By Charlie Rodriguez - March 14, 2000

A funny thing happened to me on the way to the grocery store a short time ago. I had just received one of those catalogs in the mail that day and brought it with me. I was eyeing the advertisement on a 168-pin PC133 SDRAM module bursting out of the front page with 128 Megs of RAM for under $95!! How wonderful! I have been needing some more RAM (don't we all?), and by seeing this I decided I am in the market! I checked the price on the 256's and found them still at their stiff price. Now, maybe some of you out there in the Internet world reading this can see-decide-buy in a heart beat, but with my own little world I see a lot first then decide. The buying part comes later, usually a lot later.

When I saw this "SALE" price, I figured this was a good deal and should not be passed up. Too bad the amount it takes to purchase this fine addition to my family's system was not in my household, but I decided to save up everything I could to make this ours.

When I finally got to the grocery store, I ran into one of my customers who was in need of… guess what … yep, some more RAM. I said I just got a catalog from a supplier and the prices have dropped. She said, "Great! I'll take two!" Two!? I just sold two 128 Megs of SDRAM. Installing and testing will drop a few bucks in the bucket as well! Then it hit me… maybe I should have sold her one 256 Meg module instead of the two 128's.

After leaving the store and getting back to the truck, I flipped through the pages of the catalog and found out that the 256 Meg module was more than the two 128's. Why? Maybe it was their way of getting rid of the smaller modules first, and then they would lower the price of the 256. Made some sense seeing that a lot of the machines out there have no use for anything under 64 Megs. Still I asked myself, "Why?" Then my business mind kicked in. I figured with most of us out there having only two RAM slots, why would any business sell their 256 Meg modules at a great price first, and then lower the price of their 128's. First you sell the 128's because most of us may only be able to afford one of these modules. I know I could only afford one. Then when we replace one of the smaller 32 Meg, or 64 Meg modules we had and fill up both the RAM slots we will sit back and say, "Wow! Look at all this RAM! This should do it for me for now." For now...?

Then a short time later (about two weeks and after ordering six 128's) I saw the price of these 128's jump down to $75!! My gosh! Man o' man! What, why, how is this going on? I again checked the amount of the 256's and found them only a few dollars less than before. I called a few colleges that share a "Round Table" with me, and asked them what they thought was going on with the Ram prices. Why all of a sudden would the larger 128 Meg RAM modules be dropping in price nearly every two weeks? Most of them denied understanding the prices, one told me not to jump at the prices too soon. She told me that they would drop even farther. Three weeks went by. Then it happened! 128 Megs down to just under $50! I figured it was time to email "the Mega-Wad"...

On to: Falling Memory Prices - Continued