An original Apple I computer that was hand-built by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, was sold for £371,250 (about $471,000) in a Christie’s Auction.
The computer that has its motherboard labeled with 'Apple Computer 1 Palo Alto Ca. Copyright 1976', has white ceramic MOS Technologies 6502 microprocessor, 8K bytes RAM in 16-pin 4K memory chips; modified cassette interface card; Datanetics keyboard supported on aluminium; green Preliminary BASIC Users manual.
The set comes inside a leather briefcase.
While Apple never shipped Apple I with its own case, power supply, keyboard or monitor. But the company offered a pre-assembled motherboard, something that put Apple far ahead of its competitors.
And at some point of its history, the company did allow buyers to custom their computer. And this particular one, is one of them.
Around 200 Apple I computers were made, with the majority of them are believed to be destroyed or lost. Achim Baqué & Mike Willegal’s online Apple-1 Registry knows at least 68-or-so Apple I in existence, and this briefcased-Apple I is listed as number 10.
According to the site, this specific Apple I was owned by Rick Conte, who bought it to learn how to program BASIC.
Conte was a computer hobbyist, and it was speculated that he may have obtained this machine from Stan Veit, when it was displayed at the ACM show in 1976. Conte bought it from an advertisement, that was in the back of a computer magazine.
It was in December 2009 that the computer was donated by Conte to a non-profit organization Maine Personal Computer Museum. In 2010, it was purchased for a private collection, to then again sold in 2014 to another owner.
When it was auctioned at Christie's auction on May 23, 2019, the computer also included were some extras, like magazines with articles about the Apple I, an assortment of compatible hardware like the SWTPC PR-40 dot matrix printer, rare photocopies of some of the original Apple founding paperwork, and more.
It also came with the extremely rare first manual issued by the Apple Computer Company. Although not credited in the text, Ronald Wayne is known to be its author
This particular computer was originally priced at $666.66.
The Apple-1 was advertised by Steve Jobs as:
