pay $ 400,000 for one that still works

The first computer that Apple commercialized, when it was still a fledgling project in Steve Jobs’ garage, was made of wood and by hand. It was launched on the market in 1976 under the name Apple-1, priced at $ 666.66 and only made 200 units. Now that device is quite a relic and the ones that still work – no more than 20 worldwide – have become coveted collector’s items. So much so that one of them has just been auctioned in the United States for $ 400,000, as reported by the BBC.

The Apple-1 consisted of a motherboard with about 30 chips, which reached 1 MHz of speed, an integrated keyboard and a Hawaiian koa wood casing. At the time it did not have much impact, beyond the attention it attracted in the technology sector, but its importance was capital in everything Apple did later, since laid the foundations for the Apple II, the first great success of those from Cupertino. And it is that the sales of the latter and its reviews sustained the company from the late 70s to the mid-80s.

The bet that Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak made at the time for the Apple-1 was important, since not only did they bet all the resources of their young company on this product, but also they were forced to sell some personal possessions -Jobs a VW Microbus van and Wozniak his HP-65 calculator, for which they gave him $ 500- to finance it.

The machine that has just been sold in the United States auction belonged to a former university student, whose data has not been disclosed, who bought the Apple-1 from one of his career professors for $ 650 in 1977. There is also no information about the buyer. The sale has included user manuals and Apple software on two cassette tapes.