Rare Operating Apple 1 Rakes In $374,500 At Sotheby's Auction 118
coondoggie writes "It's not one-of-a-kind, but it's pretty darn close. Sotheby's this week auctioned off a rare, working Apple 1 computer for $374,500 to an unnamed bidder. The price was more than double the expected price listed on the Sotheby's web site. Sotheby's notes about the Apple 1 say it is one of six thought-to-be-operational boxes and one of about 50 known to exist."
Re:Well... (Score:4, Informative)
$105 832 based on today's close. So I guess the Apple 1 was still a good investment! (if you were one of the 5 people who managed to keep it functional for 30 years).
Re:36 y.o. electrolytic capacitors! (Score:4, Informative)
While that is certainly true, i'd add that back then there simply weren't that many manufacturers for chips and caps so you didn't get really chip shitty dodgy parts like you do today. back then the boards were thick, traces thick, caps were made by a few companies for primarily industrial uses so were built tough, there just wasn't tons of truly cheap shitty parts to build something like that out of.
This is why I'd argue that its easier, when comparing number existing VS number made of course, that its more likely that old VIC or Atari VCS will work well VS say your average PC from 1994 or the first Playstations, because by that time it was a LOT easier to cut corners by using cheap chips than it was in the late 1970s. There is a good reason why a lot of today's stuff is called 'designed for the dump" and that is because the parts are so thin and cheap that you can practically look at it funny and kill the damned thing whereas i can't even count how many times i knocked my old VIC off my desktop into the floor and it was still working when it disappeared during my last move 5 years ago.
Finally i have to wonder whether we'll have anything THAT old still working 36 years from now thanks to the new solder and tin whiskers. I have an engineering buddy and you want to hear an all day rant just bring up the new solder, he says he can't count the number of times he's opened up something fairly new that failed and couldn't trace it back to the new solder. So while I wouldn't be surprised if you'll be able to find PCs from the 70s and 80s still running i have to wonder if we'll see anything from our current era or will it all be in the dump.