I guess that's one of the reasons disk drives quickly became dominant in the U.S. while in the UK, cassette's were popular until the end. Disk drives were as expensive as if not a little more expensive than the computer itself. I glanced at the exchange rate for a random year in the 1980s (1988 in this case). The exchange rate was 1 british pound for $1.80. Paying 80% more would suck.