." I know there were
huge
numbers of VW owners in recent years who were more than a little
miffed
about their owners manuals saying their timing belts wouldn't need
changing
till 100k miles, with many actually failing at around 85k, doing
extensive
engine damage, and getting blown off by VW.

 

That's about right. I remember the decision my step-father made was
between a Vega and a Beetle, and both had a street price of around
$1800, so an MSRP of around $2K is about right.

 

All things considered, since the development and pricing of cars doesn't
appear to follow Moore's law, comparing the pricing of cars to computers is
probably not the right way to go about it. Maybe cars & refrigerators would
work better?

 

The advancement in auto technology from 1900 to 1936 was about as great
as the advancement in computer technology from 1973 to 2009. The increase
in power and decrease in cost was about proportional.

Then automotive technology more or less began to even out, and there have
been incremental improvements since then, but nothing quite so dramatic.
Perhaps the same will happen for computers.
--scott

 

Yeah, but in 1973 that computer served an entire department and everyone
was able to use it to get work done, whereas if you attempt to get something
done with your cellphone, you'll find it's not so effective....
--scott

 

Many Americans used to feel that foreign cars weren't real cars - I
suppose there was some truth to that if the cars you're used to had an
engine displacement of 350 cubic in or more vs. 98 cubic in or less.

 

My uncle had one that was the same way. Engine could keep going, but
the floor plates went into Fred Flintstone mode. You had to keep your
feet on the pedals at all time, because the floor couldn't be trusted.
He kept it on his property a little while (he was in the country)
after it got to this point but then he sold it. He was a tinkerer and
I think it gave him some hobby time. His other cars then were a VW
Rabbit and an early 1980s Mercedes.

 

Not the computer I'm talking about. Cards in, cards or paper out. One job
at a time. I'll grant you I/O with the cell phone might be a bit tedious
for batch processing, but my ipod touch (which runs Unix internally & cost
$399) would have absolutely no problem running rings around that dinosaur.

 

Yup... but I bet with that batch machine they were running three shifts of
research work, student assignments, and maybe even administrative data
(if it was anything like the 360/50 we had). All on the same machine.
And everybody was happy, and everybody was amazed at how powerful it was.
--scott

 

I drove a 1974 Vega GT (2 dr hatchback coupe) for serveral years.
My mother purchased it new and after 7 years gave it to me -
I drove and cared for it for the next 5 years.

I only did minor updates to the car. I replaced the stock
AM radio to a AM/FM/stereo cassette radio and add
stereo rear speakers.

Being a poor student at the time I tried to do most
of the maintance myself. I changed the oil, oil filter,
air filter, spark plugs, spark plug wires, points and
condensor, rotate the tires, replace tail lights, replace
the headlights, cleaned the carborator, etc. During
the lifetime of the car, beyond replacing the tires
and battery, I also had to replace the had the shock
absorbers, exhast systems ,the alternator,
the radiator and its hoses. Near the end of its
life I was going to the car junkyard to find
replacement parts to fix it (broken tail lamp
lense). I remember a local auto mechanic,
refusing to repair it - saying that I should get a
replacement car and to put the Vega out of
its misery.


The aluminum cylinder heads and iron/steel engine block
expanded at different rates so it had a tendency to burn oil.
Unlike the Toyota Corolla or the Honda Civic, the Chevy Vega
was very heavy and it had weak engine. The sluggish automatic
further handicapped acceleration when using the stock 4 cylinder.
The car intially got about 24 mpg but as it grew older it got about
21 mpg.(combined highway and city driving). The interior
did not age well. Near the end of the car's life, The back of
the driver's seat became warped.


The Chevy Vega was the first car that GM used an all automated
robotic assembly line; unfortunately, the robotic spot welding
was rough and as the car got older and the paint job started to
fail one could see where Chevy had used body puddy to cover
up flawed welding. The Vega started to rust from the inside
out behind the front wheel wells fenders and along the flawed
welding points about the 7th year despite all the efforts to keep
it clean and dry.

 

Nope. We had one of those as well (actually the RCA Spectra 70 equivalent
of a 360/50) that was used pretty much as you describe & cost an order of
magnitude more.

This was a 360/20-25 & was used solely as a hands-on machine for the CS
majors. No production work on it at all. One job at a time, only open
during normal working hours & they had to punch their own cards and feed it
themselves. Essentially a really big, really slow PC. It took
approximately 20 minutes to compile a 50 line PL/1 program.

A Chevy Vega (just to pretend any of this has anything to do with the topic)
was a glimpse of the future comparatively.

 

But sounds like you got your money's worth! I've got a
'90 Mazda--no working heater or AC and it was "totaled"
3½ years ago when a woman ran a stop sign and slammed
into its rear door....repair cost exceeded market value, hence
totaled. It still drives great, and believe it or not, I still wash
and WAX it, just wax over that nice body damage! The car
looks about two years old under the hood. The machine
has character.

 

The Vega had an iron cylinder head and an aluminum block which was the
reverse of the small cars of the time. That was considered cutting edge
technology at the time and they probably thought that most cars after
the Vega would be running on sleeveless, aluminum block engines. That
never happened but had the Vega come with a conventional engine, we
wouldn't be having this conversation today.

Back in the 70s I had a "Sexy European" Ford Capri - similar to a Vega
GT with a cast iron engine block. It was a gasss to drive but not many
people will remember that car or it's engine.

 

That capri was a german import for mercury and used a 2000 cc german
eng. that is the same one used in the early pintos too. (untill mid 73
when the 2300 was interduced) unless you had the later 73 up capri that
may have had the 2300 or the V6 option. I had a 72 that I put the V6
rear end in and was getting 37 MPG at 70 mph. The capri was light years
ahead of the cheep vega and pinto. it was a well crafted small car, not
a cheap entry level throwaway like the vega and pinto. KB