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."
Well... (Score:5, Funny)
Sounds like a pretty run of the mill Apple mark up...
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"$374,500 ottah be plenty for anyone" -Bill Gates
AppleCare (Score:4, Funny)
I'd definitely want AppleCare for this one, those Apple 1 computers are notoriously fragile.
Re:Well... (Score:5, Interesting)
$666.66 in 1976 had the same buying power as $2,710.75 in 2012.
Now, as then, that'll buy you Apple's latest and greatest computer.
(Actually it's $2,799.00 but still remarkably close given this span of 36 years!)
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:Well... (Score:4, Interesting)
The Apple IPO was in 1980 for $22/share. $666.66 would have purchased a little over 30 shares. Since then, it has paid a few dollars in dividends (which can be ignored) and split 2:1 three times. You would now own 240 shares, and it closed today at $574 for a value of $137,000.
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I used the closing price on 12/12/80, which was around $29, giving only 184 shares. I figured no one but insiders and institutional investors usually manage to get the offering price, and if you were one of those you wouldn't be worried about where to best spend $666 ;)
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I just went to Google's financial page for AAPL and used the chart to look at the price on their first and most recent day of trading. It also tells you the % gain over a window, which for the whole period was "15,875.57%" (based on daily closing prices).
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$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).
Six.
Mine works, too.
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More accurate would be to say, no metallic standard has ever lasted. They all died - every one of them. Gone, kaput, ex-currencies.
Fiat currencies, on the other hand, are alive and kicking. You can find them in every corner store.
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Fiat currencies, on the other hand, are alive and kicking. You can find them in every corner store.
The average lifespan of a fiat currency is around 40 years.
The world came off the last vestiges of the gold standard around 40 years ago. Gold is exploding and the Euro, at least, is heading toward the dustbin of history.
Odd, that.
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real money
Please send me all of your "worthless" paper money. I'll send back a box of pure copper pieces.
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There's a limit to how much gold you can borrow. There is no limit to how much fiat money you can print.
That is a pretty big difference (which doesn't mean gold backed money is better, just that it really does change something).
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WHich is completely different from being able to print it into worthlessness of a whim. But feel free to pretend.
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Expensive, but... (Score:2)
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Re:Expensive, but... unique (Score:4, Interesting)
Such an artifact might be worth millions in a few decades, should be a good anti-inflation bet.
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Not that hard it seems...
http://www.brielcomputers.com/wordpress/?cat=17 [brielcomputers.com]
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It is only selling due to nostalgia.
I honestly doubt it will be worth much in 100 years.
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Nostalgia won't exist in 100 years?
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Depends on whether Apple's still a force to be reckoned with. If Apple's dominating the electronics-implanted-directly-into-your-eyeball trade the way it dominates phones a working Apple I assembled by none other the Woz's sister is gonna be pretty damn valuable.
Heck even if it isn't a force to be reckoned with if Apple is recognized as a pivotal and important company it's products will be valuable as antiques. Stradivarius violins ain't cheap.
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This was an auction. *Every* person in the world, excluding just one, thought this items was worth less than the final offer.
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This was an auction. *Every* person in the world, excluding just one, thought this items was worth less than the final offer.
According to one article I read, it eventually came down to two bidders; one online, and one on the phone. Phone guy won.
Re:Bah (Score:5, Funny)
It's even user upgradable.
Ewwwwwwww
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Actually, it has solid-state storage, no DVD-R, no BD support, not much on gaming, and it HAS a retina display (if you stand back far enough)...
Beowolf cluster (Score:5, Funny)
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Imagine a.. wait, I can't. there's only 6 of them.
Seven, if you count mine.
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They didn't make everything out of CRAP in those days. I've got electrolytics over 50 years old in an R-392 surplus tube type receiver that still work fine - the whole receiver works fine, dozens of tubes, intricate geared ganged tuning slugs and all. If you contracted to build that thing today you would probably pay north of $100,000 per, even using surplus tubes from ebay.
