Old Apple 1 Up For Auction, Expected To Go For $160,000+

vanstinator was one of several readers to point out that Christie's is holding an auction for one of the original Apple 1 machines, complete with a manual, the original shipping box, and the letter from Steve Jobs to the owner. The invoice says the computer was purchased on December 7th, 1976, with an Apple cassette interface card, for a total price of $741.66. The auction house expects it to sell for over $160,000.

Comments

Same old Same old

[Monkeedude1212]

Overpriced Apple Product? How is this news?

(I keed I keed)

Re:Same old Same old

[Sean_Inconsequential]

Overpriced Apple Product? How is this news?

(I keed I keed)

As an Apple user, I approve of the hilarity of this post.

Re:Same old Same old

[elrous0]

Yes, but unlike all other Apple computers, this one is also over-hyped and over-rated.

Re:Same old Same old

[Anne_Nonymous]

According to the CPI $741.66 in December of 1976 is the equivalent of $2784.92 today.

Re:Same old Same old

[The Great Pretender]

Interesting, converting from 1976 to current dollar the price is $2847.23. This is around the same as a quad core Mac Pro.

Re:Same old Same old

[bberens]

Interestingly, if you'd purchased AAPL stock in 1980 (earliest I could find a quote) with that money you'd have over $60k. Looks like buying the PC was a better investment.

Re:Same old Same old

[Anonymous Coward]

and, unlike most old PC hardware,
This Apple will still be usable (if understandably underpowered by today's standards).

Just like most other Apple hardware made before 1999.

Re:Same old Same old

[Anonymous Coward]

I just read this in Zoidberg's voice. funny times

Re:Same old Same old

[SimonTheSoundMan]

Oh you beat me to it!

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%24741.66+*+inflation+rate+united+states+December+1976+to+November+2010

Re:Same old Same old

[iluvcapra]

You couldn't buy a PC when the Apple 1 came out, it was 1976(!). The Apple 1 was a competitor to the Altair and Imsai. The main competitive difference was that it could be bought fully assembled (but for a case) and would generate a composite video signal.

Re:Same old Same old

[iluvcapra]

Oops I totally misread your post. Apologize. I hope the trivial information was useful :(

Re:Same old Same old

[Anonymous Coward]

$160k > $60k

Re:Same old Same old

[CAIMLAS]

Don't be silly. After 25 years of inflation, it's actually a slight discount.

Re:Same old Same old

[marcello_dl]

Overpriced Apple Product? How is this news?

It's news because it shipped jailbroken.

I have books with every single bit of addressing space of the apple][ documented, commodore people had the same. It means we actually owned the damn thing.

Re:Same old Same old

[Coren22]

And c64s, 8086 and up and I can go on. What is your point?

1up

[rwa2]

Gee, thanks for getting the Mario Brother's 1up sound effect stuck in my head. It's not something I associate at all with my experiences with Apple products :-P

Drips and "eeps", on the other hand...

Attic Cleaning Time

[Anonymous Coward]

Crimminy. My wife's going to want to clean out my attic. "But, Honey, those are all an investment!" I'll say.

$666.66 WTF?

[PatPending]

What's with this price from The Fine Article? (Emphasis added.)

Priced at $666.66, the first Apple-1s were despatched from the garage of Steve Jobs' parents' house - the return address on the original packaging present here.

Hmm. Maybe Jobs (like O'Donnell) was dabbing in witchcraft?

Re:$666.66 WTF?

[blackraven14250]

Not witchcraft. Cult leading.

Re:$666.66 WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

To be fair, O'Donnell was young, going along with her friends at the time. She's since moved on from all that.

Jobs, on the other hand, has taken his coven world-wide.

Steve Jobs, the Satanist

[RingDev]

This explains so much!

However, because the motherboard was completely pre-assembled, it represented a major step forward in comparison with the competing self-assembly kits of the day. Priced at $666.66, the first Apple-1s were despatched from the garage of Steve Jobs' parents' house - the return address on the original packaging present here.

That's right. Steve started selling the Apple 1 for the price of the mark of the beast.

-Rick

Re:Steve Jobs, the Satanist

[Parlett316]

Wait a second, didn't they change the Mark of the Beast to 616?

Re:Steve Jobs, the Satanist

[RapmasterT]

That's right. Steve started selling the Apple 1 for the price of the mark of the beast.

-Rick

Not to be overly pedantic, but the "number of the beast" is 666, not a fraction higher than 666.

Re:Steve Jobs, the Satanist

[jo_ham]

The mark of the beast is 616. The monks copying up the bible and translating it assumed that it was the handwritten equivalent of a typo, and that the number should really be 666. And thus, an editorial decision affected millions of people down through the ages who freak out when 666 comes up, eg in their change or as a price for a bunch of items, or a bus route or house number.

Re:Steve Jobs, the Satanist

[Demonantis]

They never changed it. If you read the bible it references 616 for the mark of the beast. I have no idea where the 666 ever came from, but it is usually referenced with Satan not the beast so they could be different things entirely.

