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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?
400 quatloos!!
10k? This is Gene Roddenberry, man. His fans will pay $10k for a ripped shirt stained with Shatner's sweat. I'll bet this could clear a quarter mil.
The CB App. What's your 20?
Erm, no. Almost 18, not over 20.
The CB App. What's your 20?
...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 :)
It would, if Apple cared.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
...what you'd find on the main hard disc with a sector editor. THEN bid.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
I had a Mac Plus. It didn't have a drive. Just one floppy drive.
This the the Mac Plus with the formula for Transparent Aluminum on it!
Bruce Perens.
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.
As an added bonus, you get a mouse that doubles as a microphone and understands voice input.
EvilCON - Made Famous by
I require the interface and documentation to be in Klingon.
The really problem is that every fan will bid $1701. Therefore, only a non-fan can possibly win the auction.
apple needs to restart Star Trek proposal and have mac os x for all x86 hardware back then dell the others did not want it (part of the M$ 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
My guess would be Paul Allen, or a proxy thereof, will sit there bidding until he wins. And it will go for over $120,000, easily.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
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.
It does indeed. Did you know that the 128k Macintosh was the very first Macintosh model ever produced? The very first, I tell you!
Plugging the serial number into the Early Macintosh Serial decoder yields:
Your Macintosh 128 (M0001), with serial number F4200NUM0001, was the 776th manufactured during the 20th week of 1984 in Fremont, CA.
There's a few ways to restore or prevent the yellowing. I can't find the original page I saw before, but this has more information.
Of course nobody reads the FAQ! If people read the FAQ, the Questions wouldn't be so Frequently Asked.
The serial number and the pictures are of an original mac, not a plus. However, see what the auction house said:
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.
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.
Mac fans show their people skills once again.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
But does it run LCARS?
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.
If you try any other similar serial numbers (ie F4200NUM0482) it says exactly the same thing as for 0001.
Me thinks the decoder is broken.
Might have been the first one ISSUED by Apple. I'm sure they ran a few hundred through the manufacturing process in testing of the line and systems, not to mention internal units distributed for various reasons and software testing.
Also, they likey made a few hundred, and had them all packed to ship out to retailers, and on a day a few days before they gave away the first one, but it was not necessarily the first one off the line...
Then again, we have a family friend with the very first car from Dodge of some particular model of a Hemi in some year (can't remember which, might be a Road Runner), and he has the documentation to confirm it was in fact #1, but it;s seriel number (VIN) actually indicates it was #26. About 20 went to demolition and saftey testing, and a couple of them came off the line with "defects". #26 was the first one sold, including that noone on the team, not even dodge, kept one of them prior to #26 for their own use. It reall is the first one (all 25 previous were destroyed or dissasembled before #26 was sold).
There is no contest in life for which the unprepared have the advantage.
Hell, I'm not even a major Trekker (Trekkie? I never know what the latest P.C. term is...) and I'd pay $5K for it. It's a hell of a conversation piece, as well as memorabilia. I'll bet there are a bunch of Trek fans who have the cash to blow who'd bid this way over that.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.