Consider a TI-83+ calculator. Made in 1999, a minor update to a 1996 product. 6 MHz processor. While I don't have a good source for historical price data, one web site claims that a 1999 price for this hardware is about $90. I figure that's about right; I remember buying a different model graphing calculator for something near that.
In the last decade, processors have gone from 300 MHz Pentiums with a feature size of 800 nm to 3 GHz 8-threaded Core i7s having 45nm features. A typical amount of RAM for a desktop system has gone from 128 MB of PC100 to 2 GB of DDR3-1066. And with all of this progress, the price of desktops has slowly been going down. Something like this ran through my head as I saw that the TI-83+ in my hand cost $110 today.
There is one feature of the TI-83+ that suddenly became relevant to me: you can bring this model into ACT, SAT, and AP exams. This is one of the fixed list of calculators certified appropriate for use on these all-important measures of a high-school student's worth. High school math programs typically mandate which calculator all its students purchase, and I have a suspicion that a significant percentage of all US schools require that exact model.
Since students are not free to select a calculator based on open competition for features and usability, why would the price ever drop? I should have remembered my own high school classes, particularly economics. Price reflects what people are willing to pay for a good, not how much it costs to make it.
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