Actually $500k
"The article was updated to reflect the auctioneers' official recorded auction price of $500,000, rather than the earlier reported price of $400,000. The $500,000 total price includes the buyer's premium."
https://www.macrumors.com/2021/11/10/rare-apple-1-computer-a...
> Apple-1 was the start of the personal computer industry
> Prior to that, there were other computers. They were kits. They mostly didn't work when you got them
Not really... the OP101 was priced at about $26k in 2021 dollars. The Apple I was priced at about $3250, which meant it was affordable for hobbyist purposes.
It was also mostly complete out of the box, didn't need to be programmed via switches on the front panel, and could be used for actual tasks right away.
Its combination of low cost, high feature count, and out of the box usefulness is why it usually gets referred to as the start of the personal computer industry.
The Programma 101 was a programmable calculator. Even though it could do more, out of the box, than many of those kits (built-in printer and card reader), I wouldn’t call it a personal computer.
But then I barely would call the Apple-1 that, either. You bought a PCB, optionally pre-assembled that booted into a system monitor. Even though you could directly connect a keyboard and a television (huge improvements; competing products still had toggle switches and indicator lights) that’s not something you could sell to ‘normal’ people.
The Apple II added a power supply, a keyboard (meaning buyers didn’t need to go to some dump to find a keyboard that worked or could be made to work with the system), a case and Basic in ROM. That, for me, made it a personal computer. If you bought it, you could go home, plug it in, and start tinkering.
I would argue that the TRS-80 model 1 was more significant as the first home computer: $400 instead of $1300. Like the Apple-][ it also was usable out of the box, it just lacked color.
That’s possibly changing the subject from personal computer to home computer (IMO, there’s a subtle difference, but I doubt one can give a good definition of that difference)
If you think these are synonyms, the TRS-80 may have been more significant, but it wasn’t the first. The race was close, though. Apple II in June, TRS-80 in August, PET in December 1977.
And of course, the ideal first would be the Honeywell Kitchen Computer from 1969, but unfortunately none of them seem to have been sold, if the product even existed for real (https://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?st=1&c=927). Now, _that_ would be a collectors item.
schleck8 has a point: most media (and people) love to highlight how Apple was the first at this or at that, like it's the only company that matters in the world.
Truth is, notwithstanding all Apple's merits, they have rarely been the "first ones".
Even though this looks like a huge appreciation of value, buying the apple stock would've made you much more money in that time frame. Plus it's easier to store and secure.
Yes, they are. August/July of 2020 was the most recent AAPL share split. Price per share before split was ~$450usd, but it equated to ~$115usd split adjusted.
Something about this phrasing bugs me. If I bought 10 shares for a buck and it goes up and splits I have way more than 10 shares at $150 - so either I misread you or the person who used $150 didn't account for splits.
The shares didn't cost 10c, whatever costs 150$ would´ve cost 10c in 1980 split-adjusted.
So if you bought 1 share for 10$ in 1980 (as an example), today you would have 100 shares at 150$.
I invite you to go find the actual prices of the stock back then, and track down all the stock splits. But it´s not helpful for the point that "aapl" appreciated in value about 1500-fold over the last 40 years.
My dream is to one day go to a garage sale and to find an original Apple Computer 1 for like $5. Not that that would ever happen ofc. But it’s fun to have unrealistic dreams too sometimes.
A lot of people wish to stumble across something valuable without the original owner knowing the actual value of it. This is the underpinning of modern capitalism.
I view capitalism differently. I picture a neighborhood of elderly people who aren't able to shovel their driveways and walkways when it snows. And an industrious young person nearby who shovels their driveways and walkways for them for a modest fee.
He does such a good job that word of his good service spreads and he wants to expand by buying a truck with a plow. But he doesn't have the money so he goes to a bank and borrows the money. He's able to expand his enterprise dramatically.
He's happy. His customers are happy. The bank is happy. Society is better off, isn't it? There are of course problems with capitalism which is where regulation comes in. But it isn't rotten to the core.
It's a beautiful story but it's just the beginning. When he expands his enterprise by buying more and more trucks and hiring more people he then squashes all competition with price dumping, lobbying or just buys competing companies/individuals.
At the latest when he has a monopoly the company's services will deteriorate and the prices will rise. The customers won't be happy anymore. Also he will scatter so much salt on the roads that the ground water gets polluted. You see where I am going?
