[SIGCIS-Members] eBay is selling an Apple 1 for $1.5 million

[Brian Berg]

Agreed about Woz and the Apple II, whose initial 1977 version came with a
cassette drive for storage.  Its 1978 upgrade included the floppy drive,
and this allowed its sales to really take off.  I documented its design in
this paragraph in the Apple II IEEE Milestone description
<https://ethw.org/Milestones:Introduction_of_the_Apple_II_Computer:_1977-1978>
:

*in 1978, Apple introduced the Disk II, a 5 ¼” floppy disk drive with an
expansion slot controller card that effectively supplanted its original
cassette tape drive. It was a design marvel of Apple co-founder Steve
Wozniak’s in that it used just six low-cost chips as compared with the
dozens of chips used by other floppy disk controllers that were then on the
market. The six chips required special software that was included in the
Apple DOS operating system in order to perform all of the operations
necessary to fully support a fully functional floppy disk drive. The
software was streamlined to run in a small footprint of the machine’s
limited memory space.*

This ingenious design was incorporated in the Macintosh as the "Integrated
Woz Machine" (IWM) chip, which scored a patent, and as I documented in this
paragraph in the Macintosh IEEE Milestone description
<https://ethw.org/Milestones:Apple_Macintosh_Computer>:


*The Macintosh was the first large-scale (and keystone) commercial user of
the Sony 3.5” micro-floppy, a drive whose hard shell and shutter protected
the media as compared with the industry-standard 5.25" floppy. Wendell
Sander and Bob Bailey, with help from Ron Nicholson, designed a single-chip
integrated floppy controller called the "Integrated Woz Machine" (IWM)
[Ref-4: '448 patent
<https://ethw.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Upload&wpDestFile=Ref4-US4742448.pdf>].
The IWM chip exactly implemented the state machine of Steve Wozniak’s
ingenious Apple II floppy disk controller design, which had already
dramatically reduced the number of chips used as compared with earlier
floppy disk controllers. This IWM chip thus maintained compatibility with
older Disk II media, and also supported the faster 3.5" micro-floppy drive
which used the more complex system clock of the Macintosh.*
Sales of subsequent models of the Apple II kept Apple afloat until the
Macintosh finally took off.

Brian Berg

On Sun, Aug 2, 2020 at 6:01 PM Evan Koblentz <evan at snarc.net> wrote:

