571
Cost of a 128KB computer with floppies in 1985
(sopuli.xyz)
How much would you pay for a PC with 128KB RAM, and no hard disk?
In today's money (inflation adjusted)
This an ad from Personal Computer World (UK) from 1985
Apple was a very different company back then. If they had followed the philosophy they have today, Apple would have been the last company to to introduce a mouse. The idea is that if a new feature becoms industry standard, they won’t apply it until like 5 years later, but make it somehow better than anyone else.
In this context, it would have probably meant not including a keyboard or display at this point. They could have skipped the black+green stage and go straight for color displays while increasing the resolution, size and refresh rate or something.
Waiting 5 years wasn't really an option back in those days. PCs moved so fast that if you waited 5 years you'd be missing whole use cases.
Now if you wait 5 years, there's hardly a difference.