A set of schematics and programming instructions for a prototype version of the Apple II home computer recently sold for $630,272 from RR Auction, the company said today.
The documents were written by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and included five pages of circuit schematics and notes on sheets of graphic paper, a 12-page handwritten programming instruction guide with 28 steps, and six photocopied pages that were headed "Bus Sources," "System Timing," "Display," "Sync Timing & Adr. Gen," and "Timing," featuring several annotations.
Wozniak added notations, circuit changes, and programming notes to these pages as he hand-wired the Apple II prototype, and he confirmed their veracity prior to the auction.
Accompanied by a signed letter of provenance from Wozniak: "These documents, circa 1975, are my original Apple II prototype schematics and programming instructions. They are precious. On these work-in-progress diagrams, you can even see my breadboarding technique, where I'd go over drawn connections in red as I soldered the wires in. At the time, I favored using a purple felt tip pen for writing, so it's interesting to see these notes decades on. The prototype was hand-wired while I was still an engineer at Hewlett-Packard's Advanced Product Division, where I was involved in the design of hand-held calculators."
Along with these notes, a functional Apple-1 computer was also sold off, fetching a price of $736,862. Apple-1 machines were the first computers created by Apple and were sold by Steve Jobs out of his parents' garage. There were only 175 Apple-1 computers created, and less of half of those are still in existence.
Other items sold at the auction include a "Battleship" keyboard signed by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak that went for $74,535 and a Steve Jobs-signed Monsters, Inc cue sheet that went for $12,501.
Did they at least scan this stuff in its entirety so it can be posted on archive.org for historical preservation?
Auctioning this stuff off to a private buyer who might not do that and have it stay in a personal collection unseen for years is irresponsible without scanning it first.
The price of this type of stuff is so ridiculous. That is NOT going to be worth more than 630k in the future. So if it's not an investment, then I guess it's just something for rich superfans to hang on their wall
The moment Woz dies it will be 2x its current value.
"The prototype was hand-wired while I was still an engineer at Hewlett-Packard's Advanced Product Division, where I was involved in the design of hand-held calculators."
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Auctioning this stuff off to a private buyer who might not do that and have it stay in a personal collection unseen for years is irresponsible without scanning it first.
Queue the lawsuits ;)