> Tom,
>
> I agree with your thoughts here.
>
> A detail: >> Wozniak himself is prouder of the Apple II and proudest of
> the Apple II disk controller. You can easily buy the former for $150 in
> working condition, and the latter for about $20
>
> Original Apple IIs, especially the earliest revisions, are going for four
> figures now among hobbyists. I've seen some as high as $2K-$4K.
>
> Even the early revisions of the II+ are getting up there in hobbyist
> prices, because Apple kept selling the straight II for a short time after
> the II+ introduction, thus some II+ computers are older than some original
> IIs. However it's the later II+ systems (which are most of them) and of
> course the //e, //c, and IIgs which are readily available for two/three
> figures. Various sub-versions go for more, such as the //e Platinum, //c
> Plus, and IIgs Woz Edition.
>
>
> On 8/1/20 12:37 PM, thomas.haigh at gmail.com wrote:
>
> Hmm. I posted this as a kind of quirky head scratching moment, but Lisa
> asks a valid question so let me attempt an answer informed by our recent
> work on the Revised History of Modern Computing. The “unhinged” comment
> referred not to the specific seller, but to the market that might make such
> a price at least somewhat plausible. (Apparently the listing started at
> $1.75 million last year, so maybe a further reduction will follow).
>
>
>
> First off, the real competence to answer this question would come from
> economic sociology within which there’s a thriving group of scholars
> looking at the pricing and collection of artworks. There’s a also a
> literature on collections and collectors that goes back to Walter Benjamin,
> and an associated steam looking at “authenticity” and the reproduction of
> cultural artifacts.
>
>
>
> Like artwork the price of the Apple 1 would be set by collectors and
> auction houses guided by an infrastructure of authentication, evaluation,
> and (as Debbie shared) previous sales of similar items. Everyone involved
> in that process has an incentive to see values rise. Compared to a van
> Gough, Picasso, or Banksy the Apple 1 in question is rather affordable. But
> unlike traditional artworks, where uniqueness is the point, the Apple 1 is
> only accidentally rare.
>
>
>
> So the parallel is stronger with well-established expensive collectibles
> like classic sportscars. Today’s Bloomberg reports a Ferrari sold for $3
> million at auction. I assume this is the direct model being followed with
> Apple 1s. There’s also the recent boom in prices for unopened Nintendo
> cartridges, the fixation on pristine condition creating an artificial
> scarcity for a mass produced item for which supply generally exceeds
> current demand. (
> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/27/business/video-games-wata-heritage.html)
> Like Star Wars toys, old comics, and the former bubble in baseball cards, I
> think the conventional explanation is that rich men of a certain age want
> to own the things they dreamed of having as a boy.
>
>
>
> No child ever dreamed of having an Apple 1 and hung its poster on the
> wall. Actual customers quickly traded them in for better machines. And it’s
> a rather ugly bare circuit board, though the hand built wooden case that’s
> also part of the eBay offering does evoke the amateur nature of the early
> personal computing community. But there is certainly a lot of money
> floating around the tech industry and so (entering my actual area of
> expertise) the question is how the Apple 1 became the definitive early
> personal computing artifact that a museum or wealthy collector might
> justify spending so much money on.
>
>
>
> Being a famous _*personal*_ computer certainly helps. A PDP-1 or Univac 1
> would be more historically significant and rarer, but you’d need to know
> something about history to appreciate that and they are all rather bulky.
> Fewer people feel personal ties to those technologies, and for the 1950s
> computers their generations have faded out. (IIRC there was a crash in
> Elvis memorabilia a few years ago, as the people who cared about Elvis left
> the marketplace). The Cray 1 is a lot better looking than an Apple 1, more
> technologically interesting (miles of hardwired connections), and was
> actually expensive at the time. The one and only prototype Cray 4 processor
> fetched just $37,500 when auctioned (
> https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/22964/lot/78/), and what claimed to be a
> piece of the Serial 001 Cray 1 from Los Alamos failed to sell for GBP 550 (
> https://www.theregister.com/2010/05/24/cray_1_gate_module_ebay/). Some
> significant portions of ENIAC, which does have name recognition, are not
> controlled by the Smithsonian but I don’t think any kind of secondary
> market has developed for them.
>
>
>
> The Apple 1 was not, in itself, a particularly important or successful
> machine. It also wasn’t a “first” anything, except the first Apple product.
> It gets two sentences in our book, which serve as a bridge from the
> Homebrew Computer Club to the Apple II. The Altair 8800 was much “firstier”
> and did far more to establish the personal computer category, though people
> who care about such things have documented many earlier personal computers
> and microprocessor based machines. An Altair sold at auction for $8,125 in
> 2017.  (https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/24495/lot/108/) Cromemcos,
> IMSAIS, the Processor Technology Sol, etc. were also more visible in 1976
> than the Apple 1. The Apple 1 matters because it led to the Apple II, but
> even that was not the most initially important of the three mass produced
> personal computers launched in 1977. The TRS-80 sold much better for
> several years (allegedly until 1981). Steve Wozniak is said to have
> produced an impressively efficient design, but at the time Chuck Peddle was
> more renowned as a designer of elegant circuits (having produced the MOS