Of course it doesn't need to go this way but usually it does.
Serious question - what percentage of businesses do you think reach the nightmare scenario you've painted? You said that "usually it does" go that way. That seems to mean more than half - is that seriously your opinion of the 10.75 million companies that are in the United States?
I owned a computer service company for five years. I never did any of the things that you mentioned. All of my customers were small businesses and they never did anything you mentioned. You seem to be basing your opinion on the 1%.
I was talking about the giant multinational corporations that are basically unstoppable in whatever they do. The scenario I painted was about the never ending growth and its results.
The more I think about it.. if the company is traded at the stock market and controlled by shareholders it cannot be good anymore because the optimization of revenue is the core of everything now.
And with good I mean that it doesn't have interests that improve anything for the human race or the people of some country as long as these interests don't also align with optimizing profits.
Another story involves people living in a community, well connected, aware of one another, mutually respectful and considerate.
Younger people shovel ways so the older people do not fall and get hurt.
One day, a few of those younger people have an idea and get their start from that community, who helps fund, perhaps some members sharing space, equipment, etc...
Another story has the old people pay the homeless just enough money to get a meal to shovel their driveway, then shut them out in the cold because, you know, the sanctity of private property means you have to shiver in the cold
As a teen I would scour local thrift stores for old 8 and 16-bit computers, play with them for a bit, then sell them off for two or three times the price. That would allow me to plow more money into old computers, either to build up savings or justify the few models I wanted to keep.
People would inevitably offer me more because they were worth more (examples: a very old TRS-80 or musicians who still used the Atari ST). More often than not, I declined. I was more interested in seeing them used and not interested in turning my hobby into a business. For the most part, everyone was happy.
No, it's really not the same, and it's not pedantic. Driveway shoveling guy does not get a wage. He's selling a service in exchange for the market rate of said service. It's really not the same as working for a boss for a set wage, because he gets all the profit, and is free to hire someone, for a wage, to replace his labor.
It's pedantic because you're ignoring the post and getting hung up on a word. Driveway guy gets all the profit when he's done paying for gas and the loan and insurance on his truck. He could do those things with a surplus, or it might mean he's going to starve and lose his house that month. What exactly is your point my dude? Are you saying driveway guy is an arch-capitalist?
I'm saying driveway guy is how almost all businesses work. Even more so if he incorporates and the business goes bankrupt, instead of him, if the business fails. That mundane, nom-exploitative setup is the norm, not the exception, for business owners. That IS capitalism, just as much as the billionaires. If not more so. Most businesses are very small.
Sometimes when I’ve lost something and am looking for it, I think “what if it’s simply not here?”. Then I think, “it still likely exists, where is it?”
He didn't design it; Woz did all of that. Jobs was just the marketing face. But when the order from Byte Shop for ~50 came, they obtained parts with a net-30 payment. To be able to pay that, I could swear I read that Jobs helped assemble them so they could finish in two weeks.
Looks like a broadcast monitor, the kind used by TV studios. And yes, by the 70's they were already all this size, intended to be mounted in racks.
More likely it is a repurposed CCTV monitor, that looked like this since very early too (In the 90's worked in place that had a very old CCTV system, from the 70's, with the giant cameras, and the displays were basically this size and format.
There were other very small TVs too. It's not like we still used vacuum tubes to build tvs in 76.
I have a Panasonic CCTV that looks exactly the same as this one. It was $27 plus shipping on eBay this year. It uses BNC connectors instead of the later consumer-standard yellow RCA.
If you invested $666.66 (original price) in 1976 into the S&P500, you would have about $22k today. $87k if you invested it in the NASDAQ. In conclusion I will be putting all of my money into weird first-generation devices from now on.
I'd love to see some webapp that calculates how much your Apple shares would be worth if you bought stock equivalent to the purchase price of that Apple product. I think it'd be pretty fascinating to see how much my shares would be worth if I bought stock instead of a 2nd generation iPod.
I was joking, that's the wrong conclusion. The math does not actually work out. Taking the low estimate (S&P500): 400k/22k = 18x multiplier. So, worst-case scenario, you'd need 1 in 18 devices to pay out that well to break even. Closer to 1 in 5 if you take the larger (NASDAQ) number.
