Apple I Auction: Historic PC Could Fetch Over $160K (PHOTO)

Christie's, an exclusive London auction house, is selling one of Apple's very first personal computers, the Apple I (aka Apple-1) from 1976, Apple Insider reports. At the time of this writing, Christie's placed the Apple I's value in the range of $161,600 - $242,400.

According to the New York Times, the Apple I was built by Apple co-founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak and sold for $666.66. Only a few hundred shipped before the Apple II rendered them obsolete in 1977.

"[T]he original Apple I has the sort of specs that we associate with deficient calculators today -- 8 KB of RAM, a MOS 6502 microprocessor with clock speeds between 1 and 2 MHz -- but was nevertheless a feat of engineering for its day," writes Geekosystem.

Indeed, as Christie's points out in its description of the Apple I, this early PC was an assembly-required device. The motherboard was built by Apple, but the user had to provide the keyboard, casing, power supply and monitor.

The Apple I will be on the auction block on November 23, as part of a lot of several items that includes the fully assembled Apple I motherboard, instruction manuals, cassette interface and basic tape, official documentation and a letter from Steve Jobs.

In the meantime, you can visit Christie's listing page or check out Christie's photo of the Apple I lot for sale (below).

LOOK:

Comments

[jonthebru]

02:40 AM on 11/16/2010

What a great idea that is! Think it will ever catch on?

[Leo12Pack]

01:13 PM on 11/15/2010

yeah, this thing was sweet, back in the day we used to download some mean grandma porn on this thing!!

[Vernon Brown]

11:48 PM on 11/15/2010

grandma porn is still the best

[Carbon Forteetoo]

12:47 AM on 11/15/2010

I want to run Photoshop on it.

[Joseph Bethea]

02:53 PM on 11/14/2010

$666.66

[Joseph Bethea]

02:53 PM on 11/14/2010

666 the mark of the beast

[choot]

09:35 AM on 11/14/2010

My 10-year old niece [pointing to the cassette tape]: "What's this? Is it an old iPod?"

[oldgrendel]

01:05 AM on 11/14/2010

For any of you (me) old silicon heads want to walk down chip lane, you should check out:
http://www­.old-compu­ters.com/m­useum/
Remember when you used tape drives to save your programs? Oh my.

[DMSmith]

03:23 PM on 11/14/2010

I had a Commodore 64 with a tape drive. Wrote my first novel on it and tracked my business on it.
Now, that seems amazing.

[moflard]

06:56 AM on 11/16/2010

There's a really nice museum in Bletchley Park, UK - where amongst other things they've recreated a Colossus, the first electronic computer.

Forget tape drives - remember valves?

[oldgrendel]

10:14 AM on 11/16/2010

Read much on the great work at Bletchley and the famous Alan Turing. Great stuff. I'm more of a cathode tube and ring magnet memory man, from which we get the first "bug".

[wilray]

09:53 PM on 11/13/2010

Back then the display was a stone tablet.

[lenuk]

08:16 PM on 11/13/2010

With trembling hands I visited Ebay to find out what riches my Atari 800 might bring.

Hmmm ... 50GBP (80USD).

I think I'll wait a few more years and try again.

[City of Evil]

03:46 PM on 11/14/2010

It's all about the scarcity. The Apple II computers aren't bringing in the big bucks either.

[DRaymond]

07:11 PM on 11/13/2010

If you are confused the componetns are what is being sold, the finished product in the wooden case is an assembled unit on display in the Smithstonian.

[mukTech]

06:54 PM on 11/13/2010

I want it. I want it!!

[TakeSake]

11:06 PM on 11/13/2010

You caaaan't have it!

[BigLar]

12:57 PM on 11/14/2010

Does the magic bus come with it?

[bill111]

05:18 PM on 11/13/2010

RR should have thanked Steve Jobs for keeping this country from a great depression. Without the PC Reaganocimics would have ruined this country.

[mojo filter]

04:30 PM on 11/13/2010

200k and you dont get keyboard?

[Truth-Seeker]

02:23 PM on 11/13/2010

Not only was Wozniac's electronics design pure genius, but he also wrote the very compact operating system for the thing. Those were the days when American innovation still thrived and meant something (around the world). If only we could get back to those days. The number of independent inventors in the world has declined greatly since those days.

[oldgrendel]

10:47 AM on 11/13/2010

Man, if I had only kept my old Apple I (but I still have my Commodore C-64)...

[IndyGuy]

07:12 PM on 11/13/2010

I have my first one: Radio Shack TRS80 Model I...it doesn't run but I don't have the heart to throw it way. C64 was my favorite computer.

[TakeSake]

11:13 PM on 11/13/2010

I have a Bell & Howell Apple ][. There's also a VIC-20 around somewhere...

[oldgrendel]

12:15 AM on 11/14/2010

For anybody else (us old farts in particular), try this for a walk down silicon memory lane: http://www.old-computers.com/museum/
Have fun.

[jabailo]

05:54 AM on 11/13/2010

Then Jobs walked into the lab and said, "What are these?!"

Researchers replied "Brushed chrome and white plastic".

American computing was no longer the same!