Rare Apple-1 Computer Sells at German Auction for $130,000

Ugh, wish Apple would bring back true upgradability on their products again.

It's not a Pro product unless you can solder your own capacitors onto it. This wouldn't be happening if Woz was still here.

It's not a Pro product unless you can solder your own capacitors onto it. This wouldn't be happening if Woz was still here.

Pretty on point, actually. ;) Jobs ideal was a computing device as an appliance, with no way to open it or change it. But he was constantly pushing for making great devices, constantly dissatisfied with what could be cobbled together with existing parts (so we benefit from him pushing his designers and engineers to try all sort of new things and invent new technologies). Woz was a hacker* extraordinaire, who could make simple parts do amazing things (the Apple II Disk Controller was a revolutionarily simple design that had many advantages over existing more complicated/expensive designs), and he encouraged others to do the same.

*: (from back when hacker meant "adept at delving into existing systems, understanding how they work, modifying them to do new interesting stuff, and using the knowledge gained to make entirely new things" - sigh, someone broke into a computer, someone else commented that "a hacker did it", and some reporter heard and either misunderstood or just intentionally misused the term because it sounded catchy, and now "hacker" means "computer criminal" to most people).

Interesting though, there are purportedly less than 60 in existence.

I thought I recalled the original production being in the neighborhood of 200, though I could be wrong.

$666-the price point devised by a couple of high California kids lol.

Devised by a couple of counter-culture revolutionaries, who found it entertaining and thought others of like mind would too. The competition at the time was CP/M running on S-100 bus 8080 systems (displaying on monochrome text-only terminals) that were really intended for business use. At the time, computers were basically only used by large companies - Steve & Steve had a dream of making computers that everyone could use (power to the people) - that was the revolution they were trying to foment. Indeed, Apple's follow-on machine, the Apple II, was on the market months before the (monochrome-only) TRS-80 and Commodore PET, years before the Atari 400/800, and many years before the first IBM PC. At the time it kind of was revolutionary.

And, in some ways, the computer today that most closely matches Steve Jobs' ideal, what he thought computers should be, is the iPad.

I am waiting til September when they bring out the Apple 1S. I like Apple retro phones/iPads/Macs with the "less is more" adage but when it comes to classics like this I'll wait till it comes with a 16k version and faster cassette player. o_O

Woz probably has a dozen of these in his garage and doesn't even know it.

Interesting though, there are purportedly less than 60 in existence.

Woz told me in 1978 to hold onto mine, because "There are probably only about 50 left in existence." and that "Most of them got traded-in for Apple ][s, and then landfilled "(!!!!!)

So I hung onto mine...

Any takers?
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Guess the guy was hoping for a big win financially, but got dramatically less than recent sales
The article definitely spells out the probable reasons for the much less than expected price

One sample does not a "trend" make. I don't think this Sale was particularly well advertised, compared with a lot of the other recent ones.
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$666-the price point devised by a couple of high California kids lol.

Jobs claims he wasn't aware of the Biblical Reference to the figure, and just liked the repeating numbers.

Woz has a long-history of enjoying repeating and "palindromatic" number sequences, too.
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Pretty on point, actually. ;) Jobs ideal was a computing device as an appliance, with no way to open it or change it.

Actually, Jobs' "ideal" was the Computer as Appliance, in that it was so ubiquitous in (his mental image of) the (future) everyday lives of people, that, like an Appliance, you simply forgot about all the technology and stuff, and just took for granted its functionality.

...And that is exactly what happened...
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I thought I recalled the original production being in the neighborhood of 200, though I could be wrong.

According to Woz, most were traded for Apple ][s, then landfilled...
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I'm having trouble getting the 1 TB SSD plugged into slot #6 - DOS won't recognize it - why is this?

You have to pull pin 6 of U3 of the Cassette Interface, and run a jumper from that pin to pin 4 of U1.

That will enable Extended LBA mode on the Cassette Interface. Then you can use up to 8 TB SATA III Drives... Or an iPod.

But the transfer rate is still 1500 bps...

$666-the price point devised by a couple of high California kids lol.

Thank god for high California kids...

Check that out, compared to current MacBook Pro , more ports , user serviceable , no battery issues and similar pricing in EU :p

Love the early macs, so much involvement from the community and upgrading .....ahhh upgrading and thnkering, what I hate the most about the current dumb machines .....