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Apple-1 Computer Prototype Board #0 sold for $2.75M

46 points

by qingcharles

5 hours ago

| past

| 9 comments

| rrauction.com

| HN

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xp84

58 minutes ago

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The schematic diagram features an interesting Apple logo that I've never seen before. I've always been told that the old-timey one on the cover of the manual was the only logo predating the six colors one with the bite out of it.

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clnhlzmn

4 hours ago

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I need that "RUB OUT" key on my keyboard

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nickt

2 hours ago

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The ZX81 had that too, at least the UK ones did.

The keyboard itself, er, takes some getting used to. But they are a little cheaper.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZX81#/media/File:Sinclair-ZX81...

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hahahahhaah

3 hours ago

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Apple 1 launch price $600. Googles ai said 1k investment at 1980's IPO worth 2.5m today. So if you invested 600 that is 1.5m. It would have sat idle 1976 to 1980.

So board #0 beat the stock price but only just. And I am comparing board 0 to any old apple 1.

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kirubakaran

2 hours ago

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For on additional $200, you could've had 10% of Apple

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Wayne

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CamperBob2

2 hours ago

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$666, IIRC.

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barbazoo

4 hours ago

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If I was a billionaire I hope I’d buy artifacts like this and donate them for posterity. This is a really cool piece of history.

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qingcharles

3 hours ago

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Paul Allen did this, until he died and really left no continuation for his museum, which is crazy to me.

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nereye

3 hours ago

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For folks who are in the area (or might be visiting), the recently opened Interim Computer Museum has quite a collection of vintage systems:

https://icm.museum/?faq

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mrcwinn

2 hours ago

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$2.75m??? How does Apple get away with these prices?

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user3939382

3 hours ago

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I’ve got an Apple II I’ll take 500k ;)

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iwontberude

4 hours ago

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Sick, now loan it to Computer History Museum so I can have a look

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genter

4 hours ago

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WTF is a "computer-rated" capacitor?

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analog31

3 hours ago

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High capacitance, low voltage. Computers were somewhat unusual at the time in terms of requiring a lot of current at 5 Volts. The line frequency power supplies were inefficient enough even under optimal circumstances. I've seen some giant transformers from minicomputers of the day. And those huge blue capacitors the size of beer cans.

Apple II was one of the early PC's that used a switching power supply, and it wasn't particularly reliable. I worked at an Apple repair facility, and we replaced a lot of them. But our most common repairs were due to the huge number of chip sockets and low quality gold fingers on the disk controller board edge connector. We were a government agency (county run facility serving a bunch of semi rural school districts) and didn't charge a bench fee. If we could fix it on the spot by just pressing all of the chips back into their sockets, the repair was free and we didn't even log it.

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greenbit

3 hours ago

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It was about 110 chips on the original II wasn't it? Or maybe it's the II+ I'm thinking of. Anyway, it was a boatload of MSI parts.

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analog31

3 hours ago

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I only remember the II+, but both were dense with chips. The IIe had fewer chips as I recall. That level of complexity wasn't unheard of at the time. When the IBM PC came out, only a few of the chips were in sockets (the CPU and RAM/ROM), and people were nervous about repairability, but IBM pointed out that they had studied it to death over the years, and that the chips were more reliable than the sockets.

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monocasa

4 hours ago

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At the time, it was a type of capacitor targeting the specific voltage ranges and tolerances to be useful for a computer.

It's a thing that still shows up in a web search (but is far less meaningful).

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genter

4 hours ago

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Makes sense, I take for granted how great modern electrolytic caps are compared to 50 years ago.

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CamperBob2

2 hours ago

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The actual term is "computer grade electrolytic capacitor," designed for long-term service in high current linear power supplies. You can still get them, even though few computers use linear supplies these days: https://www.mouser.com/c/passive-components/capacitors/alumi...

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markus_zhang

3 hours ago

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Someone needs to create a Fallout 4 module that has the vibe of “Citizen Kane”.

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goldenkey

3 hours ago

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How about "Citizen Kanye?"

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voidfunc

3 hours ago

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No.