Technology
Steve Jobs handwritten note on first Apple computer up for auction
- A spec sheet for Apple’s first computer handwritten by Steve Jobs has been unearthed and is up for auction.
- It’s expected to fetch up to $60,000.
- It advertised an Apple-1 computer board for $75. “A real deal,” Jobs wrote on the page.
A piece of computer history is up for auction.
Bonhams is currently auctioning a yellowed spec sheet and two polaroids from the late ’70s for as much as $60,000.
The reason why these old papers could sell for such a rich sum? The spec sheet is handwritten by Apple cofounder Steve Jobs, and it advertised one of Apple’s first computers for $75.
“A real deal,” according to the spec sheet. (Working Apple-1 computers now sell for as much as $270,000.)
Check it out:
The papers were apparently given to a “longtime friend” of Jobs in 1976, the year before Apple released the Apple II, the computer that propelled it to become a major force in the electronics industry.
From the auction description:
“With the first 50 boards sold to the Byte Shop, Steve Jobs continued the momentum by marketing bare Apple-1 printed circuit boards (PCBs) to friends and acquaintances. The present manuscript is essentially a specification sheet for the computer and was given to the consignor during a visit to Jobs’ garage. Jobs refers to the computer as “Apple Computer-1” and states that it uses either the 6800, 6501 or 6502 microprocessor, but that the 6501 or 6502 was “recommended because we have basic.” He touts the “full crt terminal” the “58 ic’s which includes 16 for 8K ram!!” Curiously, Jobs states “basic on the way (ROM),” which never materialized for the Apple-1, but did the following year for the Apple II. Jobs quotes the price of $75 for the board and manual, “a real deal” and lists his mailing address and phone number at the bottom.”
“The manuscript is accompanied by two Polaroid photographs. The first shows an Apple-1 on a wooden table with a keyboard, monitor and power supply partially visible in the right edge. It looks very much like the “Production Prototype,” number 2 in Mike Willegal’s Apple-1 Registry, with its orange capacitors, white ceramic MOS MCS 6502 and with a similar power supply setup. The other Polaroid shows the Apple-1 screen with “Apple Computer Co. at the bottom and Jobs’ address and phone number for contact. Jobs has written on the lower margin “40×24 OR 26 lines / fuzzy because camera wiggled.”
Last year, a job application by Jobs from 1973 sold for $174,000.
Check out that piece of computer history below:
-
Business5 days ago
Tesla’s new growth plan is centered around mysterious cheaper models
-
Business6 days ago
UnitedHealth says Change hackers stole health data on ‘substantial proportion of people in America’
-
Business7 days ago
Mood.camera is an iOS app that feels like using a retro analog camera
-
Business4 days ago
Xaira, an AI drug discovery startup, launches with a massive $1B, says it’s ‘ready’ to start developing drugs
-
Business5 days ago
UK probes Amazon and Microsoft over AI partnerships with Mistral, Anthropic, and Inflection
-
Entertainment7 days ago
Furious Watcher fans are blasting it as ‘greedy’ over paid subscription service
-
Business6 days ago
Two widow founders launch DayNew, a social platform for people dealing with grief and trauma
-
Entertainment5 days ago
Tesla’s in trouble. Is Elon Musk the problem?