back to article 'Superb' Apple 1 on the block for £100k-£150K

An original Apple 1 made by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in Jobs parent's garage goes on the auction block in London this month. The Apple 1 was designed by Jobs and Steve Wozniak in 1976. Just 200 were made, according to the website Old Computers, and up to 50 are thought to survive. At the time they cost $666.66, but Lot 65 …

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  1. famousringo
    Joke

    Let me be the first

    I'd just like to point out that I could build a PC that will vastly outperform this Apple for far less money.

  2. Christian Berger

    This machine was on the edge...

    This machine was on the edge towards general purpose computing as we know it today. For example while newer machines used a fraction of their RAM to refresh the display, the Apple 1 used a set of dedicated shift registers for that. It also had dedicated character generator ICs instead of PROMS.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I repeat...

    Dare you to put that on the genius bar and ask for help...

    (same AC as before)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Not sure I'd risk it

      "certainly Sir, just let me send it to our workshop, we'll call you when it's working..."

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Boffin

        Escalation...

        Wonder how far it would get escalated for repair.. wonder if it'd ever land on the big iwhite idesk?

        1. bhtooefr

          You could trade it in on a Apple II Plus with 48K RAM and a Disk II...

          Steve Jobs actually tried to recall all of the Apple-1s when the Apple II came out, so that Apple wouldn't have to support them. Anecdotes say that, when the ][+ came out, the trade-in offer had become, trade in an Apple-1 (which would be destroyed,) get a ][+ with 48k RAM (keep in mind that the maximum officially supported RAM on the Apple-1 was 8k) and a Disk ][ for free.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    If the Unabomber had made computers...

    It would have looked like the Apple 1.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski

  5. Is it me?

    Ahhhhh Furniture

    Although it looks a bit naff in the wooden case, it does prompt the question, why can't we have more computers that look like part of the furniture, rather than an ugly utilitarian lump in the corner.

    Let's have roll top desks with computers built in, must be possible to make them reliable & cool enough not to need much servicing, and modular enough to make replacement easy.

    Just think how much nicer a data centre would look in polished mahogany.....

    LCD screens in Victorian picture frames.....

    Come on Apple, HP and the rest, design something nice and natural to look at.

    1. Stuart Castle Silver badge

      Been tried

      Building computers in to furniture has been tried several times. People don't seem interested in buying it.

    2. Marvin the Martian
      Stop

      "rather than an ugly utilitarian lump"

      .... In other words, you've never had a Mac.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Or...

      A glass-topped coffee table, with embedded iPad/iPhone-style UI across the whole surface...

      1. Bobby Omelette

        Erm ...

        A stunning idea ... At least until the vicar next pops round and puts his cuppa down on your favourite tug-tv bookmark.

      2. Lance 3

        Like this

        http://www.gadgetell.com/tech/comment/sony-rips-off-microsoft-surface-smart-table/

        That design is nothing new and close to a decade old.

    4. John 110
      Big Brother

      hmmm

      What? Like one of these http://steampunkworkshop.com/victorian-all-one-pc ?

    5. Giles Jones Gold badge

      Retro

      Google 'Steampunk computer', you'll find what you're looking for. Albeit in an old fashioned way.

      1. foxyshadis

        @Giles

        The steampunk laptops I've seen look nothing like furniture, they're just goofy wooden/metal shells that intentionally call attention to themselves. Given that smartphones have as much power as small supercomputers of a decade ago, you'd think it would be easier to put a standard low-power PC into a fashionable shell, such as the underside of a desk or the headboard of a bed. I guess it's not important enough to most people.

        Trouble is, no one wants to look at furniture all day, so using furniture as a screen is out. I keep my PCs and hard drives as hidden inside the furniture as possible, though. Would be nice to meld them together.

  6. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

    An enigma machine cost less than an Apple 1?

    The mind boggles. I for one think the former is WAY cooler.

    <sarcasm>

    But then maybe the Apple as the better user experience

    </sarcasm>

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    Look the warning were there

    666 and then some....See Job's is the devil incarnate! Yet no one took notice and now we are all doomed.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Only if world = USA...

    "ENIAC, the world's first electronic computer " ?

    Ahem: Colossus ?

    But that wasn't American, so doesn't count.

    1. ThomH

      My understanding is that...

      ... ENIAC was Turing complete, whereas Collosus wasn't. Though that would make it "the world's first Turing complete electronic computer", both electronic and Turing complete having already been done elsewhere.

    2. Giles Jones Gold badge

      Not a computer as we know it

      Colossus had a fixed program. To be classed as a general purpose computer you need the ability to load new software or instructions. Colossus had to be rewired to do that.

  9. Jimmy Floyd
    Jobs Horns

    "At the time they cost $666.66..."

    How very prophetic.

    1. Marvin the Martian
      Jobs Horns

      That's an old one.

      There's that giveaway, and then the apple to seduce mankind.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Not forgetting that...

        St.Eve tempted man with an Apple..

        Although Job <> Genesis.

  10. Tom 7

    So like a lot of apple equipment

    it was not actually used - it was just for showing to people to show how cool you are?

  11. Ed 13
    FAIL

    Enigma Machine

    The Enigma Machine is the cryptography machine used by the Germans for encoding and decoding messages, not the machine used at Bletchley Park to break the cypher. These machines were called Bombes.

    A few people might argue about the assertion that ENIAC was the first electronic computer too.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Stop

      Yes, they used Enigma machines.

      Bletchley Park may have used Bombes to break the cypher, but once they'd found the keys a fair chunk of the actual decrypting was done with captured Enigma machines. What's more, before the Bombes existed they did much of the code-breaking manually...

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Grenade

    At the time they cost $666(.66)

    Dont say you weren't given plenty of warning.

    That is all

  13. Gwaptiva
    Coat

    As is usual with Apple Gear

    overpriced and of dubious specification

  14. Robert Hill

    How much...

    I have a competitor to the Apple I in near mint condition - the Ohio Scientific Superboard II...the ROMs are copywritted 1977, and it has the very third version of "Microsoft BASIC in ROM" by Mr. Gates himself...

    Got to be worth £10...

    1. chr0m4t1c
      Joke

      Try offering it to Microsoft

      They'll probably give you a bit more for it.

      They can use it as a secure starting point for the Windows 8 codebase...

  15. Richard Tobin
    WTF?

    offprints?

    300,000 pounds for offprints? These people are nuts!

  16. Marc F
    Joke

    Magical

    "'Superb' Apple 1" shouldn't that be "'Magical' Apple 1"

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    ...but will it blend?

    See title.

  18. Cunningly Linguistic

    Do Apple...

    ...get 30% of the final price?

  19. Player_16
    Jobs Halo

    It just works!

    .

    'But in principle, it worked out of the box.'

  20. Lars Silver badge
    Happy

    Apple II+

    Any value in that hardware, and at the time, wonderful feeling of progress in the air like Visicalc the first spreadsheet program.

    Perhaps it is my age, or something I drink, but it is like not much has realy happened since then.

    It was 1 Mhz and would give people an heart attack to use to day. But it was new and Visicalc

    is the only software I would have granted an patent since then.

  21. Ian 55
    Coffee/keyboard

    A look on the possibly virtual shelves of your bookshop of choice

    Should reveal a 'build your own Apple I' book has been available for some time. Now all you need is some 1976 or earlier TTL chips (or just wipe the top and print your own manufacturing date) and see the profits...

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Does it support dual-booting 10.6 and Win7?

    I'm thinking about bidding, but if I spend that much on a machine I want it to do everything I need.

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