Short answers, pulled from the story.
Peter Zinovieff began experimenting with two mini-computers known as Digital Equipment PDP-8 at the Putney Studio in London in 1969. These machines held just 12,000 bytes of core memory yet they enabled the first digital sampling experiments that would eventually replace analog tape systems.
Early Fairlight CMI units retailed around US$25,000 making them inaccessible to most working musicians despite their polyphonic capabilities. The highest price ever paid for one reached approximately $500,000 while average systems cost closer to $200,000 or $300,000 until sub-$2000 price points emerged with devices like the Ensoniq Mirage launched in 1985.
The device offered 10 seconds of total sample time distributed across four separate 2.5-second sections creating limitations that shaped production aesthetics. Its 12-bit sampling engine delivered desirable warmth to instruments while providing gritty punch specifically for drums within hip hop music throughout the late 1980s.
Fairlight Instruments started in Sydney in 1975 by Peter Vogel and Kim Ryrie originally producing video special effects equipment before launching the Computer Music Instrument in 1979. The company competed directly with New England Digital despite both systems costing hundreds of thousands of dollars.
An example piano library required approximately 120 MB of memory assuming 22 samples per layer across three layers at 44.1 kHz stereo sampling rate over ten seconds. Modern piano samples now consume between 500 MB and 18 GB demonstrating how far storage capacity has advanced since those early limitations.