Apple: First-series computers auctioned for $ 400,000

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Apple-1 with monitor

Photo: HANDOUT / AFP

An Apple computer built 45 years ago by company founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak was auctioned in California on Tuesday for $ 400,000.

The still functional Apple-1, great-great-grandfather of today's MacBook, had previously been estimated at $ 600,000 by the auction house John Moran.

The so-called "Chaffey College" is one of only 200 computers that Jobs and Wozniak built at the beginning of their careers, which began in a garage.

Most of these were then sold for $ 666.66.

The special thing about the auctioned model: The computer case is made of wood from the Koa acacia, which is native to Hawaii.

Only a handful of the first 200 computers were made with it.

175 computers went on sale.

According to the auction house, there are probably only six copies left worldwide today.

Jobs and Wozniak mainly sold the Apple-1 as a kit.

According to the auction house, a computer store that ordered around 50 computers decided to cover some of them with wood.

The price also included a 1986 Panasonic screen and photocopied instructions.

The valuable device was stored in the garage

According to the auction house's website, the computer that was auctioned together with a Panasonic monitor from 1986 belonged to only two people: in 1976 it was bought by an electrical engineering professor at Chaffey College in Rancho Cucamonga, California.

The college has been teaching computer science since the 1970s.

In 1977 the professor resold the device to a student in order to purchase the latest version of the Apple computer.

According to a report in the Los Angeles Times, the student paid $ 650 at the time, almost the original price, and has kept the device in his garage until now.

jok / AFP