Though one could argue rarity, an Apple I computer sold for $905,000 at
auction. It was working, but other than some of the early software for it,
there¡¯s not much more you could do with it. Even the early ¡°first¡± personal
computers - the Altair, Imsai, SWTPC, etc. sell now for close to, or more,
than their original price.
I spoke with the consignment director for an auction house about this (I
sell some of my space program stuff through them) and he told me that the
buyers are largely the generation of engineers who were not even born when
these early computers were being built and sold. The wealthy ones will
spend huge amounts for these machines or ephemera (like that check) that
have some historical significance for them. Collectors. Even punch cards
sell at surprisingly high prices, some well over $1.00 each, particularly
if they carry a university logo and are not punched. I should have kept my
boxes of cards that held the software (all FORTRAN IV) I wrote while at
Hopkins.
One person¡¯s trash is another¡¯s treasure.
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On Wed, Jun 1, 2022 at 01:43 Jeff Dutky <jeff.dutky@...> wrote:
What was Apple buying from Tek for less than $10 in 1976?
I've seen Tek scopes on eBay that had Apple property tags. The one that I
almost bought was a T900 scope with missing VOLTS/DIV knobs. I should have
save the pictures from the auction, but I didn't have the presence of mind
at the time.
-- Jeff Dutky