Can I guess that the green screen is an Amdek? My former employer (1983), we sold hundreds of thousands of those (and the amber version) to Apple II customers (and even Apple themselves).
Fun fact: the picture tube in that monitor was made in the US by Ball (the canning-jar company), the anti-glare fabric came from Ireland, and the rest came from Taiwan.
Man those Apple IIc's were just amazing little computers. I remember seeing them and they just looked so different and sexy (to this 10 year old nerd anyways). The whiteness, the molded keys, the weird case, everything about it was just so cool at the time and I still think so today. Sadly I do not have $500K to offer you...
I wonder what a Lisa 1 in good condition would sell for in today’s overheated market. Obviously a different situation from the Apple-1, but the original Lisa seems also to be exceptionally rare.
A well-preserved example went for $31k in 2018. That’s somewhat lower than I would have expected. Maybe we’ll see a more impressive price the next time one of these goes to auction.
That's amazing! It looks like only the two in front have the dual "Twiggy" drives that distinguish the original Lisa. Then sixteen later models?! This guy must be the top collector; he even named his daughter Lisa.
You'll need to make a couple YouTube videos hyping the value of the Lisa first since most people know what an Apple computer is but have never heard of a Lisa.
It's funny you mention YouTube: I think the Lisa may now be the only classic Apple model that has not been reviewed in detail by the 8-Bit Guy, since he can't get his hands on one.
He doesn't have an actual Apple-1 either, of course, but this year he was finally able to build an accurate replica.[0] (It still wasn't cheap or easy.)
> See, back when the video game market was still considered to be a commercial wasteland, Nintendo decided to host “test launch” events for the NES in New York and Los Angeles. Basically, they wanted to see how the console would perform in those markets before expanding their release strategy. For those events, they manufactured a few thousand “special copies” of Super Mario Bros. What made them so special? Well, they were sealed with a sticker rather than plastic shrink wrap. Seriously…that’s pretty much it.
> As it turns out, that sticker is a pretty big deal among collectors. The only known still-sealed copy of the “test launch” version of Super Mario Bros. sold for $140,000 in 2019, and some suspect the game could go for close to $1,000,000 if it was sold on the current market.
I'm referring to the copy that sold for $2 million in August which is not from the test launch as it's plastic shrink wrap sealed and not sticker sealed.
In the space of three contiguous paragraphs, that phrase is used three times.
"... the model marked the start of the personal computer industry."
"Apple-1 was the start of the personal computer industry."
"The Apple-1 was the first Apple product to be sold. It marked the start of the personal computer industry."
200 units were built, 80 or so remain around today, and they were released in 1976. The Commodore PET was being designed in 1976, and released in 1977 - before the Apple II. There was, of course, a flurry of other activity around this time.
Sorry for veering off topic, but the 5100 has been the most elusive item I’ve wanted in my collection (probably not true, but the rarer items I want will I likely never obtain. They come up for sale occasionally, and tend to be even more expensive than rarer computers and almost never the APL version.
Hold on a minute. I was just glancing through this discussion and bumped into your thought here.
Why?
MOS setup to bring an inexpensive microprocessor to market and were successful. In some of the history Chuck Peddle has told, MOS really did not even target the personal computer market initially.
One, it was not quite a thing, and their KIM trainer was aimed at "distributed intelligence", basically embedded type use cases.
Once the ball got rolling, and Apple was a big part of that, using the 6502 gained traction.
Moto, by charging so much for the 6800, and later 6809, missed out on a lot!
Sidebar:
I often wonder what personal computing and video gaming might have looked like had the 6809 been inexpensive and was the basis for all the 6502 machines, or more of them... In terms of capability, the two chips are similar, but the 6809 offered a far more robust instruction set. Maybe it did not matter much overall. The set of possible things is similar enough.
But, I do wonder all the same. Doing really hard, or demanding things with the 6809 has advantages, but I digress big time here!
End sidebar:
In any case, MOS scored! Sold a ton of chips, and why would they be entitled as to get that kind of compensation?
Or, is this snark? Maybe is... LMAO. I probably bit on this when I did not have to. Oh well. Cheers!
Curious, can this computer be repaired (if something goes wrong with the hardware) either by self or an expert technician in the present world using the currently available components?
