Antiques for Geeks: Christie's Auctions Vintage Apple Computers - Wall Street Journal

Christies The original owner of this 1976 Apple 1 computer—which consisted only of the green motherboard—attached it to a piece of wood and added a keyboard, transformer and switches. No case or peripherals were included with the machine. Starting bid: $300,000. AS LEGEND HAS IT, the first Apple computers were made in 1976 in the garage belonging to Steve Jobs's parents. Of that run of roughly 200 Apple 1s, only a few working models remain. One is currently up for auction at Christie's. The machines originally sold for $666.66 (Apple Computer co-founder Steve Wozniak was reportedly fond of repeating numbers). Christie's estimates that the model on auction—which includes the manual, a printout of the computer's schematics and a signed photograph of Mr. Jobs and Mr. Wozniak—may fetch up to $500,000. Another functioning Apple 1 offered with different accessories sold in May for 420,000 euros, or about $546,000, through Auction Team Breker in Germany. Christie's The Apple Lisa, the first personal computer with a graphical user interface, sold for $9,995 when it debuted in 1983. This model has rare 5.25-inch floppy drives. Starting bid: $20,000. The Apple 1 was a relatively bare-bones product by today's standards. It consisted only of a motherboard; no case was included, and buyers were expected to provide their own keyboard and monitor. Installing the BASIC programming language required a cassette recorder and a special card. Stephen Edwards, a professor of computer science at Columbia University with an "unhealthy appreciation of antique computing hardware," as he put it, consulted on the pieces for Christie's. He believes that the Apple 1 being auctioned, like others of the period, was most likely made by Mr. Wozniak, Mr. Jobs or one of their friends. "I don't know that we can definitively say that Wozniak touched it," said Mr. Edwards, "but the board was assembled by those guys." Christie's This circa 1987 prototype of the Macintosh SE, a staple of school computer labs in the late '80s, has a translucent case believed to have been used to check airflow. The SE was the first Macintosh with an internal fan. Starting bid: $5,000. Christie's is auctioning nine other Apple relics, drawn from two private collections in the U.S. A prototype Macintosh SE with a translucent case (starting bid: $5,000) was likely used in-house to test for airflow inside the machine, as the SE was the first Macintosh with an internal fan. Mr. Edwards was particularly excited to see an Apple Lisa (starting bid: $20,000) with 5.25-inch floppy drives, which are rarely found on this model. The Lisa was the first personal computer with a graphical user interface, said Mr. Edwards. "Everything we think of as Mac started there." Bids are being accepted via the Christie's website and its iOS app. The auctions close this Tuesday at 10 a.m. Eastern. christies.com —Michael Hsu via Technology - Google News http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNHo3OJuoDcfOKYWYNw0GHn2zoEPcg&url=http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324436104578579461353601402.html

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