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

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Apple I with monitor

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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 I, great-great-grandfather of today's Mac computers, had previously been estimated at $ 600,000 by the auction house John Moran.

Originally bought by a professor at Chaffey College, California, the computer is one of only 200 computers that Jobs and Wozniak built early in their careers, which began in a garage.

Most of these were then sold for $ 666.66 apiece.

What is special about the auctioned model: The housing 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 valuable device was stored in the garage

For $ 400,000, the buyer gets a Panasonic screen from 1986 and photocopied instructions in addition to the Apple I.

According to the auction house's website, the auctioned computer previously 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 students in order to be able to purchase an Apple II.

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