Re:Steve Jobs, the Satanist

[Y-Crate]

666.66... = 1

Re:Steve Jobs, the Satanist

[Princeofcups]

That rounds up to 667, the neighbor of the beast.

Re:Steve Jobs, the Satanist

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe. All I heard was a scrap of an old manuscript was found, and it wasn't in good condition, and it may have said 616.

Re:Steve Jobs, the Satanist

[Anonymous Coward]

>That rounds up to 667, the neighbor of the beast.

Not sure how it works in the US but on most streets over here (UK), 664 and 668 are the neighbours of the beast while 667 is normally on the opposite side of the road.

Re:Steve Jobs, the Satanist

[Anonymous Coward]

He Who Shall Not Be Starting His Lawnmower Before 10am Next Saturday Unless He Wants Another Angry Note In His Mailbox.

Re:Steve Jobs, the Satanist

[Anonymous Coward]

> 664 and 668 are the neighbours of the beast while 667 is normally on the opposite side of the road.
 
... the filthy inhabitants of which are shunned and vilified as the Other.

Re:Steve Jobs, the Satanist

[Anonymous Coward]

Only in base 7.

Re:Steve Jobs, the Satanist

[thepike]

It's not a translation problem, some of the original manuscripts have different text. Kind of a problem with the days before copy machines. I think more versions have 666, but the older ones have 616.

Re:Steve Jobs, the Satanist

[Anonymous Coward]

not sure how it works in the UK, but in the US, the house across the street can be considered a neighbor.

Re:Steve Jobs, the Satanist

[trapnest]

Same over here in the US.

Re:Steve Jobs, the Satanist

[biobogonics]

The mark of the beast is 616.

If this is so, it explains a lot. 616 is the original area code for Western and Upper Michigan. This has now been split into 4 area codes, but 616 still covers Grand Rapids, Holland and Wyoming. If you want to look for the most extreme religious fundamentalists in Michigan, that's where they still are!

Now why did I get rid of my tricked out Apple 2+?

 

Re:Steve Jobs, the Satanist

[The_mad_linguist]

Not actually the case. The number varies between dialects, in a manner consistent with it being a numerological encoding of NERO CEASER or NERON KAISER or whatever the name in that dialect was.

Re:Steve Jobs, the Satanist

[Anonymous Coward]

Who mows their lawn at this time of the year? It may not be covered with snow yet (although by next saturday it probably will) but its near freezing most nights so the lawn isn't growing any more.

Re:Steve Jobs, the Satanist

[DarkOx]

Yes; but don't you think they'd freak out just as often when $616 or $6.16 comes up? I really don't see what difference it makes. All I know is one day I tempted fate and spent $6.66 at the gas station and need a new transmission before I got from there to office. I don't do that any more. Now I will always buy a pack of gum or a coke or something whenever that happens.

Re:Steve Jobs, the Satanist

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in Texas, I mowed my grass earlier this week and will probably get a fine from my HOA if I don't mow it again this weekend.
I also still have both buds and blooms on my rosebushes.

Our winter is currently forecast to be on the morning of Feb 3rd and is expected to have frost and a small chance of sleet.

Last year it took my roses by surprise and it took them almost a month before they stopped sulking and started blooming again...

Re:Steve Jobs, the Satanist

[fishexe]

>That rounds up to 667, the neighbor of the beast.

Not sure how it works in the US but on most streets over here (UK), 664 and 668 are the neighbours of the beast while 667 is normally on the opposite side of the road.

Here in the US, we call all the people in your neighborhood "neighbors", including those across the street, down the block, and around the corner. The distinction of 664 and 668 is that they are next-door neighbors of the beast. Presumably, the beast has a larger neighborhood than just those two.

Re:Steve Jobs, the Satanist

[fishexe]

Here in the US, we call all the people in your neighborhood "neighbors", including those across the street, down the block, and around the corner. The distinction of 664 and 668 is that they are next-door neighbors of the beast. Presumably, the beast has a larger neighborhood than just those two.

Which I suppose makes the question relevant, "Is the Antichrist British or American?"

Re:Steve Jobs, the Satanist

[LainTouko]

By the time you've got to 300 houses, 667 is probably opposite 592 or 810 or something. I once lived on a road on which about 26 was opposite about 219, because the even side had large things on and the odd side only had houses.

Re:Steve Jobs, the Satanist

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean "for the MARKET PRICE of the beast", right?

Re:Steve Jobs, the Satanist

[realityimpaired]

Depends on where. Most cities, the street numbering isn't straight linear, and is actually determined by what block you're on. 602 may be right next to 604, but if 604 is at an intersection, the next house will be 700. That happens in pretty much any North American city I've ever been in. They also have been known to skip house numbers for large buildings, so downtown you might find the street numbering goes 628, 680, 720, etc. Heck, even in the suburbs, that happens: my house is number 32, my neighbour to one side is 34, my neighbour to the other side is 28.

