A copy of Apple’s first computer, 45 years ago, up for auction

A copy of the first Apple model from 45 years ago, up for auction in the US.
EFE

A copy of the first computer model of Manzana 45 years old, known as Apple-1 and hand-built by the company’s founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, among others, it will go on sale this Tuesday at an auction house in Monrovia, California (USA).

This was explained to Efe on Monday by sources from the firm John Moran Auctioneers, who expect this relic of technology to reach a price close to the 600,000 dollars (about 518,000 euros at the current exchange rate).

According to the same sources, the computer is in perfect condition, it has many original parts and works properly.

Before the official bidding begins, John Moran Auctioneers has already received two offers of $ 250,000 for this computer (more than 215,000 euros).

The copy that will be auctioned tomorrow is known as “Chaffey College Apple-1“Because its first owner in 1976 was a programming professor at Chaffey University, a center located in Rancho Cumamonga, east of Los Angeles.

A year later, this professor sold the computer for 650 dollars (about 560 euros) –about 16 dollars less than what it cost (13.8 euros)– to one of his students, who decided to keep it as his property for the next four decades, until today.

According to the house responsible for the bid, the computer was built by hand by Jobs, Wozniak and others in a garage in Los Atos, California, in 1976.

Jobs, Wozniak and other people assembled in that garage about 200 units of Apple-1, of which 175 were sold and of which now there are only about 60 worldwide.

Of them, only 20 can work today, including the “Chaffey College Apple-1” copy.

According to the auction house, this Apple-1 is “unique“Also, because part of its structure is made of Koa wood, a highly valued type of wood from Hawaii.

Although John Moran Auctioneers hopes to sell it for $ 600,000, Another operational example of this model was auctioned in 2014 for $ 905,000 (781,000 euros today) at the Bonhams house in Los Angeles.