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Gene Roddenberry's Mac Plus Is Coming Up For Auction
Harry writes "In 1986, Apple unveiled one of the most popular Macintoshes ever, the Mac Plus. The company gave the first one (serial number #F4200NUM0001) to Star Trek's creator, Gene Roddenberry. And now this very Mac Plus will go up for auction at a Hollywood collectibles event on October 8th and 9th, complete with a letter of authenticity from Roddenberry's son. The estimated value is only $800-$1200, which seems reasonable enough, given its double historical significance." Any bets on how high the bidding will go?
I bet it'll go for 3-4k. If they were to auction it for charity I'd bet it'd easily go over 10k
400 quatloos!!
No... 100... BILLION!
...and write Spock/Kirk slash.
At a Hollywood collectibles event, it will probably go for $200k.
If they had listed it on eBay, and slashdotted the listing, they would probably get bids in amounts over $10 million+.
But I guess after eBay fees, they're better off selling it at the Hollywood collectibles event :)
10 quatloos.
Does it come with a year of Apple Care?
My bet will most likely be under $1k. If the machine has the original harddrive I'm willing to go up to $2-3k.
10 pieces of gold-pressed latinum.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
...what you'd find on the main hard disc with a sector editor. THEN bid.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Jesus, Rush, lighten up. Keep it up and you guys will lose big in 2012, too.
This the the Mac Plus with the formula for Transparent Aluminum on it!
Bruce Perens.
It may go for more, but I'd bet someone at least bids that amount.
(T>t && O(n)--) == sqrt(666)
determined to be not as advertised
We've gotten several inquires about this by the fantastically loyal and knowledgeable Mac community. After further investigating the item, here's the information:
Firstly, this Macintosh was, indeed, presented to Gene Roddenberry by Apple. There is no doubt about this.
The conflict between the photo and the serial number is as follows. This computer, given by Apple to Mr. Roddenberry, is an early production Macintosh 128 (#776), which was then upgraded by Apple for Gene to a Macintosh Plus-thus the model number / serial number / panel that "belongs to" a Macintosh Plus. The 0001 led us to mistakenly believe that it was the first one off the line.
Again, the provenance of the item is perfect and it did belong to Mr. Roddenberry. I apologize for any confusion.
who stole your punctuation?
As an added bonus, you get a mouse that doubles as a microphone and understands voice input.
EvilCON - Made Famous by
The Mac Plus did not have an internal hard drive, and no external drive appears to be listed with it. The Mac Plus was, however, the first Mac to have a SCSI port to support external hard drives, although it was slightly nonstandard and didn't work with a lot of external drives made after the mid-1990s. Earlier Macs had to access an external hard drive through the floppy port, which was rather slow, never mind the poor capacity of hard drives in the mid-1980s. If this was a modified Mac of an earlier vintage it might or might not be an actual Mac Plus with a SCSI port. I didn't see a picture of the back of the computer.
The picture does show it with an external floppy drive, but it seems less likely it comes with any of Gene's old floppy disks.
I require the interface and documentation to be in Klingon.
Listen.... When you kill two birds with one stone... that's a double but not historical. When you make two holes-in-one on the same course, that might be historical, but again, not nearly a ddddddouble.
But when you boink twin-sisters on the same day, in the same bed, with the same erection....now you're talking.
Is it just me, or did anyone else read the title and immediately think they were auctioning the rights for a remake of McGiver in the 25th century?
Is it impossible to find any original Mac that isn't yellow now?
I mean, check this Amiga 1000.(Yeah, I don't remember mine ever looking that good either. What a score.)
But Macs, I haven't see /one/ in the last ten years that hasn't succumbed to nasty yellow. Is there no hope? Anyone have one that's still white?
apple needs to restart Star Trek proposal and have mac os x for all x86 hardware back then dell the others did not want it (part of the M$ lock in that the killed beos, os/2 and others) now dell and others want it vista is a big bust and linux is ganging ground.
Wow, and here I thought F. Scott Fitzgerald was dead...
#DeleteChrome
I'll pay twelve bars of gold-pressed latinum for it!
Will it come with a collection of the floppy disks Gene Roddenberry used with it?
