Someone has just paid US $500,000 for a rare Apple-1 computer built and tested by company co-founders Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs. The 45-year-old computer went up for auction on Tuesday, which resulted in the winning bidder reportedly paying US$400,000 to own the machine, and another US$100,000 in fees to the auction house, John Moran Auctioneers. Source: PC Mag
The computer originally launched in 1976 as Apple’s first product. Back then it cost US$666—or about US$3,210 today after accounting for inflation.
With Apple now one the most influential tech companies in the world, the computer has since become a collector’s item.
Apple made 200 Apple-1 machines and only 175 of them were ever sold, according to John Moran.
However, the Apple-1 wasn’t quite like the first Mac computers. Instead, it arrived as a bare bones computing kit, requiring the buyer to add a keyboard, monitor, and case.
The Apple-1 up for auction on Tuesday is housed in a wooden chassis made out of Koa lumber. The machine is connected to a “Datanetics Keyboard Rev D” from 1976 and a Panasonic video monitor from 1986. A picture of the computer also shows it still seems to function.
According to John Moran, the machine was originally sold to an electronics professor at Chaffey College in Rancho Cucamonga, California, who then sold it to one of his students in 1977. The unnamed former student has now decided to auction it off.
The US$500,000 amount is certainly a lot to pay for a vintage computer, but it’s not the highest. In 2014, a separate Apple-1 computer sold for a record US$905,000 at an auction in New York.
