First Apple computer up for auction
Source: Agencies |
June 23, 2013, Sunday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
IT'S the kind of electronic junk that piles up in basements and garages - an old computer motherboard with wires sticking out.
But because it was designed and sold by two college dropouts named Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, it could be worth more than half a million dollars.
An Apple 1 from 1976, one of the first Apple computers ever built and forerunner of today's MacBooks, iPads and iPhones, goes on the auction block at Christie's this week. The bidding starts at US$300,000, with a pre-sale estimated value of up to US$500,000.
"This is a piece of history that made a difference in the world, it's where the computer revolution started," said Ted Perry, a retired school psychologist who owns the old Apple and has kept it stashed away in a box at his home outside Sacramento, California.
The 28-by-36 centimeter green piece of plastic covered with a grid of memory chips above a labyrinth of wires was one of the first 25 such computer elements, and sold for US$666.66.
About 200 were made but most have disappeared or been discarded. Various estimates put the number known to still exist from about 30 to 50. They came with 8 kilobytes of memory - a million times less than the average computer today.
Vintage Apple products have become especially hot items since Jobs' death in October 2011.
But because it was designed and sold by two college dropouts named Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, it could be worth more than half a million dollars.
An Apple 1 from 1976, one of the first Apple computers ever built and forerunner of today's MacBooks, iPads and iPhones, goes on the auction block at Christie's this week. The bidding starts at US$300,000, with a pre-sale estimated value of up to US$500,000.
"This is a piece of history that made a difference in the world, it's where the computer revolution started," said Ted Perry, a retired school psychologist who owns the old Apple and has kept it stashed away in a box at his home outside Sacramento, California.
The 28-by-36 centimeter green piece of plastic covered with a grid of memory chips above a labyrinth of wires was one of the first 25 such computer elements, and sold for US$666.66.
About 200 were made but most have disappeared or been discarded. Various estimates put the number known to still exist from about 30 to 50. They came with 8 kilobytes of memory - a million times less than the average computer today.
Vintage Apple products have become especially hot items since Jobs' death in October 2011.
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