Apple-1 a day, on eBay.

September 27, 2004 11:50 AM

Apple-1 CPU, VG-Mint.
"This computer, as is documented, was bought from Steve Job's parents garage. The checks for the purchase and the original manual are included." More photos here.
[via coudal]
posted by me3dia (16 comments total)

That's obviously a fake. There's no steering wheel.
posted by solistrato at 12:33 PM on September 27, 2004

The Apple-1 had a manual? and a keyboard?!

Well, it looks cool, in a retro-tech kind of way, but ... $30K is a bit much. Piece o' history and all, but still...
posted by lodurr at 12:43 PM on September 27, 2004

Anybody else here think their old logo is way-cool, in a 19th century kind-of way?
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 1:09 PM on September 27, 2004

Neat but how many dual G5s could you buy with $16,500?

Besides, this is much cooler.
posted by fenriq at 1:45 PM on September 27, 2004

The old logo IS way cool. It reminds me of the woodprint style favored in those ancient books about programming, like "Assembly Lines," as well as early ziplock bag software.

Is there any truth to the rumor that the real inspiration for the name "Apple" was the poison apple that Turing ate?
posted by inksyndicate at 1:50 PM on September 27, 2004

Apple has apparently always been ahead of the curve, as that clear case predates modding by more than 20 years.
posted by drezdn at 2:31 PM on September 27, 2004

There doesn't seem to be any guarantee that it still works...?

And I bet Apple's customer service department won't help you with it. Even if you pay $30,000, you aren't entitled to the Apple Care Plan...;)
posted by inksyndicate at 2:59 PM on September 27, 2004

Is there any truth to the rumor that the real inspiration for the name "Apple" was the poison apple that Turing ate?

I doubt it. The official story is that Steve Jobs worked at an apple orchard during his pre-business peregrinations. And I can't imagine Woz wanting to refer to Turing's suicide; he seems to be a good-natured person. Still, both Steves are clever enough that perhaps other symbolism suited their ambitions for the company.

Oh well. I only own Apple's second most collectable computer.
posted by tss at 3:26 PM on September 27, 2004

I thought he called it Apple as a tribute to the beatles...
posted by Hildegarde at 4:14 PM on September 27, 2004

"But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."

Seems pretty clear to me: computers are the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
posted by mwhybark at 5:00 PM on September 27, 2004

fenriq - Holy fucking shit, dude.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 5:23 PM on September 27, 2004

tss -- it boggles my mind how far we have come, without getting very far at all. With the 10MB drive on your biggest Lisa, we could barely boot usable versions of the OSs that most of us use...
posted by lodurr at 5:52 PM on September 27, 2004

whatchoo talkin' about, lodurr? you can run linux off a floppy*.

(oh. you mean like with a GUI and all. yeah.)

interesting to see the hand-built system, but not sure it's worth $16k to me. but i was sorely tempted to spend $30 to pick up a mac classic (or the mac SE it was right next to on the shelf) at my university salvage store the other day. i wrote all my papers on a mac classic freshman year... i never remembered how tiny that screen was until i saw it again. it's smaller than the average ATM screen.

maybe this guy would like to buy the apple IIe in my basement. no monitor, sorry. i'll start the bidding at $500.

*while it is indeed possible to run linux off a floppy disk, i don't pretend to be able to do so, with any ability other than to say "yep, that's a command line, uh-huh. how do i quit?"
posted by caution live frogs at 7:28 PM on September 27, 2004

And I thought my friend Dusty was doing well with the holy grail of Atari cartridges...
posted by muckster at 8:41 PM on September 27, 2004

Too bad about the seller's feedback....
posted by hyperizer at 8:49 AM on September 28, 2004

I thought he called it Apple as a tribute to the beatles...

Yeah...I'm sure that's why the Beatles' record company has sued Apple Computer for obscene amounts of money twice now—first because they started making Macs that had sound input hardware, and second because they started the iTunes Music Store.
posted by oaf at 10:19 AM on September 28, 2004