Re:Steve Jobs, the Satanist

[iluvcapra]

All C's are hard in latin; it was spelled the first way and pronounced the second way in Greek. I thought the story was that 616 in roman numerals, DCXVI, was an acrostic of an early Christian anti-Vespasian slogan.

Re:Steve Jobs, the Satanist

[Plekto]

According to a show I saw on the History Channel, it was actually code for the name of the current Roman emperor (so as to get past the Roman censors). And that it changed a couple of times to slightly different numbers. The original author's point was actually a scathing commentary on any form of centralized government or empire. Which makes logical sense as well for someone under arrest for their beliefs - typical rebellious manifesto type writing. But somehow that got lost after The First Council of Nicaea and the alterations that they enforced.

Re:Steve Jobs, the Satanist

[gandhi_2]

I sometimes get that confused with 667.

The Neighbor of the Beast.

Re:Steve Jobs, the Satanist

[Hooya]

> but the "number of the beast" is 666, not a fraction higher than 666.

Oh, that's just the Apple premium.

Re:Steve Jobs, the Satanist

[Noren]

It turns out they are both at the end of a (very long) cul-de-sac.

Re:Steve Jobs, the Satanist

[Kenshin]

My street starts at 427.

I wish I knew why.

Re:Steve Jobs, the Satanist

[marcello_dl]

Brits drive on the wrong side of the road. It figures.

Re:Steve Jobs, the Satanist

[Anonymous Coward]

What, so the guy across the street isn't your neighbor?!

Re:Steve Jobs, the Satanist

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

They never changed it. If you read the bible it references 616 for the mark of the beast. I have no idea where the 666 ever came from.

Actually, both numbers are in the same passage in versions of the bible from the same period. It's 616 in the earliest versions in greek, but 666 in some latin versions. This actually makes sense as historians believe it was a numerological code used to identify the emperor and since his name had different characters in each language it adds up differently.

Re:Steve Jobs, the Satanist

[hairyfeet]

I can't believe an atheist is gonna have to correct you: "He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name. This calls for wisdom. If anyone has insight, let him calculate the number of the beast, for it is man's number. His number is 666" (Rev. 13:16-18)

As for TFA it just shows the crazy prices fanbois will pay for "their" product's history. I wouldn't be surprised if someone could get the same for one of the first Amiga machines or even the first C64. Fanbois have crazy loyalty even when it makes NO sense for them. Just look at how many stayed loyal to Apple when the Pepsi guy was pushing crap and running it into the ground. I bet you'd see just as crazy a price for a sealed copy of Windows 1 with a personal letter from Bill Gates. Nothing remarkable there.

Re:Steve Jobs, the Satanist

[bhtooefr]

In at least some areas, it's done based on a grid layout. So, if your street goes east to west, if you draw an imaginary line going north to south, most houses on streets going east to west under that line within your locality will be somewhere around 427.

Re:Steve Jobs, the Satanist

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a house just down the road from me with the number 666. Every time I go on holiday I send them a postcard signed "Satan".

Re:Steve Jobs, the Satanist

[Anonymous Coward]

probably because 6-6-6 was a number associated with the Goddess Aphrodite, particularly in her erotic phase.

3 was associated with the Goddess for a long, long time. Any triple iteration of that number was the core, utmost and deepest expression of that phase of the Goddess.

3-3-3 is the ultimate Virgin or Maiden aspect; 9-9-9 was that of the Crone or Dark Mother.

6-6-6 was the Motherly aspect in all its lushness, including sexuality.

Another smear job by horny, uptight monks.

Re:Steve Jobs, the Satanist

[mfnickster]

I wouldn't be surprised if someone could get the same for one of the first Amiga machines or even the first C64. Fanbois have crazy loyalty even when it makes NO sense for them

Put in perspective - the Apple I is exceedingly rare. There were only a couple hundred made, whereas Commodore sold about 20 million C64s.

Re:Steve Jobs, the Satanist

[sznupi]

Is freaking out / affecting people like that about 616 any better?...

Re:Steve Jobs, the Satanist

[treeves]

0.1%? I don't think so.

Re:Steve Jobs, the Satanist

[sznupi]

"Scathing commentary" probably goes too far... OK, real reason to answer: pointing out how your username can be quite easily misread, in my language, as a word for "hell" ;p

(though mentioning History Channel as the source makes me both sad (because of the horrible gimmicky "whoa!" visual style of many US and partly UK documentaries nowadays - luckily Planete seems to resist, so far) and suspect (I recently witnessed describing some trijet with aft-mounted engines as "737")

Re:Steve Jobs, the Satanist

[jo_ham]

No, not at all - it just serves to highlight the ridiculousness of religion, that people would go out of their way and react to a number that is harmless, but that has been given bad connotations by an error in translation of a work of fiction.

Re:Steve Jobs, the Satanist

[Kenshin]

Nah, this is a spaghetti-mess post-war neighbourhood.