I've got a 10,000 uF 15 V electrolytic I bought around 1960 or so, somewhere. Or was it 100,000? If I can find it, I can test it with a
Re:36 y.o. electrolytic capacitors! (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course they did. It's just that the crap stuff isn't here anymore, so the survivors were the better ones.
Same deal with houses, when some idiot says that they make worse houses now, they're forgetting about all the crap houses from back then that don't exist anymore.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
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Lead paint in kids toys? Yea, no good reason for that.
Lead solder in electronics? VERY VERY VERY GOOD F*****G REASONS FOR USING IT.
Any environmental savings is more than made up by the lowered reliability and shorter lifespans. Anyone who thinks lead-free solder has been a good idea is either ignorant of its problem
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Ahhh, I dream of the day that leaded solder is used again in electronics. Got to love brain-dead environmentalists who don't bother researching WHY some things are done the way they are.
Lead paint in kids toys? Yea, no good reason for that.
Lead solder in electronics? VERY VERY VERY GOOD F*****G REASONS FOR USING IT.
Any environmental savings is more than made up by the lowered reliability and shorter lifespans. Anyone who thinks lead-free solder has been a good idea is either ignorant of its problems or an idiot.
Yeah. And they didn't even replace it with some known-inert metal, either.
Twenty years from now, they'll be bitching about all the Bismuth and Indium leaching into the water table.
Mark my words. You heard it here, first!
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http://nepp.nasa.gov/whisker/failures/ [nasa.gov]
Note that we are talking about failures a bit more serious than your netbook, we are talking about communication satellites and NUCLEAR REACTORS. Yes, the people who say nuclear power is unsafe are working to make nuclear power unsafe.
Reminds me of the worldwide Chlorine ban that Greenpeace was proposing in the 80's. (Patrick Moore left Greenpeace over this.) Yea, go drink non-Chlori
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Given inflation, if eveyrone kept using "the good stuff", we'd be paying over $10,000 for a low-end PC still
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They didn't make everything out of CRAP in those days
Average build quality may have been higher (though it wasn't always), but that doesn't change the fact that old electrolytic caps will still fail. If you read a guide on troubleshooting an old solid-state pinball machine from the late 1970s or early 1980s, one of the first things it will tell you to do is replace the filter caps. They can and usually do go bad over time, causing unstable operation.
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I don't have to read anything. I have first hand experience with many kinds of antique electronics. I'm not going to tell you that electrolytics never failed until crap manufacturers started using crap constituents and crap manufacturing in the late 90's, but I CAN tell you they didn't practically always fail after a piss-poor life like they did after that. And I CAN tell you a lot of mil surplus stuff from Vietnam, Korea, and WW-II still works, original electrolytics and all. That's not a guess; that's fir
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You realize that there are only SIX known operating Apple 1's, right? The production run was around 200. That means roughly 3% survived - the rest are either in a landfill, or non-operational. And who knows what condition they are in - for all we know, they could've had parts replaced (including capacitors).
Heck, the original Apple 1 hanging at 1 Infinite Loop might not even work anymore. (It's sitting in a plaque marked "Our Founder").
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I wonder how often the working ones were powered up over the years? Generally speaking, electrolytic capacitors will last longer if they are used occasionally.
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You realize that there are only SIX known operating Apple 1's, right? The production run was around 200. That means roughly 3% survived - the rest are either in a landfill, or non-operational. And who knows what condition they are in - for all we know, they could've had parts replaced (including capacitors).
Heck, the original Apple 1 hanging at 1 Infinite Loop might not even work anymore. (It's sitting in a plaque marked "Our Founder").
I think that one got sold, didn't it.
Oh, and it's SEVEN now. My one-owner Apple 1 still works, and it isn't in the Apple 1 Registry. Mike Willeagal (who runs the Apple 1 Registry site) says he can't figure out where Sotheby's came up with the "Six working" figure, except maybe they counted the ones on his site that mention that they have BEEN working.
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Where did he say anything like that? he said it's a pretty good estimate.
Mike Willegal, an engineer with a major technology company, says “That’s probably a pretty good estimate of original Apple-1s that have been operated in the last four or five years.”
