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Apple-1 Sells For $671,400, Breaks Previous Auction Record
hypnosec writes "What is believed to be one of the six working Apple-1 computers has fetched a whopping $671,400 for its current owner at an auction in Germany. The Apple-1 was built by Steve Wozniak back in 1976 in the garage of Steve Jobs' parents. The model sold at auction is either from the first lot of 50 systems ordered by Paul Terrell, owner of the Byte Shop chain of stores, or part of the next lot of 150 systems the duo built to sell to friends and vendors. The retail price for the Apple-1 at the time was $666.66."
A sucker !!
I'd buy it, if only for a chance to start harassing The Woz for tech support.
$666.66... The Biblical Apple was from the tree of knowledge. The Apple's salesman was snake, and the users were deceived. Steve Jobs aspired to be devilishly clever in marketing. In Faustian style, his life was cut short ahead of its time... Oh what stories that would be told, if only this silicon could talk.
"a fascination with the early history of the computer age"
1976 was already the middle of the computer age.
Really? I feel the computer age hasn't even taken off yet, and speaking of a middle for something that is open ended is just silly. In fact, even though the age of the gene-manipulation/bio-tech might be starting now, let us not forget that it is progress in our computation capabilities that makes all this possible. There is still lots more to be done in computational mathematics/biology/engineeering/science.
It would really depend on the popularity (and existence) of Apple in 40-50 years. I think this thing wouldn't have raked in so much money if Apple did go bankrupt in the late nineties.
As technology goes, the Apple I is not that revolutionary. Not like the first mouse or first transistor.
-- The Internet is a too slow way of doing things, you'd never do without it.
The science museum in London does have an apple I...Along with various other rarities (a PDP-8 for example and other even older things).
I don't think any of those is in working order though.
Well, it sort of is - it's one of the first consumer computers, so it's different in that respect to an iPhone. Regardless of how far down the line we go, the iPhone will never be the product that launched a company and played a large role in the wider acceptance of home computing in general (note again, for slashdot mods: not saying it was *the* thing, or the *only* thing, or the *most important* thing etc).
It's like the auction of the first telephone - these things have cultural significance beyond that of a product from somewhere in the middle, regardless of whether the company is still going or not. I'm sure that didn't hurt, but it's hardly the only thing driving that auction price.
Nope. $666.66 in 1976 dollars is worth about $2,724.41 today.
http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/
Really? I feel the computer age hasn't even taken off yet, and speaking of a middle for something that is open ended is just silly. In fact, even though the age of the gene-manipulation/bio-tech might be starting now, let us not forget that it is progress in our computation capabilities that makes all this possible. There is still lots more to be done in computational mathematics/biology/engineeering/science.
It's not like we left all the iron tools when we left the iron age, yes there are still radios but it'd feel very strange to say we're in the age of radio. It is not new, it is not something that right now is redefining our society. In that sense I feel the computer age maybe has come and gone - as in the moving from pen and paper, calculators and filing cabinets to word processors, spreadsheets and databases. It was already followed by the Internet age - which is of course using computers but that I feel is something completely different, a revolution in communication not computing. I think now we're in the budding of the "always on" age, where you take both with you on the go but I think that is distinct from the former, just like cell phones was a different revolution than phones. If you want to take a more birds-eye view I'd call all of it the Digital Age, because that's really what it's been all about - we take analog information and we convert it to zeros and ones, which we can then compute, transmit, display and lots of other things with. And there we find constantly new ways to apply computers.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
An Apple-1 computer, made in 1976, sold for a record $671,400 on Saturday at an auction in Germany, including all fees and taxes, said Uwe Breker, the German auctioneer.
That surpassed the $640,000 record for an Apple-1, set last November at a sale at the same auction house in Cologne, Germany, Auction Team Breker. The fall 2012 sale was a sharp rise from the previous record price for an Apple-1 of $374,500, set in June 2012 at Sothebyâ(TM)s in New York.
- I thought 640K was enough for everybody, apparently not until zee Germans get here.
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As a side note
some irrational exuberance in the prices, for a machine that can do very little and originally sold for $666 (about $2,700 in current dollars).
- isn't that funny, how the official inflation (666 becomes 2700) is so far off the actual bubbles forming in various asset classes, that reflect the actual rate of inflation (666 becomes 641K) and almost none the wiser.
You can't handle the truth.
This Apple I is signed by Woz and includes a signed letter from Steve Jobs. The previous owner also got the machine running again.
http://www.macrumors.com/2013/05/25/working-apple-1-computer-sells-for-record-auction-price-of-671400/
back in 1976 at the Stanford Linear Acceleration I thought the Steves would take all the fun out of building a computer if you buy one already made. I was wrong.