Re:Steve Jobs, the Satanist

[Plekto]

It actually was buried in a fairly normal documentary on the early Roman Church and the first few councils. Almost as an aside when dealing with the whole issue about who wrote what book and the fierce division between the early groups on what to include and which versions/etc were valid.

Revelations was certainly written by several authors and shows many signs of being heavily edited. One of the things they pointed out was that the number had changed several times and that "666" was a later arbitrary number that didn't have any connection to anyone's name (changed to something meaningless instead of a Roman Emperor's name)

Oh - heh - I've got that about my "name" several times. It's really a made-up word what means nothing in any language. I had to come up with a name for games back in the early 90s and this one stuck out of several I tried. Basically, it is a typo based from me playing too many games of Master of Orion. Custom race - need name??? - part Meklar part Psilon(two fav races). Ended up with "Plekton"(Pleklon didn't sound right). After an online search, I found it also had no linguistic equivalent, so it was a nice online handle. This also worked nicely for StarCon II, where it asks for a ship name and gives you exactly 8 letters, max, to put in that field.

Ie - ruler - Plekto. Planet - Plekton. etc.

But yeah, means nothing. Heh. Though, being close to several words that do mean something (usually bad) makes it nice for online PVP games as well. ;)

Re:Steve Jobs, the Satanist

[Demonantis]

I just have to say that to be ruled by pure fact then you must have an open mind. Understanding that what you know now is most likely wrong. The bible I was given as a gift has the passage as 616. Quoting the passage doesn't work because that proves nothing at all as misprints have been repeatedly mentioned. The best proof I have is this; http://www.csad.ox.ac.uk/POxy/beast616.htm. It is important to know that this is most likely wrong, but should be sufficient evidence until better evidence is found. And please don't assume I am Christian.

Replica I

[Hatta]

If you're interested in the Apple I from a retro-computing standpoint, instead of owning a museum piece, you can actually buy a kit and build a clone.

Re:Replica I

[bhtooefr]

And there's another clone using a similar approach (of emulating the video section with a microcontroller,) and a 100% trace-for-trace replica (read: except for the cloner's signature hiding in the board, you can't tell that it's a clone at all) out there.

(There's also the Obtronix replica, which is 100% chip-for-chip, but not trace-for-trace, identical. It's no longer in production, though.)

Steve Jobs is Thrilled

[Anonymous Coward]

It's finally going to sell for his originally recommended price.

Re:Steve Jobs is Thrilled

[noidentity]

The high price is just because it's already jailbroken, complete with BASIC when you power it on.

Re:Steve Jobs is Thrilled

[bhtooefr]

Actually, in the case of the Apple-1, you have to hit Reset after you turn it on, and then you get dumped into the Monitor.

Then your options are to hand-type BASIC in, or to load it from cassette (if you have the ACI or a replica thereof, which this one does.)

First time this is actually appropriate...

[Shikaku]

Yes but..

Does it run Linux?

Re:First time this is actually appropriate...

[Dayofswords]

can you get linux running on 8KB of RAM?

If so, I salute you.

Re:First time this is actually appropriate...

[Monkeedude1212]

I can get it running but I can't catch it aftewards.

Re:First time this is actually appropriate...

[Polarn]

You mean, does it blend?

Re:First time this is actually appropriate...

[wandazulu]

Imagine a beowulf cluster of these!

Re:First time this is actually appropriate...

[LWATCDR]

How about Contiki instead?

Re:First time this is actually appropriate...

[msauve]

can you get linux running on 8KB of RAM?

You just need lots of swap space.

Re:First time this is actually appropriate...

[dangitman]

How about Contiki instead?

That only works if you're aged between 18 and 35 years old, and I don't support age discrimination.

Re:First time this is actually appropriate...

[laffer1]

You probably can't run Linus's original keyboard driver on that. Seriously, according to this it requires at least 640K of RAM for Minix and since Linux started as a replacement kernel I bet it was at least in a similar ballpark...

http://www.linfo.org/minix.html

Apple releases...

[Subm]

No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.

Re:Apple releases...

[blair1q]

You're holding it wrong.

Re:Apple releases...

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate seeing this quote over and over again. Lets be honest in the fall of 2001 the iPod did not look amazing from a technical review, the market already had superior products available for the same if not lower price. The problem is that the review was focused on people who want the latest and greatest technology and thats not the market Apple was pushing it to.

Re:Apple releases...

[AdmiralXyz]

Don't bother clicking the Anonymous button, Taco. We know it's you.

Re:Apple releases...

[jandrese]

For what it's worth, the G1 iPod was pretty lame. They sold better than the existing MP3 players of the day, but that wasn't exactly a high bar to hurdle.

Re:Apple releases...

[Anonymous Coward]

The "lame" quote from Taco was comparing it to what else was available back then, which makes it still an embarrassing quote. What's more, the 1G was actually quite nice -- Firewire interface, with easy access to using it as a hard drive, and the tactile scroll wheel were all very cool features. Except for the 5GB hard drive limit, the 1G iPod was better than generations of iPod successors.

Re:Apple releases...

