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Daily Update for June 21, 2013
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here. No Flash? Click here to listen. Subscribe via RSS
Apple 1 fails to sell at auction
Christie's auctioned off an original Apple 1 motherboard this week and the piece of Apple history failed to garner enough bids to reach its reserve price. According to an ABC News report, the Apple 1 had a top bid of £32,000 (US$51,155), which is well below the £50,000 ($80,000) reserve. The computer will now go back to the consignor, who will decide what to do with the machine. According to the auction description, the Apple I came from the estate of former Apple employee Joe Copson. It is numbered 01-0022 and is believed to be the 22nd model to be manufactured by Apple in 1976. The motherboard was originally sold without a case, keyboard or monitor, but the model featured in the auction included a third-party case designed to look like an Apple II. Approximately 200 models of the Apple 1 were sold between 1976 and 1977, and only 50 of those units are still in circulation. [Via The Mac Observer]
$211,000 Apple-1 up and running, wants to know what this 'cloud' thing is all about
Wondering whatever became of the Apple-1 that sold at Christie's for $211,535? Turns out the extremely limited edition system wasn't destined for airtight museum displays -- not for the time being, at least. Auction winner / entrepreneur Mark Bogle brought the Wozniak-built system on stage with him at the Polytechnic University of Turin in Italy this week, and discussed its place in computing history with a group of professors before proceeding to fire it up. According to Italian Apple blog Macity, the process went "smoothly," and with the help of an oscilloscope and a MacBook Pro, the system was fed into an NTSC monitor, displaying the words "Hello Polito" -- a friendly message for the Polytechnic crowd. It's not Doom, but we'll take it. [Thanks, Settimio]
Apple-1 computer auctioned off for over $211,000; winner in the garage building a case for it
So, that Apple-1 we saw a while back was auctioned off today, for a winning bid of £133,250, or roughly $211,535 -- not bad, considering that the original sale price was (believe it or not!) $666.66. According to the Wall Street Journal, a spokesman for Christie's in London called it "a record for a personal computer sold at auction." Besides the machine itself (with its 8-bit 6502 microprocessor and 8K RAM), the lot included a letter from a certain "Steven Jobs" with his parents' return address. If you happen to be the person who won the auction, we know a guy with a copy of Apple-1 BASIC.