> 6502 chip the Apple was based on) and according to Wikipedia he also
> designed the third of the 1977 trio, the Commodore Pet 2001 (currently
> being auctioned on eBay for $211.50). So even the Apple II didn’t really
> establish itself as _*the*_ important machine of its generation years
> later. The Apple IIe, which outsold the 1970s models many times over to
> account for the bulk of Apple II sales, wasn’t launched until 1983 (well
> after the IBM PC which complicates the traditional succession story).
>
>
>
> Rarity clearly matters (which the Apple 1 achieved by not being a
> particularly strong seller). Wozniak’s cult following is important, but
> Wozniak himself is prouder of the Apple II and proudest of the Apple II
> disk controller. You can easily buy the former for $150 in working
> condition, and the latter for about $20. The IBM PC matters a lot more to
> history, but those also cost just a few hundred dollars. A very low serial
> number might make a difference, but not enough to add several zeros to the
> prices.
>
>
>
> The thing that really sets the Apple 1 apart is the fact that Apple is the
> world’s most successful company and many people feel a personal connection
> to it and its products. A billionaire can point to it and say “The first
> Apple, very rare (subtext, very expensive)” and visitors won’t need a
> history lecture to appreciate the importance. The story of Woz and Jobs in
> the garage has become the paradigmatic story of innovation, told in movies,
> documentaries, a bestselling books. (Misapplication of the Woz/Jobs
> template crippled the first season of *Halt and Catch Fire*, so if you
> haven’t seen it skip that and start with season 2). There’s the allure of
> thinking that one or both handled this circuit board in that garage. Add
> the rarity of its first product to that cult following and the amount of
> money percolating in Silicon Valley and you have a unique combination of
> factors converging to pump up the value of a computer that didn’t, in
> itself, much matter to the course of history.
>
>
>
> Best wishes,
>
>
>
> Tom
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Members <members-bounces at lists.sigcis.org>
> <members-bounces at lists.sigcis.org> *On Behalf Of *LO*OP CENTER, INC.
> *Sent:* Friday, July 31, 2020 11:34 PM
> *To:* Deborah Douglas <ddouglas at mit.edu> <ddouglas at mit.edu>
> *Cc:* Sigcis <members at sigcis.org> <members at sigcis.org>
> *Subject:* Re: [SIGCIS-Members] eBay is selling an Apple 1 for $1.5
> million
>
>
>
> I feel like I ought to say something in response to this thread but I'm
> not sure what. Do you-all think the first Apple 1 should be worth more than
> the others? Pricing collectables is sooooo difficult.
>
>
>
> Cheers,
>
>
>
> Liza
>
>
>
> On Fri, Jul 31, 2020 at 4:13 PM Deborah Douglas <ddouglas at mit.edu> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> For those who are curious here are some of the prices paid for Apple 1
> computers in the past 6 years.
>
>
>
> 2014: $910,000 (Charity auction)
> https://www.cultofmac.com/498888/apple-history-celebration-apple-1-auction/
>
> 2016: $815,000 (Charity auction)
> https://www.cultofmac.com/498888/apple-history-celebration-apple-1-auction/
>
> 2018: $375,000
> https://www.cnet.com/news/rare-apple-1-sells-at-auction-for-over-500-times-original-price/
>
> 2019: $470,000
> https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/28/wozniak-built-apple-1-computer-sold-for-almost-500000-at-christies.html
>
> 2020: $458,711.25.
> https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/03/13/rare-functional-apple-1-computer-sold-at-auction-for-458711
>
>
>
> Debbie Douglas
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Jul 31, 2020, at 6:24 PM, mike at willegal.net wrote:
>
>
>
> I talked to Krishna a few years ago.  I don’t think he is unhinged, but I
> can’t imagine any Apple 1 fetching that price, even though it appears to be
> one of the nicer survivors.  It’s funny, when I first became interested in
> Apple 1s, condition mattered little, but now the market has evolved to the
> point where condition seems to matter.  Note that the Henry Ford Museum
> paid around 1 million dollars for an Apple 1 several years ago, though that
> price hasn’t been approached since.
>
>
>
> Regards,
>
> Mike Willegal
>
>
>
> On Jul 31, 2020, at 4:05 PM, <thomas.haigh at gmail.com> <
> thomas.haigh at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> https://www.ebay.com/i/174195921349. There is at least a “Make offer”
> button.
>
>
>
> I have to say that this is more than a little unhinged, possibly a further
> sign (as if one were needed) of the approach of the end times. Though I did
> recently pay $250 for a working Apple IIe with disk drives and monitor.
> Simple mathematics suggests for a Bezos, Musk or Zuckerberg this would be a
> very much smaller purchase relative to net worth.
>
>
>
> Full description at
> http://vi.raptor.ebaydesc.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItemDescV4&item=174195921349&category=162075&pm=1&ds=0&t=1582079090000&ver=0
>
>
>
> Also an entry in the Apple 1 registry (which of course):
> https://www.apple1registry.com/en/79.html.
>
>
>
> Best wishes,
>
>
> Tom
>
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> *Deborah G. Douglas, PhD *• Director of Collections and Curator of
> Science and Technology, MIT Museum; Research Associate, Program in Science,
> Technology, and Society • Room N51-209 • 265 Massachusetts Avenue •
> Cambridge, MA 02139-4307 • ddouglas at mit.edu • 617-253-1766 telephone •
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>
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> --
>
> Liza Loop
>
> Executive Director, LO*OP Center, Inc.
>
> Guerneville, CA 95446
>
> www.loopcenter.org
>
> 650 619 1099 (between 8 am and 10 pm Pacific time only please)
>
>
>
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