TUAW (The Unofficial Apple Weblog) has a wonderful story today about an eBay auction for an original Apple I computer, which starts out at $50,000. And what do you get for your winning bid? TUAW explains:
“A non-working Apple I motherboard, the original shipping box (with the return address being the home of Steve Jobs’ parents), and the original manual, complete with schematics on how to take the motherboard and build a workable computer out of it.
“The original full-page advertisement for Apple was included with each Apple I. This features the original Apple ‘Isaac Newton’ logo that was designed by the third founder of Apple, Ronald Wayne. Wayne also wrote the Apple I manual. Finally, you’ll get a photograph of every other owner of this computer. The existing owner has a picture of himself, the computer, and Steve Wozniak that he’s including.”
By April of 1976, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak co-founded Apple Computer. The Apple I, their first product, was the first single-circuit board computer. It had a video interface, 8K of RAM and a keyboard. Its processor, the 6502 designed by Rockwell, cost a mere $25.
The computer, originally mounted on plywood with components visible, was first unveiled at a meeting of the now-famous Homebrew Computer Club which was based in Palo Alto, CA. A local computer dealer (The Byte Show) ordered 100 units, provided Wozniak and Jobs agreed to assemble the kits for customers. In all, 200 were built and sold for $666.66 each.
This is an extraordinary specimen of the Apple I - widely acknowledged to be the first hobby/home computer ever built. And the important archive of ephemera included in the package makes it practically unique. TUAW’s writeup is accompanied by several thumbnails of documents packaged together with the computer (including the cover of the manual, above).
However, there is one caveat: if you happen to be the successful bidder, you are asked to travel to Roseville, California to pick it up due to the irreplaceable nature of the Apple I. So what are you waiting for?! The holidays are right around the corner!
