Five years ago, it would have taken ten tanks of gas or more.
Ten years ago? Forget about it.
Now, even as the economy continues to show softness and spark fear in some quarters, the Technology Industry could stand to actually benefit from its long-standing pressure to continually lower prices and improve value and performance.
Much of this is the result of Moore's Law (as evidenced by today's pricing list published by Intel). But the industry itself has been on a continuous value curve for a generation, with everyone from component makers to printer makers to software makers under constant pressure to produce more, better for cheaper.
So even as the price of a gallon of gasoline has jumped by more than 33 percent in the past year, PCs are still priced the same in U.S. dollars. If energy prices stay this high, it's likely that at some point technology prices will show at least some bump. But don't count on it being much. Technology continues to be a relative steal.