An Ode to the greatest website of all time

For twenty five years I used one website for finding the best prices on computer equipment. I learned about this in the 1990s and I used it for everything.

This website was better than google. It searched all sorts of companies and allowed you to find ANY product, and allowed you to find the best pricing for that product.

Imagine froogle.com (the old name for shopping.google.com) combined with the power of the Yahoo directories. I mean cheers to the greatest.

If you goto this website today it just gives and error. But if you look it up on archive.org you can see what it did. For the record archive.org is a website that allows you to see old versions of nearly ANY website.

I had heard that this website was funded by Paul Allen. That might correlate to why it’s gone. Who knows. I could probably look up the owners via a historical WHOIS search. And I really should research a correlation like that before putting it on the internet.

I’ve said goodbye to a few friends lately. But this one hurts the most:

https://web.archive.org/web/20191129122612/http://pricewatch.com/system_memory/

From there, you could choose any of these components. I mean, to this day, this SLAUGHTERS what google does. Google just can’t compete with a free website that came out in the 1990s and never charged a penny.

18004memory.com 3M 3Ware Abit Acer America Adaptec Adata A-Data ADDON Aeneon Alienware AMC AMPO Aopen Apacer Apida Apple Approved Memory Areca Arima AS Rock America AscendTech Asus AT&T;/NCR ATP Averatec Axiom Axiom Memory AXIS BCM BenQ Biostar Centon Chaintech Choice Select Cisco ClearCube Clevo Compal Corsair CoStar Creative Labs Crucial Memory Crucial Technology Dane-Elec Dataram Dell Dell Inc. DFI ECS Edge Memory Elixir Elpida E-Machine Enet Epox Epson Everex eVGA FIC Foxconn FUJI Fujitsu G.SKILL Gateway GeeDom GeIL Generic Getac Gigabyte Gigaram Hewlett Packard HIKVISION USA Hitachi House Brand Hynix Hyperam IBM Infineon Intel Iwill Kingmax Kingston Komusa Lenovo Leos Lexmark LG ELECTRONICS Major Brands MAXDATA Micro Micron Technology Mitac Mitsubishi Motion Computing Motorola MPC/Micron MSI Mushkin! Nanya NEC Newisys Okidata Olivetti Other World Computing Packard Bell Panasonic PARS Patriot Memory Philips PNY QDI Qimonda QNAP QNAP Systems QUANTA Rackmountpro.com RCA Sabio Samsung SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS AMERICA INC. SANDISK Sansung Sapphire SeaMicro SGI Sharp Shuttle Siemens Snap Appliance Sonnet Technologies Sony SOTEC Soyo Sun Super Talent SuperMicro Synology TAKE Targa Tatung Toshiba Transcend Transcend Information Twinhead Tyan Uniwide V7 Verbatim VIA-VPSD Viewsonic VisionTek VisionTek Products LLC Winbook Wintec Wyse Xerox Yang Ming-Rackmountpro Zotac

