OT: Original Apple 1 sold for $50,000

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OT: Original Apple 1 sold for $50,000

Post by NikonWeb »

Not exactly photography related, but certainly a piece of digital history:

Original Apple 1 computer

Image

The Holy Grail of vintage computers! A museum piece.

Any Apple 1 is rare but this unit has impeccable provenance and is so clean...it literally may be the best surviving Apple 1.

Provenance:
Included in this sale are the following items to provide complete history and provenance for this unit:
  • The original invoice for the sale, dated December 7, 1976. The sales person, Steven, is presumed to be Steve Jobs.
  • A letter, typed on plain notebook paper and signed by Steven Jobs. Though undated, the letter refers to sending the buyer a dealer application in January or February, 1977.
  • The original packaging in which the computer shipped, with a return address of Steve Jobs' parents address at the time.
  • Photographs of every owner of this unit. The original owner was photographed holding the computer, the next owner did the same and the current owner took his picture with both the system and with Steve Wozniak
Sold for $50,000. 1 bidder (a new user with zero bid history)

eBay item 320451173813

Jarle
Stan Disbrow
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Re: OT: Original Apple 1 sold for $50,000

Post by Stan Disbrow »

Hi,

Awk!

I have most of an early Apple-II boxed up on one of my left-over bits shelves. These things originally didn't sell with cases, so mine is in a homemade wooden case. No neat paperwork or photos to go with it, though. Maybe it'll be worth something someday?

Hey! How about an Apple-III? I have one of those, too, with all the options. That was a business machine that flopped in the face of the original IBM PC - as did the Commodore PET!

I have a lot of ancient computer stuff, actually. A couple KIM's, a couple Atari 800's, a set of pre IBM PC PC's from IBM (5100, 5110 and 5120), plus an original 5150 IBM PC that was used for development work during the making of the the 3270 PC, which was a PC modified to also be a 3270 mainframe terminal.

That last has a strange story. Back in 1982, I was working for IBM and our group wanted to develop a memory card for the 3270 PC series, but could not obtain a stock PC for testing said card. They were on allocation to customers and so none were available internally. So, I bought one from a retail store using my own money and we used that.

Originally, it was a 64k machine with only diskette drives. By the time we were done, it was a 720k machine with a 30 MB hard drive, which is how it still sits on the shelf.

I hadn't thought about the Apple-I on the shelf with the PC for years, until I read this post.

Man, as I think about it, I have a lot of vintage hardware still. My favorite is an MOS technologies KIM-I, which is a 6502 just like the Apples and Ataris. I have the KIM-I rigged with a Chord Keyboard that can be used with most IBM machines.

I've always thought that *this* was the most likely to become valuable. By the time I went to work at IBM, the chord keyboard project was already abandoned, but there were a lot of them still sitting around.

The chord keyboard is a odd thing. It uses one hand, pressing multiple keys at once with the fingers to get certain characters. The most used are one key, then two at once, then four at once for the least used. There's another chord key set for the thumb as well, to get caps, control, space, etc.

Here's a link for any interested. It's a paper from 1978 on the IEEE website. If you load the PDF on the page in the link, there's a picture of the odd thing.

http://www.computer.org/portal/web/csdl ... 978.218024

Anyway, the chord keyboard was attached to the KIM-I microcomputer that then interfaced it to a 3278 terminal. A few simple mods, and I had it rigged to also plug into an IBM 5150 PC. I had to change the coding from EBCDIC to ASCII, but that was a simple matter of reprogramming the output code table in the KIM-I ROM. ;)

Oh, well. Enough chatting about ancient microcomputers. :P

Later!

Stan
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Re: OT: Original Apple 1 sold for $50,000

Post by Ross_Alford »

Stan Disbrow wrote: I have most of an early Apple-II boxed up on one of my left-over bits shelves. These things originally didn't sell with cases, so mine is in a homemade wooden case. No neat paperwork or photos to go with it, though. Maybe it'll be worth something someday?
...
I hadn't thought about the Apple-I on the shelf with the PC for years, until I read this post.