I was paraphrasing from an email exchange I had with Mike. Here's my queston, and exactly what he said in response:
The TUAW article I saw the news about the auction last week stated that this was one of six WORKING Apple 1s. Where did they arrive at that number?
And Mike responded:
Not sure where they got that number, but probably from counting the units on my registry that I know that have been operated within the last few years - I don't think the number is too far off - though getting a dysfunctiona
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Its the same in the software industry. You make so much money from support that it doesn't pay to make things that last (see my sig).
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I find it amazing that the three 2,400uF electrolytic capacitors are still working after 36 years! These capacitors slowly degrade over time--I wonder what their capacitance is today?
Mine still work. And the capacitance of those computer-grade caps stays pretty good, even after all this time.
Having said that, I still brought my Apple 1 up on a Variac, with all the chips removed, the last time I fired it up.
Some things money can't buy... (Score:4, Funny)
...a retail price of $666.66, a number that garnered complaints among conservative Christians
A new Apple I, $666.66. Upsetting conservative Christians, priceless.
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Woz says he didn't even know the symbolism of 666.
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Woz says he didn't even know the symbolism of 666.
He's pretty a-religious; so I can believe that.
Replicas (Score:1)
There are a few replicas available for those of us who can't afford a real Apple 1. The least expensive is Briel Computers' "Replica 1" [brielcomputers.com] which is not a cosmetic replica but more of a "work-alike" computer. Applefritter.com's Tom Owad wrote a book [applefritter.com] based on that kit. On the other extreme is Mike Willegal's "Mimeo 1" [willegal.net] which is an extremely accurate reproduction. I know the people behind these kits/sites and they're all very hobby-centric.
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There are a few replicas available for those of us who can't afford a real Apple 1. The least expensive is Briel Computers' "Replica 1" [brielcomputers.com] which is not a cosmetic replica but more of a "work-alike" computer. Applefritter.com's Tom Owad wrote a book [applefritter.com] based on that kit. On the other extreme is Mike Willegal's "Mimeo 1" [willegal.net] which is an extremely accurate reproduction. I know the people behind these kits/sites and they're all very hobby-centric.
Yeah. Mike Willeagal (creator of the Mimeo-1, and owner of the Apple 1 Registry site) even went to the trouble of creating a custom font for the silkscreen layer. I asked him if he X-Rayed the original board, and he said "No", and that he simply took a LOT of high-detail photos, and then went back and forth, printing out his board and laying it on a light table with the original.
I don't know much about the Replica 1; but it isn't a cold-copy of the original, like Mike's is. It's so close that I asked him
Why? (Score:1)
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So a ProcTech Sol-20 should be going for over $100,000 as well, right?
While not as valuable as Apple 1s, IIRC, Sol-20s fetch a bit, too.
And Chuck Peddle and friends also ripped off about all of Motorola's silicon designs when they left Mot.
Remember the 6501? Remember the 6520?
I am a great fan of the 6502 and all Apple products, AND an owner of a WORKING Apple 1; but let's not revise history TOO much, eh?
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mass produced in a chineese sweatshop?
Hey Anonymous Coward, crack open a history book. In 1977 Mao had been dead for a year. I guarantee they weren't building TRS-80s in China. More than likely Texas.
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ACs... come out of hiding when you talk crap, its no fun this way
Morality (Score:1)
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Were they evil? I'd say the price of $666 speaks for itself. (If you go in for that sort of tripe.)
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In other news... (Score:1)
What happens... (Score:3)
Re:What happens... (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, technically they probably wouldn't know what it was immediately simply because the Apple I shipped as basically a motherboard. People had to buy their own case, power supply, etc -- no different than the custom-built PCs of today. So unless the 'Genius' opened the case, they wouldn't necessarily even know it was an Apple product.
It's interesting to note that even back then, Apple's philosophy was sell the hardware, give away the software [wikimedia.org] [big jpg ahead].
From the Apple I ad: "And since our philosophy is to provide software for our machines free or at minimal cost, you won't be continually paying for access to this growing software library."
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That's why they switched to socketed CPUs and removable MXM graphics cards on the iMac, and screw-less PCI card and hard drive caddies in the Pro, right?
