Rare Apple computer at auction could be the one from key moment

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The exact place in history of a rare, early Apple computer up for auction remains unclear, but people with direct knowledge and expertise say it may be the device Apple co-founders Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs showed off at a pivotal meeting that led to the retail launch of their first home computer, the Apple-1.

A story last week by this news organization, quoting key players from the PC industry’s early days, cast doubt on claims about the computer’s place in history. But this week, Paul Terrell, who owned the computer stores where Apple-1s were first sold, and Achim Baqué, curator of the “Apple-1 Registry” that tracks the computers, suggested the auction-block device may well be the early prototype Wozniak and Jobs showed off at the Homebrew Computer Club meeting in 1976 in Menlo Park, and that Jobs brought to show Terrell at his Byte Shop in Mountain View the next day.

“I have no doubts it is the prototype presented to Paul,” Baqué said.

Terrell said this week that the computer “could have been the one” Wozniak and Jobs showed off and that Jobs brought to him the next day, though he could not say conclusively.

Big bucks could be at stake: The auction house taking bids expects the rare device to sell for at least $500,000.

At the heart of uncertainty over the device are Polaroid photos Terrell took, back in 1976, of an early Apple computer. Boston-based RR Auction is using the Polaroids, which show a circuit board between a computer screen and a keyboard, as evidence of the provenance of the device.

Auction house spokesman Bobby Livingston said this week that world-renowned Apple-1 expert Corey Cohen has conclusively matched the circuit board in the Polaroids to the broken circuit board up for auction.

But Terrell still believes the Polaroids show one of the first 50 Apple-1s he received to sell in his shop, rather than the prototype, although he says that does not rule out the possibility that the auction device is the demonstration prototype.

Livingston said he believes Terrell is misremembering what he photographed with the Polaroid camera. The auction house spokesman asserts that Terrell’s Polaroids depict a prototype — not a production computer — and because the only prototype Terrell would have been able to photograph was the demonstration device that Jobs brought to him, the Polaroid therefore shows that device, which Cohen has matched to the computer up for auction.

Wozniak, who had doubts originally, still can’t say for sure. After looking online at the Polaroids and photos of the device up for auction, Wozniak told the Bay Area News Group the images did not make clear whether the brown-colored device up for auction was the demonstration unit from the Homebrew meeting and Jobs’ pitch to Terrell.

“We had only a few of these brown boards,” Wozniak said Thursday. “It could count as a prototype of the production version of the Apple-1, I presume.”

Three decades ago, Jobs gave the device now up for auction to its current owner, who wishes to remain anonymous, according to the auction house. Cohen earlier told the Bay Area News Group that the computer had spent years crammed in a drawer in the famed “Apple Garage” where Jobs and Wozniak did their early work in Jobs’ childhood home in Los Altos.

Also under some dispute is the amount of work Wozniak performed on the computer up for auction. The auction house described the device as “hand-made by Woz.” Baqué described the device is the “one and only production prototype” representing a final design before mass production, but he said that although it featured some modifications Wozniak performed by hand, it had come from a factory.

Regardless of its origins, the Apple 1 up for auction represents a piece of history in the iconic Silicon Valley story of the birth of the personal computer, the experts agree. It remains open for bidding through Aug. 18, with initial bids due at 3 p.m. and extended bidding to follow.



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