Only old people would consider such abstinence and sacrifice as some sort of accomplishment - because they can remember a time when such technology wasn't so throughly intertwined with their life.
But for the kids, who've had their own cell phone since kindergarten, these things aren't even technology - but rather are part and parcel of their identity and development - like additional lobes of their brain. Confronting them with the idea of giving up these things is no less a more ridiculous notion than having a limb amputated.
So, if you want to keep up with the kids, you shouldn't be handicapping yourself.
Whoa.. I'm guessing that the 1980s must have been unbelievably backwards times. I don't remember any of them, since I was still in pampers in 1987.
So my question to all of you really old people is; what was the market for this insanely priced system? Did people take out bank loans to buy a system such as this, or was this market to mostly business customers?