I am a huge finance geek. Since 2001 I track all of my expenses with MS Money. Previous to that I kept the receipts of all of my computer and gaming purchases, perhaps for nostalgia. Anyways, I have a pretty decent estimate how much I have spent (including the earliest machines which were purchased for me) since I started gaming.
> 1976-1979 ~$250 on Video Arcades and some Pinball
> 1980-1983 ~$1000 on a Atari 2600 and 30+ cartridges
> 1984-1985 ~$500 on a Timex Sinclair 2000; Tape Player (100+KB per tape side). I hated it when the tape wire would jiggle and the program would need to be reloaded from the start 😡 ; Spectrum ROM. I used to swap the ROMs to emulate the UK computer to play a bunch of excellent games which also was my first experience with emulation.
> 1986-1988 ~$1000 on a Commodore 64C; Commodore 1541 Floppy Drive (170KB capacity). I remember renting computer games. Everyone copied them of course. 😳
> 1988-1992 ~$400 on a Raven PR-9101 9-Pin Dot Martix Printer. My first peripheral that made computers a business machine.
> 1990-1992 ~$2000 on an Atari 1040 STe; 1MB SIMM RAM; 720KB Floppy Drive; Atari SC1224 Color Monitor and later a Atari Mega STe/2; 2MB SIMM RAM; 1.44KB Floppy Drive; 120 MB Hard Drive. I soon sold the Mega ST when I realized that Wintel PCs were becoming the new standard machine.
> 1991-1995 ~$150 on a Supra 2400 Modem. My first experience of the BBS world, downloading, and message boards. I remember dreaming of one day starting my own BBS. 😆
> Dec-1993 $1,820.57 on a Bondwell Intel 486SX-33; 4MB 70NS SIMMS RAM; 170MB Hard Drive; 1.44MB Floppy Drive; Aamazing 14IN 0.28 1280×1024 Non-Interlaced Color Monitor; Trident 8900 16BIT 1MB Non-Interlaced; Mini-Tower Case 200 Watt; I/O Card; Tactile 101 Macro Keyboard; Microsoft Mouse, Zoltrix 8-BIT Sound Blaster Sound Card; Master Boomer Speakers; Gravis Gamepad; MS-DOS 6.0 & Windows 3.1
> Oct-1994 $200 on 4MB 70NS SIMMS RAM. I wanted to run OS/2 which needed 8 Megs of RAM. What a hog. 🙂
> May-1995 $493.43 on a Hewlett Packard DeskJet 500C Printer. A great printer and made me a big HP fan.
> Nov-1995 $113.86 on an Intel 14K Fax/Data Modem. Getting on the web needed lots of speed even back then. 😉
> Feb-1996 $30 on a used Mitsumi 1X CDROM Drive. Bought it from a friend. I was amazed how much data could fit on a disc.
> Jun-1997 $168.50 on 16MB 70NS SIMMS RAM. Windows was getting more difficult to run so I needed a memory upgrade.
> Jul-1997 $454.86 on a Reveal TR-1 Tape Drive and Maxtor 2.56GB Diamond Max Hard Drive. My first over GB drive. I was amazed how much room I had. I also started backing up my data and boy was it slow!
> Aug-1997 $67.25 on a Belkin Power Authority II Surge Protector. I still am using this thing.
> Sep-1997 $140 on a used OPTI Texas Instruments motherboard and 486DX2-80; 256K Cache; 16MB 70NS RAM; Cirrus Logic VESA 2MB VL-Local Bus Video Card; Vision VL-Local Bus I/O Card. My first motherboard/CPU upgrade.
> Nov-1997 $39.89 on a Logitech First Mouse.
> May-1998 $98.90 on a Zoltrix 56K Flex Voice/Fax/Data Modem.
> Jun-1998 $113.95 on a Mini-Tower Case 200 Watt. My old case was starting to make nasty nuclear burning smells. 
> Oct-1998 $425 on a used Toshiba T4400C Color Laptop; Intel 486DX-33; 4MB 70NS RAM; 4MB 70NS RAM Expansion Card; 200MB Hard Drive; 1.44MB Floppy Drive; 2400 Internal Modem; Microsoft Mouse. My first laptop! It was clunky, heavy, and no battery but was I impressed.
> Dec-1998 $159.59 on a Sony Playstation. My first console purchase since 1980! :ugeek: I would spend at ~$500 on various games over the next few years.
> Dec-1999 $1065.15 on a generic Pentium Celeron 466; 64 Meg PC100 RAM; 4.01GB Hard Drive; 1.44MB Floppy Drive; ATI Rage II 8 Meg Video Card; 16 Bit 3D Full Duplex Sound; Rockwell 56K Full Duplex Voice/Fax/Data Modem; 40X CDROM Drive; Windows 98 Keyboard; PS2 Mouse; 150W Sterio Amp Speakers; Sound Blaster AWE 64 Sound Card to replace the sound chip; My first new PC since 1993.
> Jan-2000 $396.72 on a Hansol 710P 17in 0.26 1600×1200 Non-Interlaced Color Monitor. My first new monitor since 1993.
> Mar-2000 $154.99 on a Voodoo3 2000 16MB Video Card Accelerator. My first graphics accelerator card.
> Jul-2000 $125.39 on an UMAX Astra 2100U Flatbed Scanner.
> Sep-2000 $136.79 on an Epson Stylus Color 670 Inkjet Printer. Made a mistake buying this. It soon dried out and became useless.
> Oct-2000 $222.29 on a Western Digital 15.3GB Hard Drive.
> Dec-2000 $148.19 on a Cicero 4x2x24 CDRW. My first burner.
> Dec-2000 $56.99 on 64 MB SIMM RAM. First time memory was less than $1/MB.
From 2001 up to the present, I did not keep a detailed list of my hardware and game software purchases but do have some numbers:
~$830+ on Game Consoles including PS2 & GameCube & Wii systems.
~$7000+ on Computer Hardware including three new PC Desktops (two generic machines and one HP), one new Laptop (Gateway), and a handheld computer (Casio).
~$12500 for PC & Console games.
This means that I have spent at least $33,300+ since I have been playing games. That averages out to $1041 per year for 1976 to 2008 or 32 years. Wow! 😮
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