How much would I have had to pay (in 1993/1994) to buy a computer that could have ran the original Doom?

by notaburneraccount

What it says on the tin. If you convert prices to 2016 dollars, even better.

ByzantineBasileus

Nothing makes me feel old like having a game I used to play as a teenager being the topic of an r/askhistorians thread.

Anyway, these are the requirements for the original shareware version of Doom:

DOOM(TM) requires an IBM compatible 386 or better with 4 megs of RAM, a VGA graphics card, and a hard disk drive. A 486 or better, a Sound Blaster Pro(TM) or 100% compatible sound card is recommended. A network that uses the IPX protocol is required for network gameplay.

Source: http://www.classicdoom.com/doominfo.htm

So since we are totally radical gamerz, we are mostly likely going to purchase a 486 to get max cowabunga frames.

Here are some adds for 486 pcs from 1993 (pages 78-79):

https://books.google.com.au/books?id=4RN8nH8oZ2QC&pg=PA112&lpg=PA112&dq=486+pc+cost&source=bl&ots=3Os5QRIgk2&sig=XS4b2JQNFX7mdAmiL1kwu0lixhI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjkytD2y-XMAhVEJ6YKHde8A_wQ6AEIRzAH#v=onepage&q=486%20pc%20cost&f=false

The prices range from $1499 for a 486/SX at 25 megahertz and 4 megabytes of ram to the most tubular 486/DX2 at 50 megahertz and 8 meg of ram with 512k video memory, all from $2699.

Hope that helps!