I can just see it, though: "Those? Our research showed they were only $.39 each new, so the value would only start at just under $400 for the thousand we threw away..."
If the masses can keep you down, you're not the Ubermensch.
I thought people only posted while drunk on Fark.
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
3 bars of gold pressed latinum.
Seriously, I don't see it as much other than a museum piece. Odds are if it still works, it won't for very much longer, leaving it a glorified vase, with toxic metals in it.
What about "We don't use money anymore"?
If Gene Roddenberrys p0rn has been erased or not....
mmm...Imagine the Klingongs............
Here I have a Dell Vostro and it's probably worth 10% of its original sticker price.
Any bidders? It was sold to me by Dell.com and I was one of the first people who watched Star.Trek.CAM.XviD-DEViSE on it. I promise, it's a collectible.
minus the extra g
MacQuarium!
Put a little Time Travel Arch in there. Magic!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
#F4200NUM0001? How uninspired... I would have chosen #F4200NUM1701.
250K < 640K.
Apple may have given Roddenberry a Mac, but in a decade or so they'll be celebrating Asimov's 100th birthday with their new media-streaming, music playing domestic assistant, the iRobot.
Nobody else has this sig.
Must have been the Mac he used in school.
Get it? Only graphic designers and schools use Apple computers?
"oohhh... I didn't know Schopenhauer was a philosopher!"
Does anyone fact check anymore? I've seen this incorrectly reported on multiple sites. I have yet to see it reported correctly. This is not the first Mac Plus ever made. It isn't even a Mac Plus. It is a 128k Mac and it isn't the first one. The Mac Plus says Plus on the front. The serial number decodes as being an early machine, but not the first.
does it run Linux?
But does it run LCARS?
Graphic designers, schools, and people who were given one by Apple for free.
In Gene's ideal world, all notion of money is gone. It's a communist utopia. It's time to evolve, people. Just give it to me. See, wasn't that simple?
I wonder if this is the same Mac that was used in the famous transparent aluminum scene in Star Trek 4 that Scotty was speaking with. I'm pretty sure that was a Mac Plus as well.
thats not f scott fitzgerald
thats ee cummings
but whatthefuck mehitabuck
theres a hell of an auction next tab
lets go
Lot 626, Very first Apple Macintosh Plus [serial number 0001] given to Gene Roddenberry by Apple Computer
As you can see, the auction info has not been updated to reflect the correct history of the computer.
cetroyer
My wife was on the Mac team in 1984, and they each received a production "First off the Line" Mac 128k with a commemorative plate on the back. No serial number, model number.... nothing... just the plaque. See it here. (And yes, it still works, as she was not a 'geek' and had no clue, and never even used it). http://homepage.mac.com/gsm/.Pictures/Mac218k_1984_TeamGift.jpg [I've blocked off her maiden name in this image].
Money was alive and well in Star Trek, as was trade and commerce. I think the price of the ship was even referred to at one point.
The spinoffs are another story--in them, it indeed appears that scarcity has been solved. This doesn't lead to *communist* economics, but the complete *lack* of economics. With scarcity solved, economics becomes merely a historical discipline.
hawk, sometime economics professor
I mean, Indiana Jones was dealing with 'found' antiquities. I can see the argument that such antiquities really have no "proper" owner, and ownership shouldn't just go to the first person to touch it (i.e. the person that found it), so I have no problem with the notion that such antiquities should go to a public museum for all to see. But for people's belongings, if you think after their death, they revert to the public/state, then your philosophy is very close to some sort of communism or socialism, at least.
Maybe Jones wasn't oblivious to the fact that he was basically stealing these treasures, and the "in a museum" thing was necessary for him to continue his tomb-raiding ways without being crippled by guilt?
Maybe part of his pervasive love of achaeology was in being able to present it to others?
Maybe it just served as a nice bit of dialogue for the character to convey to the audience what actually happened to the artifact at the end of the movie? :)
Bow-ties are cool.
Dude, classic! I am in tears from laughing...
Ah! A keyboard. How quaint.
This computer is really only worth money if it talks to you in the voice of Majel Barrett-Roddenberry.