Man, as I think about it, I have a lot of vintage hardware still. My favorite is an MOS technologies KIM-I, which is a 6502 just like the Apples and Ataris. I have the KIM-I rigged with a Chord Keyboard that can be used with most IBM machines.
Hi, Stan

If the machine you have is an Apple I it's already worth reasonable money. I thought only Apple I originally sold without case, so maybe yours is? Not an expert, however, though I bought a II+ in January 1980 and can thus claim to be a fairly old hand. Even the "red book" that came with the early II models is worth something now; I've seen them go on eBay for over $50 anyway.

If you happen to have an IMSAI or Altair sitting around, those are also worth serious money, apparently. I worked in a lab in ca. 1977 that had one of those (IMSAI). I was so impressed. Over the years I've gotten rid of most old computers, but still have a Kaypro 4, which worked the last time I hauled it out. Very funny to show it to graduate students and explain that this was a state-of-the-art portable computer while I was in grad school.

Cheers,
Ross
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Re: OT: Original Apple 1 sold for $50,000

Post by NikonWeb »

Interesting to learn how some crazy people will pay big money for such useless old artifacts :-)

Jarle
Stan Disbrow
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Re: OT: Original Apple 1 sold for $50,000

Post by Stan Disbrow »

Hi,

No, mine is indeed an early first-pass series Apple-II. Says so on the PWB, anyway. The case and KB were optional for a while back then. The original owner bought the PWB and then integrated his own power supply and keyboard in a home-made wooden case.

I wish it were an Apple-I, though. I'd sell it for the first offer over $10k! I don't have to wait for $50k! :P

I have some bits for IMSI and Altair and even OSI, but they're just assorted boards - no complete machines. The oldest thing I have that's complete is the IBM 5100, but that series was not a hobbiest machine. The oldest working hobbiest unit is the MOS KIM-I.

Yep. It's amazing to me that anyone would pay much money for any of these things. I know I would not. Most of the stuff I have I was given, actually, and I took it at the time because I had this tendency to service such things for folks, so free parts was always worthwhile.

I have enough of this crap tucked away to fill a row of shelves that take up the space a car would in the garage. Everything from parts from an IBM System Six through PC and Mac stuff that's only a few years old. I really should sort thru it all and take the stuff that doesn't make up a full system, regardless of the vintage, to the next electronics recycle day.....

Later!

Stan
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Re: OT: Original Apple 1 sold for $50,000

Post by NikonWeb »

The feedback is in:

Buyer: "Item was exactly as described and delivery was excellent"
Seller: "Great transaction with a very honest man. Highly recommended!!"

Still, I'm a little sceptical. Seller have only 5 feedback, buyer have 1 (i.e. this was his/her first eBay transaction). A little strange for a $50,000 item, don't you think?

Jarle
Stan Disbrow
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Re: OT: Original Apple 1 sold for $50,000

Post by Stan Disbrow »

Hi,

Oh, yes. Very strange indeed. I smell something, and it's not coming from the horse barn, either.

Hey! I see some guy on eBay selling, or trying to sell, IBM 5100 and 5110 series pre-PC PC's for around $5-6k each.

I wonder if I *really* need to keep a machine hanging around that reads/writes punch cards, paper tape, 8" diskettes and 1/4" mag tape?? I'll have to see how much interest there is once this guy runs out of his.....

I wonder if I should sell any of the applications on 1/4" tape I still have for the fool things? Not that they're useful things like word processors and spreadsheets, though. No, the 5100/5110 were built as lab data collection and processing machines. However, if anyone would like to attach thermocouples to a large number of IC's in a life-test oven, say, I have data collection and analysis programs for the things! :P

Of course, by 1984, we'd junked all the 5100 and 5110 machines and moved to 5150 and 5160 PC's and XT's to do the same jobs. Plus, the 'new' machines were half the size, a tenth the weight, had 10x the processing power *and* would run canned apps like word processors and spreadsheets! ;)

I was rummaging about in the boxes on the shelves a week or so ago (for something else) and came across a box with an Apple Lisa in it - in pieces. But, it's all there. I think. Someone didn't get it fixed 20 years ago and I wound up with it and promptly didn't fix it, either! :P

I also came across two Atari 800 machines in their original shipping boxes. They're not worth much on eBay, around $200 max, but one has the game developer's ROM on the graphics card. This gave ctrl key assignment to basic sprites and spridgets to each key on the keyboard. It has the stickers on the faces of all the keys still, which is what gave it away. They were used with a game development program to WYSIWYG in the graphic elements to make up a game for each playing screen you wanted in the game.

