>> I remember paying $1600 for an extra 32 MiB RAM around 1996
That's odd - I remember memory prices being really low around those times, and my friends and I loaded up our Windows 95 machines with 16 or 32MB for $50-$150 when it was on sale
While Macs did have the same specs and connectors for SIMMs as PCs, they were much more picky in terms of which modules they'd accept. You could do some research and find out which cheap modules were 100% compatible, or you could buy special Mac compatible modules for a quite notable markup from Crucial, Kingston and the like. This might explain the price difference.
That's odd - I remember memory prices being really low around those times, and my friends and I loaded up our Windows 95 machines with 16 or 32MB for $50-$150 when it was on sale
1996 Best Buy ad for reference: https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/enhanced/web...