DDR $ 12.60 – ddr2-667 pc2-5300 1gb kit $ 19.10 – ddr3-1333 2gb $ 48.60 – so-dimm ddr2 pc2-4200 4gb kit $ 39.98 – ddr pc3200 2gb kit $ 6.30 – ddr2-667 pc2-5300 512mb $ 18.00 – ddr3-1333 2gb kit $ 21.60 – so-dimm ddr2 pc2-4200 2gb $ 8.49 – ddr pc3200 1gb $ 48.00 – ddr2-533 pc2-4200 4gb $ 9.00 – ddr3-1333 1gb $ 10.80 – so-dimm ddr2 pc2-4200 1gb $ 4.99 – ddr pc3200 512mb $ 24.00 – ddr2-533 pc2-4200 2gb $ 8.10 – ddr3-1066 $ 7.20 – so-dimm ddr2 pc2-4200 512mb $ 149.99 – ddr pc2700 2gb $ 17.82 – ddr2-533 pc2-4200 2gb kit $ 8.10 – ddr3 $ 23.40 – so-dimm ddr2 pc2-3200 2gb $ 19.00 – ddr pc2700 1gb $ 6.88 – ddr2-533 pc2-4200 1gb $ 11.70 – so-dimm ddr2 pc2-3200 1gb $ 3.99 – ddr pc2700 512mb $ 14.40 – ddr2-533 pc2-4200 1gb kit Notebook Memory DDR $ 8.99 – so-dimm ddr2 pc2-3200 512mb $ 26.10 – ddr pc2700 128mb $ 7.20 – ddr2-533 pc2-4200 512mb $ 52.20 – so-dimm ddr pc3200 2gb $ 17.00 – ddr pc2100 1gb $ 58.00 – ddr2-400 pc2-3200 4gb kit $ 17.98 – so-dimm ddr pc3200 1gb Notebook Memory DDR3 $ 11.69 – ddr pc2100 512mb $ 29.00 – ddr2-400 pc2-3200 2gb $ 8.99 – so-dimm ddr pc3200 512mb $ 21.99 – so-dimm ddr3 4gb $ 16.20 – ddr pc1600 512mb $ 23.40 – ddr2-400 pc2-3200 2gb kit $ 52.20 – so-dimm ddr pc2700 2gb $ 13.50 – so-dimm ddr3 2gb $ 11.70 – ddr2-400 pc2-3200 1gb $ 19.98 – so-dimm ddr pc2700 1gb $ 9.00 – so-dimm ddr3 1gb DDR2 $ 17.98 – ddr2-400 pc2-3200 1gb kit $ 9.99 – so-dimm ddr pc2700 512mb $ 9.00 – so-dimm ddr3 $ 44.10 – ddr2-1066 pc2-8500 2gb $ 8.99 – ddr2-400 pc2-3200 512mb $ 6.99 – so-dimm ddr pc2700 256mb $ 160.20 – ddr2-800 pc2-6400 8gb kit $ 70.00 – so-dimm ddr pc2100 2gb Miscellaneous $ 80.10 – ddr2-800 pc2-6400 4gb DDR3 $ 32.00 – so-dimm ddr pc2100 1gb $ 26.10 – xserve g5 $ 45.00 – ddr2-800 pc2-6400 4gb kit $ 37.99 – ddr3-1600 8gb $ 16.00 – so-dimm ddr pc2100 512mb $ 4.85 – refurbished $ 15.99 – ddr2-800 pc2-6400 2gb $ 41.49 – ddr3-1600 8gb kit $ 21.60 – proliant $ 23.40 – ddr2-800 pc2-6400 2gb kit $ 21.49 – ddr3-1600 4gb Notebook Memory DDR2 $ 21.60 – poweredge $ 8.49 – ddr2-800 pc2-6400 1gb $ 22.00 – ddr3-1600 4gb kit $ 80.10 – so-dimm ddr2 pc2-6400 4gb $ 30.60 – mac mini $ 16.20 – ddr2-800 pc2-6400 1gb kit $ 13.50 – ddr3-1600 2gb $ 29.00 – so-dimm ddr2 pc2-6400 2gb $ 51.99 – imac $ 8.10 – ddr2-800 pc2-6400 512mb $ 22.00 – ddr3-1600 2gb kit $ 12.00 – so-dimm ddr2 pc2-6400 1gb $ 4.85 – fpm $ 85.00 – ddr2-667 pc2-5300 4gb $ 22.50 – ddr3-1600 1gb $ 85.00 – so-dimm ddr2 pc2-5300 4gb $ 8.85 – edo $ 44.22 – ddr2-667 pc2-5300 4gb kit $ 50.99 – ddr3-1333 8gb $ 44.22 – so-dimm ddr2 pc2-5300 4gb kit $ 4.50 – ecc $ 23.03 – ddr2-667 pc2-5300 2gb $ 49.99 – ddr3-1333 8gb kit $ 23.03 – so-dimm ddr2 pc2-5300 2gb $ 26.10 – cache $ 21.60 – ddr2-667 pc2-5300 2gb kit $ 37.99 – ddr3-1333 4gb $ 12.60 – so-dimm ddr2 pc2-5300 1gb $ 21.60 – blade $ 10.80 – ddr2-667 pc2-5300 1gb $ 38.20 – ddr3-1333 4gb kit $ 6.30 – so-dimm ddr2 pc2-5300 512mb $ 19.49 – server

When you click on each of those items, you would have seen each vendor that carried that part, showing the cheapest listing (for that part) sorted from top to bottom.

Shopping like this isn’t this easy any longer. I think that Pricewatch charged computer companies to integrate with their sites.. but then again, that’s a claim that is unsubstantianted so I shouldn’t repeat.

I just think that it’s a shame that the technology that we have TODAY is ‘less powerful’ than the technology that we had nearly 25 years ago.

Cheers to you, pricewatch.com!