[sznupi]

Furthermore: they sold better than the existing MP3 players of the day in few specific places (highly visible and vocal, but...). Which actually didn't change later.

Re:Apple releases...

[dangitman]

For what it's worth, the G1 iPod was pretty lame.

What was lame about it? It was far more sophisticated than its competitors.

Re:Apple releases...

[jandrese]

It was also heavy (although other MP3 players were heavier), had a somewhat fragile HDD that was a bit too small for a lot of music collections, required a rather hoggy program (iTunes) to manage it, had no ogg support (nobody cared), and had kinda mediocre battery life thanks to having to spin that hard drive. The clickwheel was also prone to damage. Basically, it had too many moving parts for something that someone would want to wear to the gym. It took Apple a couple of generations to start really shrinking and removing the excess moving parts from the iPod.

Re:Apple releases...

[dangitman]

You are looking at it with the benefit of hindsight, and selective memory.

It was also heavy (although other MP3 players were heavier), had a somewhat fragile HDD that was a bit too small for a lot of music collections,

A bit too small? It was way bigger than the majority of the competition at the time, which was mostly 64-128 Megabyte Flash memory players. Or players that used laptop hard-drives, and were too big to be portable.

Also, few people had MP3 collections in the Gigabytes in those days.

and had kinda mediocre battery life thanks to having to spin that hard drive.

It had excellent battery life for the time, and for its storage capacity. It also had Firewire, which meant you could actually sync it with a computer in a reasonable amount of time compared to the other devices which relied on the frustratingly slow USB 1.1.

The clickwheel was also prone to damage.

Compared to the chintzy plastic buttons on the other players of the era? I don't think so. Even if it was, it provided a far superior interface. The other players were basically portable CD players in comparison. The iPod was completely different in so many ways.

The auction house expects?

[RapmasterT]

I think the auction house HOPES it will sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars...expecting it is an exercise in wishful thinking. The art of predicting auction prices on rare items is based on historical sales of similar items, this is a pretty unusual and unique circumstance.

Part of me wants to trust them as experts, but part of me also feels that old (albeit rare) computer parts don't have the value they think it does. I guess we'll find out.

Re:The auction house expects?

[blair1q]

On items with this sort of juice, the auction house usually guesses way low.

Re:The auction house expects?

[Anonymous Coward]

Similar auctions for Apple I's have netted around $15k -20k.

Re:The auction house expects?

[blair1q]

Were they in this kind of shape, with all the accoutrements, plus Steve Jobs' autograph?

Re:The auction house expects?

[RapmasterT]

On items with this sort of juice, the auction house usually guesses way low.

this sort of juice? This is an old computer with a good box and receipt, not a Picasso.

Re:The auction house expects?

[LWATCDR]

Honestly the documentation and the signed letter from Steve Jobs is probably the big money on this item. It has a well documented history which also helps.
Let's face it. Odds are that you could build an exact duplicate of an Apple I with a little effort. It is the documentation that will drive collectors batty.

Re:The auction house expects?

[blair1q]

Of course it isn't a Picasso. The price is $160 thousand, not $160 million.

As for the "juice", if you just got the boards it would just be a computer. With the other paraphernalia you've got a whole museum setting in one package. Anyone musing on this will be given to imagine the original owner's entire experience being one of the pioneers of computing at home. There's a depth and breadth of context that one more circuit board doesn't bring to it. And then there's the autograph and a record of Jobs' customer-service style, with a bit of wry irony in that it's typewritten.

$160k is the low end of Christie's estimate. The high end is quite low, too.

Re:The auction house expects?

[fishexe]

On items with this sort of juice, the auction house usually guesses way low.

this sort of juice? This is an old computer with a good box and receipt, not a Picasso.

No, he means apple juice.

Re:The auction house expects?

[bhtooefr]

Some of them have been in better shape.

This one has had some modifications that reduce the value. (They're all going to have some modifications, but there are unoriginal chips on this board, and that'll hurt value, I suspect.)

Re:The auction house expects?

[RapmasterT]

Anyone musing on this will be given to imagine the original owner's entire experience being one of the pioneers of computing at home.

I think you are overly optimistic on the monetary value of "musing". People who are sufficiently wealthy to afford spending $100K+ on an old computer are old enough to have around during these "pioneer" years. This is a big price tag to put on nostalgia.

$160k is the low end of Christie's estimate. The high end is quite low, too.

So what do you think it's going to sell for? I'm honestly curious what you think it's worth, and why.

i dont care if it is an original

[FudRucker]

only a damn fool with way too much money would pay 160 thousand dollars for it, i would not give more than 50 bucks for an obsolete computer even if it was in pristine condition.

Re:i dont care if it is an original

[guyminuslife]

I'd pay a lot more that 50 bucks for a Difference Engine in pristine condition. Or even a Harvard Mark I. Although I don't know how I could fit them in my apartment....

