A piece of the history of computing goes up for auction in California. It is an example of the Apple-I, the computer assembled by hand by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak around 1976, in Jobs’s “garage”, considered the ancestor of the Mac.
The specimen was auctioned by John Moran Auctioneers – here the page with all the details of the auction – Los Angeles auction house. The estimated price is between $ 400,000 and $ 600,000.
Apple-I, the deed of foundation
Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak sold a Volkswagen van (the first) and a Hp 65 calculator (the second) to put together just over $ 1,300, the capital needed to build the first 50 Apple-I’s sold at the ByteShop electronics store in Mountain. View. In fact, this is considered to be the founding act of Apple. The beginning of the adventure that will revolutionize the history of the computer and beyond.
At auction the only remaining specimen with wooden case
The auctioned vintage car is a rare version of the Apple-I with a Hawaiian acacia wood case, very popular in the 1970s. Six units were made with this case: the one put up for auction is the only one that survived.
Reading the history of this computer, it turns out that the special wooden case was added by Paul Terrell, the owner of the ByteShop, in fact the first personal computer retailer in the world.