Apple I can get to fork out at least half a million dollars

Many garages and basements dusts old motherboards with protruding wires - electronic junk. But why computer this "Motherboard" is estimated more than half a million dollars?

For the simple reason that it created a two-razgildyaya genius expelled from college - Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak.

this week the auction Christie's, which represented one of the first Apple computers in the company's history - Apple I, Released in 1976, the predecessor of the MacBook, iPad and iPhone. The starting price of the "old man" - 300 thousand dollars (however, it is already pre-estimated at no less than 500 thousand). But once the price was equal to 666.66 dollars.

Sells relic Ted Perry (Ted Perry), a school psychologist in retirement. All these years (over 30 years), he cherished at home in a cardboard box green piece of plastic - motherboard. "It's a piece of history that changed the world, with it began the computer revolution" - says Ted.

Vintage Apple products become particularly popular, when there was Steve Jobs in October 2011. One of the Apple I was sold some time ago for a record 671 400 dollars, and last year another such was sold at Sotheby's for 374,500 dollars.

"This is the seed from which grew a garden, and without it there would be no Apple», - said Stephen Edwards (Stephen A. Edwards), Professor of Computer Science at Columbia University. "I was shocked by the six figures at auction. The market has gone mad. "

Christie's current auction is called "the first byte: Cult technique of the twentieth century» (First Bytes: Iconic Technology from the Twentieth Century) and runs from 24 June to 9 July. Apple I computer is exposed on Monday at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View.

His yet the owner once worked as a psychologist in the city Carmichael school. He watched the children with special needs, and noticed that the use of the deaf child teletype exerted a great influence on his development. When the first computers appeared on the market, Perry learned how to program them. Wozniak agreed to provide the psychologist that he called "internal code", so Perry can create interactive lessons for their pupils, using new technology.

Recently, the house of Perry reached by experts from Christie's, to evaluate the old Apple and try to turn it on. By the way, only the "motherboard" This is the original Apple. Keyboard, monitor and a memory are added later. "I'm a little afraid to run it, but it still works with the original chips!" - Perry commented.