Yes, there’s a small but well-developed community of replica builders, and all the parts needed are still available. You can also buy very good replica PCBs from more than one vendor. There is at least one guy who is an expert at bring up and repair of original machines. It’s likely he worked on the one in this auction before it went up for sale.
I'm not said expert, but authentication is definitely one of the things he does. I actually think it would be fairly hard to create a forgery. With enough work, you can source period-correct (ie. actual old) components, and indeed dedicated replica builders try to do so. I don't think that's a big obstacle.
The main two difficulties are:
- Getting the PCB layout exactly right. AFAIK, the original was laid out by hand with tape on mylar sheet. Bends in the traces were made by stretching the tape. Recreating all that exactly in modern PCB software is somewhere between difficult and impossible. I also seem to recall that the best existing replica PCB designs intentionally have small discrepancies from the original to make them detectable as replicas.
- Getting a PCB made with period correct materials. The specific materials used to make those PCBs in 1976 aren't in use anymore. I know at least one replica builder has tried to get as close as possible by having a PCB manufacturer go back to older methods, but even then, I don't think they were able to get it 100% accurate.
Additionally, there are few enough Apple 1s in the world that most if not all of them are known, named, numbered, and accounted for, so you'd have to have a great backstory explaining where your forgery came from and why it has been unknown for so long. See here: https://www.apple1registry.com.
Nonetheless old capacitors degrade, despite predating the plague. It’s SOP among retro computer folks to recap 80s/90s micros to avoid electrolyte damaging the boards, and I’ve had 80s-era Unix workstations go pop when powered on.
For most things I’d expect there to be no difference between the value of a computer with original caps _and no damage_ and one with recaps _and no damage_, because the buyer is going to recap anyway. For this Apple I, which is a museum piece rather than a hobby piece, I really don’t know if that holds.
In a number of high-value cases, no one spent any money at all, just transaction fees; they traded to themselves to give the appearance of a higher price.
I assume your comment is tongue in cheek since this practice happens in both industries. Perhaps you can help me though, I've been trying to remember the term used for this for weeks. I seem to recall it being called something like "washing the pipe" or something like that....?
I thought a lot about this comment. I deeply would want that Apple-1 in a way, massive piece of Apple history. But then I think about owning it - what a pain. It needs to be in an air conditioned room, bugs nibble at it, dust gathers, where do I put it in my house anyway? It's so cool in my mind but the glory of having it seems less so.
However, with an NFT, there's no maintenance cost, it's always the same, it's pristine. I can do whatever I want with it, shrink it for socks, grow it to put on a blimp, make cakes, whatever.
For the first time I can see why people spend millions of dollars on hashes of pictures of randomly generated monkeys.
Haha yes of course, please do! The more the merrier, more of my monkey for everyone! There's always a record on the blockchain that it's indeed mine - or not if I so choose!
Here you go: b4a457fa7a566ca23fb214b986ff19234234a0654dc786f348377990b53585abb7dc1fa91672ab15de0d87deb66133f5657f85a2662bd1f95de3743933d49982.
It's the SHA512 hash of the full-size version header image of an Apple I from Wikipedia.
This poster is cutting you short, my friend. I can offer you 2,718,281,828 eLon tokens. It's a revolutionary decentralized token that harnesses the utility of natural logarithm mathematics.
Done deal, you now own 25 bits of the hash. I'll be sending out an invoice for the $48828.12 (adjusted down because you can't receive 25.6 bits of it).
Wow. So something that’s essentially a piece of junk today has a valid absurdly high price just because there are absurdly high priced random digital thingies?
"...part of a community". Man, I didn't know Amway[0] had pivoted to NFTs. Speaking of business, did you know that as an Amway representative, you can become part of a community of small business owners! I mean, NFT owners!
True! I wanted to emphasize that "being online" (which the OP seems interested in) is not particularly important in itself, and that many interesting communities exist both online and offline.
Which, as you point out, can be simplified to "exist" ;)
I suppose I'm trying to emphasizes the contrast between those communities, which have a functional existence, with the community of NFT-holders, which exists only in the most literal sense of the word.
There isn't an easy way to flex your status online, unless you're a celebrity, or put in the work to become an influencer.
For people with money, there isn't a simple way to come to places like HN and just be important because you have money. There isn't a way to show people how wealthy and powerful you are without contributing.