I know that was like $500 in 1982 or so, and I have the software that goes with it and the compiler as well. Anyone want to write Atari games???

The other 800 is a stock one without the fancy ROM chip. I wonder what the fancy one might bring with a good description? I might have to give this one a try on eBay and see if anyone wants an old Atari they can use to write new Atari games with......

Speaking of which, I sold my Apple III for just over $800 two weeks ago. I wonder if I can get a similar price for a fancied-up Atari 800?

If nothing else, these strange auctions have got me to digging and putting ancient stuff up on the block to see what I can get for it. Oh, and I bought a few spare IBM Thinkpad X31's with the Apple III money.

That's my favorite machine these days. Not the most modern of notebooks, but it gives 1.6-2.0 GHz P4M power with 2 GB of RAM and a 1024x768 display. It's small and light but is still a decent size to work with - not one of those too small or too large things they're selling these days. I love the things, and they sell for around $150! They're very useful running XP and much better than some old 6502 or less thing that couldn't process a DCS 100 image if you gave it a week to do so!

I dedicated one x31 for photo processing the old Kodak images. I scored a dock, too, so I now use three antique IBM 9516 20" 1280x1024 LCD displays with it ( I already had those, yet another older IBM thing I scarf up whenever I can). I have a two-display analog card in the dock and the third is driven from the controller in the X31. The nicest part is that when one wants a machine to take into the field, just pop it off the dock and you're ready to go with 100 GB of inboard storage for photos, and can get by with a single display on the machine itself. Sweet!

And all for a single Apple-III that needs new foam bits in the keyboard. That was the big issue with the early Apples - bad keyboards over time. Oh, well, enough of the Sanford & Son Computer Company!

Later!

Stan
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Stan Disbrow
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Re: OT: Original Apple 1 sold for $50,000

Post by Stan Disbrow »

Hi,

One thing is for sure. I'm not going to sell any of my IBM PC development mules - like the 5150 PC I bought myself in 1982 at a time when none were available internally. That was so we could develop the 3270 PC communications adapter and the multifunction memory cards we needed for 3270 PC as well.

I have several mule machines - all the same basic story - and I spent far too many bucks and far too many hours working with those things to ever let them go. Besides, I gave $3600 for the 5150 at the time and I seriously doubt that any collector would ever give me that dough back even if we don't adjust it for inflation! Even if it *was* a development mule! :P

Besides, I still make use of most of these things from time-to-time as these are the machines I made over into the sequenced data conversion system. ;)

later!

Stan
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Re: OT: Original Apple 1 sold for $50,000

Post by NikonWeb »

Hi Stan,

Sounds like you have quite a collection going on there! Would be fun to see a photo sometime :-)

Congratulations on your "new" IBMs!

Jarle
Stan Disbrow
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Re: OT: Original Apple 1 sold for $50,000

Post by Stan Disbrow »

Hi,

The Great Spring Project this year is a all-new electronics shop. I don't mean new stuff *in* the shop, I'll have the same old junk I do now, but a new area to set it up in. We have the space, but things are still all over the place from the move 5 years ago. I know. That's sad!

Anyway, the Project is really just empty everything from all shops and into the yard. Then, just put it all back in a different order. We will have to build one 'L' shaped wall as I need to keep the cats out of the e-shop. That's why half of it is in a bedroom to begin with. The problem is, I don't have room to set everything up, so just the workbench and the two racks of test equipment are set up.

The old computer stuff is boxed and shelved. I want to rack it up so they're instantly useable. I have the racks, but they're just holding boxes and standing in as shelves right now.

Anyway, I will be sure to get some shots of the new setup where one wall will be racks of equipment. I will get each of the old systems racked and operating again. As it is now, whenever I want to do a media conversion, I have to unbox each system in turn, then box it up again to do the same with the next system in line.

Most of what I'm asked to do is get stuff off of diskettes. I haven't needed to run paper tape since I moved from NY to NC. I used to get that quite often from a local machine shop which needed to convert old Numeric Control programs on paper to Computer Numeric Control programs on 3.5" diskette. Once I'd done all their old NC to CNC conversion, though, the demand ended.

That being the case, I think I might eBay the bits from that old IBM 5100 system. Looks like I could get decent money for the two readers/punches and the computer itself.

Later!

Stan
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Professional Electronics Development Engineer
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