Oh, and quick and easy to remove bottom panels (with standard RAM, hard drives and so on) in the Macbook Pro.
But oh wait, they made a new computer with proprietary, tiny parts to make it super thin, that means they hate people who upgrade! Got it! If you don't like it then too bad... err, I mean "buy the other laptops they sell".
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I'm curious if the buyer was a technology enthousiast, Apple lover or simply someone making a future investment? With all the craze for Jobs, it feels like such an item would probably rise in value in the future.
I dunno; but I just hope there's another one JUST like that buyer when it comes time for me to sell MY WORKING APPLE 1
Kill the Head Vampire (Score:2, Funny)
If you kill this Apple 1, will all the other Apple devices around the world revert to a move open and less evil state?
Not so impressive. (Score:2)
I know a guy still on his first Xbox 360!
Ray-Ban RB2132 lens sunglasses standard (Score:1)
1930, successfully developed the world's first deputy to protect the pilots eyes, green lenses Replica Ray Ban sunglasses [replicaray...es3025.com], followed by Ray-Ban RB2132 sunglasses began sweeping the world in various corners of the world can see his figure why people are so fond Ray-Ban RB2132 sunglasses because he can not only prevent glare but also UV protection, visual aspects but also to maintain a clear and good vision, stylish design ideas much star welcome by the U.S. public naming trend of the pilot by ".
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oh, new UID, troll, thats why
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You might want to look into the difference between a Linux kernel and a BSD kernel (which is what OSX is based on). The differences are not... trivial.
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Awesome analogy! I really want to learn that soliloquy from Devil Wears Prada..
For those who don't get it, http://youtu.be/1LVptO7o4L8#t=1m25s [youtu.be]
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OSX is NetBSD with a propitary UI, supposedly based on next (ATT/SCO Unix System 4?) ... usually by people who have not used a next machine for any significant amount of time, anyway you can download the open source version called Darwin, with no apple code what so ever from Apple's website. To date the only unix operating system in a very small segment of consumer desktop computing ... either way not nearly as innovative as people like to think, it was over a decade old idea when it came out.
Also it wasn't
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Anywho, I just think you should know some facts before getting all buthurt because people dont like apple... I dont like them because of their games going all the way back to their 8 bit systems with incompatible hardware for their own computers, moving on to proprietary ram and device bios's, onwards to prams that would lock up, and the manual says you need to take it to a dealer so they can hit the button hidden under the cpu for you (8500 I am looking at you) to today, where if you just happen to bought a small selection of apple computers you need a fucking magic SATA plug no one makes.
Ok, I'll bite.
As the owner of a working Apple 1, that I have personally owned since May, 1977, and as owner of many, if not all, of the Apple computers you mention in your off-base rant, I wish to dissect your infantile and incorrect diatribe one sentence-fragment at a time:
8 bit systems with incompatible hardware for their own computers
WTF are you even talking about here? What "incompatible hardware"? Are you talking about the Apple 1, Apple ][, or what? Because there aren't any other 8 bit Apple co
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1) apple II, disk drives, disk II, unidisk, duo disk and the 3.5 inch variants, depending on what you happen to own may or may not work, I have a IIC it works with the unidisk, some cable hacking it will work with the disk II, but not with the apple 5.25 disk without a rom upgrade. On the IIe a unidisk wont work with the disk 2 controller and etc, its a fucking dumb device why incompatible?
2) no I am talking about weird shit, name one other computer that used 168 pin 3 volt edo ram with a propitary dimm soc
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1. Time does march on. The original Apple ][ (Shugart 400) drives and the later DuoDisk (Alps) drives were essentially the same, internally. That is to say, except for the connector, there was really nothing different about the controller card, data format, etc. Although I personally hated the Duo Disk, it was the only real way to get an external drive onto a "slotless" machine like the
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About 10 years ago I saw an Apple 1 sell for a little over $9,000 on eBay including the original wooden case and I thought that was marginally justifiable. This auction result is just ridiculous, it's simply too high.
So, I can take you off the potential bidder list for my Apple 1, then?