Re:i dont care if it is an original

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd pay more than 50 bucks for an old Whirlwind computer, it's surely worth more than that just in scrap copper.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whirlwind_%28computer%29

I'll Bid if it has..

[vchoy]

The 3 GEEs and the WI-FIs... ....oh but I guess you really meant BEE GEEs and the HI-FIs??!?!

Now an office building

[Anonymous Coward]

Jobs' old house now appears to be a four-story office building.

Green Mushrooms

[Spykk]

Old Apple 1 Up For Auction

Is it the 1-up they used when they re-hired Steve, or the 1-up they got when Microsoft gave them capital?

Historical value

[dazedNconfuzed]

Obviously the purpose of a museum is lost on you.

Re:Historical value

[blair1q]

Since the invention of graphical communications media, yes.

160K should be enough for anybody

[davidwr]

After all it's a step up from 48K!

VIC-20 up for auction, bargain at 1/2 the price :)

[mrnick]

Really???

I have a Commodore PET and several VIC-20's to put up for auction!! I know, I know the VIC-20 only had a 22 column display but no worries I'll throw in a 40 column cartridge adapter for a mere $20,000, a MUST have if your television tube is larger than 12", huh??? ;)

Huh, things improved

[dazedNconfuzed]

For that price you can get a Mac Pro today:
One 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon “Nehalem”
3GB (3x1GB)
1TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s hard drive
ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB
One 18x SuperDrive
Apple Magic Mouse
Apple Wireless Keyboard (English) & User's Guide

Or, using the original numbers, you can get a 32GB iPad 3G.

Or, being one of the guys who built it, you could be worth ~$6,000,000,000.

Re:Huh, things improved

[gandhi_2]

Hmm. For 400 bucks less from dell:

core i7 980 3.33 GHz http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html
12 gigs of ram
2TB HDD 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s hard drive
same video card
Dual Drive: Blu-ray Disc Drive (BD/DVD/CD burner w/double layer BD write capability)+16X DVD+/-RW
mouse, keyboard, users guide (lol, good thing you put that there)

Of course, without the smug-ass attitude that comes out-of-the-box with the Mac...where would you be?

This is why every douche who wants Macs in public education or enterprise needs to be punched in the face.

Re:Huh, things improved

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does every 'douche' keep comparing a Xeon to a consumer grade processor? Also comparing unregistered memory to registered memory. Mobo's that support Nehalem Xeon's start at $350, cheapest Xeon at around $200. So there's your whole '400 bucks less' gone to... Some people want shit that 'works'. Not some consumer fuckin bullshit that 'might' work for a few years but we're not so totally sure.

Re:Huh, things improved

[petermgreen]

Why does every 'douche' keep comparing a Xeon to a consumer grade processor?
The reason is simply that apple refuses to sell a normal desktop. The choice of apple desktop machines comes down to

* mini: a small form factor machine built with latop parts and with specs comparable to a low end laptop

* imac: an all-in one with midrange desktop specs, no room for more hard drives or expansion cards, no USB3 or ESATA, and the options for screen size and graphics memeory tied together with the CPU options and hard drive options also tied into those choices to some extent.

* pro: a monster built out of components intended for dual socket server/workstation systems and with a pricetag to match.

Re:Huh, things improved

[aristotle-dude]

pertmgreen, imacs are perfectly fine for the vast majority of consumers. Consumers don't give a crap about installing more hard drives and other shit like that. They know that their time is valuable so they will go out and buy a new computer, hand down the old one to someone and expect to have something that works out of the box. This applies equally to both mac owning and pc owning consumers.

If you are concerned about "saving" money through the false economy of "upgrades" then that means that you consider your free time to be valueless in the equation because you enjoy assembling PCs as a hobby. Most people have no interest in that.

Re:Huh, things improved

[petermgreen]

pertmgreen, imacs are perfectly fine for the vast majority of consumers.
There are plnety of people who would be fine with a low end imac and never upgrading it. But then i'd bet most of those would also be fine with a cheap dell at around half the price.

I'd wager that most people who require more than a low end machine will also have some clue as to what they do and don't need out of a machine.

They know that their time is valuable
According to wikipedia the median earnings for "persons over the age of 15 who worked with earnings in 2005" was $28,567. Thats a few years back so lets round that up to $30K. Assuming 50 weeks worked a year and 48 hours a week that works out to $12.5 per hour.

I doubt the main reason people don't upgrade is because of how they value their time. From what I can ascertain the main reason they don't perform simple upgrades is that they are scared to do so.

If you are concerned about "saving" money through the false economy of "upgrades" then that means that you consider your free time to be valueless in the equation because you enjoy assembling PCs as a hobby.
In my experiance getting set up with a new machine involves

1: physically unpacking and setting up the machine
2: getting through the OEMs first boot setup process
3: removing any crap you don't want
4: installing all needed software (some of which may have licenses that are difficult to transfer)
5: copying across all relevant data (either by pulling out hard drives, setting up a network or copying the data twice once onto something external and then again off it)
6: getting all the settings back the way you like them

All of this takes FAR longer than performing a minor upgrade such as adding more ram or a second hard drive. Probablly even longer than making a new drive the primary and cloning it across.

