TIME Gadgets

You Can Buy One of Apple’s First Computers for About $300,000

The Apple-1 was rickety device that couldn't do much, but it sparked a revolution in home computing

One of Apple’s first-ever computers, the Apple 1, is headed to auction Wednesday, with an expected price tag of between $300,000 and $500,000.

The computing relic was designed by Steve Wozniak in 1975 when the Apple co-founder wrote code by hand and fit together cut-rate parts onto a motherboard. “It was the first time in history,” Wozniak has said, “anyone had typed a character on a keyboard and seen it show up on their own computer’s screen right in front of them.”

The Apple 1 now up for auction was functioning as of last month, and can still run very basic commands. It’s believed to be part of the first batch of 50 units assembled in Jobs’ family garage. It contains a circuit board with four rows and 18 columns, a keyboard interface, 8K bytes of RAM and comes with a keyboard and a monitor.

Only 63 surviving authentic Apple 1’s were listed in an Apple 1 Registry as of January out of the 200 that were built. The model up for auction is one of 15 believed to still have working motherboards.

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