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Steve Jobs and Tektronix
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An interesting item is up for bid in the RR Auction (rrauction.com) “Remarkable Rarities” auction. Besides an original Apple I computer, there is item: Lot 3036. It is a check from Apple Computer Company in 1976 (the year of the company’s founding) made out to Tektronix, Inc. The check is signed by Steve Jobs and was drawn from the company’s Wells Fargo account. The signature has been authenticated. The estimate is $25,000. The check amount is $9.18.
There is also some genuine moon rock dust used in an experiment, hand-written notes from Albert Einstein, and a lot of other autographs and some items from historical figures and events. If I had a bundle of money, I’d bid the check to win it and donate it to Vintage Tek. Unfortunately, I’ve not that sort of disposable income. |
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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 |
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I've been through the 1976 catalog and it looks like the only items that could have been bought for less than $10 were patch cords, test leads, (some) coax cables, assorted adapters, blank panels (for 5k scopes, and TM500 stuff), and assorted small scope and probe accessories.
The signed check, on its own isn't terribly interesting to me, even with the signature of Steve Jobs himself. I'd much rather know the story behind it. Cutting such a small check, and accounting for Steve's known idiosyncrasy as a young man, suggests that the story might be very entertaining indeed. -- Jeff Dutky |
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Though one could argue rarity, an Apple I computer sold for $905,000 at
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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. 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? |
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Seems an odd way to me to denote the amount of the check like that.
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Thanks, Barry - N4BUQ ----- Original Message -----
From: "Steven Horii" <sonodocsch@...> An interesting item is up for bid in the RR Auction (rrauction.com) “Remarkable |
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To make it clear, the "Apple I" offered in the auction is a replica, not an original. The only thing that makes it in any way interesting is Wayne's signature.
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-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of stevenhorii Sent: Wednesday, June 01, 2022 8:08 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [TekScopes] Steve Jobs and Tektronix 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. 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? -- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. |
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Good god, if I had know punch cards would ever be valuable, I would have saved the piles we had in high school (two punch card machines that we only had for "training"- our PDP8/E card reader could read either the punches or pencil marks).? ?In the same vein; I used to pull boxes of 5" floppies out of the Commodore dumpster (they used 4 to test every new dual drive).? Selling them for $1 each at SBPUG and the Foothill swap, I make lots of easy money.
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-Dave On Wednesday, June 1, 2022, 05:08:05 AM PDT, stevenhorii <sonodocsch@...> wrote:
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. 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? |
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