But NFT's allow you to show people how much disposable income you have, and therefore how much better you are than the unwashed masses, without needing to really do anything of substance.
Or maybe that's just my own personal bias and confusion about NFT's in general showing?
There are cheap nfts and expensive nfts, and the only people who care already have nfts. Its not a general flex it's a flex to other nft memers which is a low status flex no matter what.
Its like walking around with a Gucci billboard on your forehead - you think youre flexing but youre actually just demonstrating clown shoes.
Nobody cares how expensive your nft is. They have no use anywhere. Its like having the fanciest clownshoes - you're still a clown.
I think that's certainly a factor, especially when it comes to the meme-y stuff - which is what has been getting a lot of the attention. From other niches I get that impression a lot less - can't really impress people with the fact you could spend $20 ;)
It is like that "I'm Rich" app someone from Germany(?) made for iOS. Priced it at the max and a few people bought it!
What they got was an app that displayed a picture of some expensive, fantasy ring with an equally fantastic gemstone set in it.
Total status signaling!
Of course the general failure on that one was the lack of network effects. Someone could see the app was on a phone, and or could see the displayed picture should the user leave it running.
Seriously lame, but still there appeared to be at least a few takers.
I do think you're onto something here. I've heard about "right-clicker mentality" [1] in relation to NFTs, which seems to align with your description of its utility as a wealth signal.
While "crypto" is the same length as "money" it means "cryptocurrency" which is way longer than "cash". This link explains it: https://youtu.be/kc4Ob6LAv8Y
Ebay is probably a good source for this sort of thing. Prices on a lot of things are overheated at the moment of course, but it looks to be maybe a few hundred dollars. I have some old computer stuff at home but it's far from mint condition and whenever I looked didn't seem to be worth the hassle of selling and shipping it.
depends on whether you have the floppy drives in good condition, if the on board battery hasn’t exploded, if the power supply caps need replacing… Look up your local vintage computer festival, there’s always tables set up to sell your wares.
The on board battery was used on the Apple 2 GS, the 16 bit successor to the 8 bit Apple 2.
The GS used a 65816 CPU, and the Apple 1 and 8 bit Apple 2 computers used 6502 and 65C02 CPU chips.
A 65802 can be installed into the 8 bit computers, with the 64K address space limitation imposed by the hardware.
A bit of digging can get one an Apple 8 but computer for a few hundred bucks, sometimes cheaper, depending.
I got my //e Platinum a decade ago for $150'ish from Apple Rescue of Denver. At that time, it came with one disk drive, Super Serial card, and the 128K / 80 column display card.
Anyone interested in these machines could skip getting a disk drive, though using floppies a few times is fun, and go for a emulation card. I do recommend the CFFA 3000 card, if available. Those can take disk images right from an ordinary USB flash drive.
Genuinely asking: how? They seem, to me, to be a hype driven thing that doesn't make sense. If I buy an NFT of an art piece, what's stopping others from downloading the same file?
First: I'd like to hear feedback why my previous comment was heavily downvoted. Was it too condescending?
It's not about having access to content, but about owning the "thing". You might buy a painting and post high resolution scans of it: good enough for people to make very convincing copies. But it doesn't affect the ownership of the thing.
NFT is not so much the content, but a record of ownership on the blockchain. And for digital content, that "doesn't make sense" outside of digital realm, it's a very natural tool to produce ability to own something digital.
It's even more ridiculous for tweet. It's not even that after spending millions of dollar the buyer got any special right to that tweet. If I would buy a tweet, at minimum I would like an edit access over that tweet and contract that the "real" owner can't delete it.
Not disagreeing with you. Just saying that this is the exact purpose of the NFT - to show that you are the owner of the digital piece, i.e having the receipt/bragging right of it. It has nothing to do with the distribution. Anyone can have a copy.
It doesn't have to be something digital... We could move owning real life objects to NFT contracts. Like owning a car would be tracked on the blockchain and there is no paperwork needed about it.
FYI I'm not a huge crypto person, I don't know if the above is trustworthy, but it's an example of what you could do. God's knows if it works or collapses in a fire, but it's fun to watch.
Throwing around obviously good jokes on HN is dicey. The local squares may start sending the links to their precious research papers on how "people who think they are funny are not really that funny".