Re:Huh, things improved

[konohitowa]

In my experiance getting set up with a new machine involves... [plus a bunch of time consuming steps]

You should help someone upgrade from one Mac to another sometime. You might be suprised as to how many of your steps are unnecessary. [Hint: you can boot a Mac as a firewire drive and completely transfer the user data, software, and system configuration from one machine to another as part of the automated setup process].

Re:Huh, things improved

[Coren22]

Second this. I do it often at work, you don't even need to boot into (T)arget Disk mode, you can use the file and settings transfer wizard equivalent (Utilities\Migration Assistant) and run it over the network, or through a firewire cable.

Re:Huh, things improved

[Coren22]

I understand the confusion, but have to correct the implementation. Try looking in Precision Workstations for a dual socket Xeon box, and you will find that the price for this range of Mac is actually pretty reasonable. I use a Mac pro at work, and find it works quite well, but I would have been just as happy with a Dell if Apple would allow VMs of Mac OS, as I do have to support it.

Re:Huh, things improved

[konohitowa]

I had started out with more detail (including the various options), but given how narrow the OP's experience is in setting up a machine, I didn't want to overwhelm him. I almost didn't even bother pointing out the target disk option.

I also didn't bother pointing out how nicely packed Apple products are (not that his first step was terribly relevant). I would hope that if he ever does bother to educate himself on this, he'll come away from it very surprised.

No flash here either

[Anonymous Coward]

See. Apple isn't doing anything new these days. They established their policy of not working with flash way back in 1976.

"Valuable printed books and manuscript"

[K. S. Kyosuke]

I am confused, which one of these is Apple I supposed to be, a printed book or a manuscript? (But they have some damned fine books there, hmmm, an ASCC manual...and a Von Neumann's scribble...and that 16th century print of Euclid in Arabic. Yummy!)

Genius Bar??

[rwrife]

If I was dumb enough to buy it, first thing I would do would be to take it to the Apple Store and ask them how to launch iPhoto on it.

$0.66?

[tivoKlr]

What about the change? Is this the mark of the beast, plus just a little more? Isn't that the Apple way anyway?

Posted from an aging MacBook I'm too cheap to replace.

The Number of the Beast

[Haxamanish]

Nerds know that the number is (6^6)^6 or or 10,314,424,798,490,535,546,171,949,056.

1-Up?

[Chagatai]

Am I the only one who parsed the title of this post as Apple selling an extra life a la Scott Pilgrim? Because some Applephiles do need to get a life, y'know.

What about the Apple 0?

[snsh]

Isn't Steve Jobs known to start counting from zero?

Apple I Doesn't Have Flash

[bkmoore]

Before you fan boys go falling over yourselves to buy the Apple I, be aware that Steve Jobs won't support the Flash Plugin on it. According to Steve Jobs, "Flash is a resource killer, and in order to deliver the best computing experience possible while running Integer BASIC on the 6502, we have dropped Flash." That being said, it should be possible to install Flash from a third-party cassette tape.

Re:Apple I Doesn't Have Flash

[fishexe]

According to Steve Jobs, "Flash is a resource killer, and in order to deliver the best computing experience possible while running Integer BASIC on the 6502, we have dropped Flash." That being said, it should be possible to install Flash from a third-party cassette tape.

But what if I upgrade to Disk BASIC?

Re:Apple I Doesn't Have Flash

[Blrfl]

Disk BASIC was a TRS-80 product.

Re:Apple I Doesn't Have Flash

[fishexe]

Disk BASIC was a TRS-80 product.

Hence, an upgrade.

Re:Apple I Doesn't Have Flash

[fishexe]

According to Steve Jobs, "Flash is a resource killer, and in order to deliver the best computing experience possible while running Integer BASIC on the 6502, we have dropped Flash."

But what if I upgrade to Applesoft BASIC?

Re:Apple I Doesn't Have Flash

[Ginger Unicorn]

I'm pretty sure this flamewar should have been over 30 years ago

Just for comparison

[Anonymous Coward]

Woz came and spoke to our Apple user group in 83 or 84 (interesting stories on the start of Apple). A local computer store at that time had 2 Apple 1s. One for $10k and one for $12K. Woz bought one, I forget which one, but he just took out his checkbook and wrote a check.

Yeah but does it run

[TehDuffman]

Yeah but does it run linux?

OK, so I did the math

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering that most prices increase at an average rate of 2.5% per year, then 1.025^(2010-1976)=2.315 Things in 2010 are on average at lease 2.3 times as expensive as they were in 1976. A $10,000 car in 1976 would cost $23150 in 2010. A $200,000 house in 1976 would cost $463,000 in 2010. A $741.66 computer in 1976 should cost 1716.94. Instead they are looking for $160,000. Now to be fair, the computer isn't new, its used (as is). I suppose they could start bidding at 1716, but I suspect is will be more like 17160, and go up from there. Do you suppose people know they are likely to pay 93 times is normal appreciation value?

