Apple 1 computer sold at £240,000 price point

Just when you thought that the Apple 128k Macintosh prototype known as ‘Twiggy’ that was put up for sale by Steve Woz for $100,000 was expensive, here we are with an extremely rare Apple 1 model that went for £240,929 in an auction at Sotheby’s. Just what is so special about the Apple 1? For starters, this is touted to be the first ready-made personal computer from Cupertino, sporting a naked circuit board that would make any self-respecting computer of today blush. Primitive microchips as well as exposed circuitry dot the board, and this Apple 1 example is said to be one of approximately 6 surviving working samples of Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak’s first hardware job.

Around 200 Apple 1 machines were built all the way back in 1976, where they sold at retail for $666.66 a pop sans case, keyboard, monitor or power supply. The Apple 1 had some decent high end specs back then with 4 kilobytes of memory alongside a 1MHz processor. How far have we come since then, no? Estimates point towards around 50 of the original 200 Apple 1 machines remain, with just six of those being known as still working.