Re:VIC-20 up for auction, bargain at 1/2 the price

[JoeCommodore]

Heh, I can do better then that,

I have an Apple II

Thats, right - twice as good and as valuable as that old crufty Apple I, in fact, if you you got the cash, I know where to get my hands on an Apple III!

So...

[eyrieowl]

Assuming $160k price holds, that makes for a 17% rate of return. Not too shabby. And, interesting enough, that's almost the same exact rate of return for someone who bought apple at IPO. Although the missing 4 years of appreciation would leave you with only half as much money.

More auctions

[Darinbob]

Check out the other auctions Christie's is having in SALE 7882. Very rare books, computer manuals, patent for the ENIAC, first edition paper by Babbage, and an Enigma machine (lot 59). Plus other antique books and maps, etc.

There is vastly more nerdy stuff for rich collectors than a mere Apple 1.

Ergo, my Apple ][...

[fishexe]

Ergo, my Apple ][ should be worth $320,000!
I'm gonna call Christie's a soon as I dig it out of my closet.

160000?

[HtR]

Man, $160000 for an old Apple I? I would never pay that, especially since you can get a brand new Apple computer for slightly less.

Who assembled it?

[RevWaldo]

Any chance Wozniak and/or Jobs were amongst the people who put it together? Or did they have people by then?

.

Re:Who assembled it?

[maestroX]

not even Jobs mucus is worth 160k

Re:Who assembled it?

[bjb]

Highly likely that Woz probably touched it, but less so for Jobs, I would think. I've read in historical accounts that they employed a sibling to stuff boards and also there's the 3rd founder Ronald Wayne who may still have been part of it at this point; I believe he left sometime in 1976. This is serial number 87 (?) and I believe they only produced about 200.

I would imagine that Jobs was probably out hustling, so that would be his lower chance. However, the letter would most likely have been typed and signed by him.

My semi-educated guess.

Re:VIC-20 up for auction, bargain at 1/2 the price

[Red Flayer]

I have a Commodore PET and several VIC-20's to put up for auction!!

In '99 or '00 I sold a working PET2001 (real keyboard, not chiclet) with tape cassette drive for $5000. I'm sure I could have gotten more for it if I tried.

That's only in a few variant manuscripts...

[Anonymous Coward]

> The mark of the beast is 616

That's only found in a few variant manuscripts, the rest of them all say 666. One explanation is that it refers to Nero and that a variant spelling of his name can be assigned either number.

Act fast and you can own my original APPLE ][ for

[moxley]

the meager sum of 8k dollars.

It has 48k!!! (updated from 32)....I have the original tape drive AND the dual floppy drive, as well as one of those monitors where everything is green.

As well as:

          *Apple Trek (Killing Klarnons is awesome, trust me, when you fire a photon torpedo that looks exactly like this: * and see it shooting across the green screen in 8 bit glory, you'll know that all the money you spent on an Xbox360/PS3 was truly wasted.

          *Mystery House

          *Wizardry (actually, this was a really cool game...when I was 10).

I am certain that Steve Jobs was in the same building that this machine was built in...at some point, or maybe not, but if youre really super 133t you can strip out the chassis and put a mini ATX mobo in there, rig some kind of fan system, install windows 7 and then install an Apple ][ emulator and STILL play all of those great games I just mentioned (oh yeah, plus "The Bard's Tale,").

Life time supply of cassette tapes?

[LittleBigScript]

Otherwise pass.

Let's be honest...

[neoshroom]

Let's be honest. 95% of the population doesn't even know what a Nomad was and if at this point you explained it to them, they'd say "Oh, like an iPod?"

Re:Let's be honest...

[sznupi]

Which population?

Apple II Plus, anyone?

[anton_kg]

I own Apple II Plus which is the next generation. Let me know if you are interested.

So it was a non-trivial purchase

[swb]

I make pretty good money but the last thing I spent $2800 on was a TV, and that was seven years ago.

It would have taken a pretty well off hobbyist to buy one of those back then. IIRC, the economy kind of sucked, inflation was high and so was unemployment.

Ergo, cheaper to buy a new one

[dazedNconfuzed]

Assuming 50 weeks worked a year and 48 hours a week that works out to $12.5 per hour.

You make your opponent's point.

The "vast majority of consumers" would spend more than 100 hours trying to self-upgrade memory, storage, video, drivers, etc. of an old computer to match the specs of a new one. Might as well take that >$1250+(hardware costs)+(sale of old computer) and just buy a new high-end computer.

As konohitowa points out, software transfer is plug-and-play easy on a Mac, and I contend by the time you're upgrading (the hard or easy way) it's time for a thorough housecleaning anyway.

Turing Too

[peetm]

And the highest priced lot is ... A collection of Alan Turing's offprints

http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/lot_details.aspx?from=salesummary&intObjectID=5370960&sid=c5bf7f25-71cf-442e-9dae-3518ad8c659f