A range of historically significant technology items has been put up for auction in New York – and they won’t be going cheap.
Among the collection of vintage tech gear that’s been placed up for grabs is an Apple 1 motherboard, the last supercomputer designed by Seymour Cray, and a 1936 Baird television set.
As the BBC reports, you’ll need to have some serious cash to afford any of these tech relics. The Apple 1 motherboard has a starting price of $300,000 (around £194,000), while the aforementioned 79-year-old TV set is expected to fetch between $20,000 (£13,000) and $30,000.
The aforementioned Cray-4 supercomputer processor (with a serial number of 001) is listed at $50,000 to $80,000. Cray was working on the Cray-4 when his company went bankrupt in 1995, and he died the following year. This example is believed to be the only one in existence.
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Indeed, a large part of the reason for these inflated prices is each item’s scarcity. It’s believed that there are fewer than 50 Apple 1 motherboards in existence, for example.
Other lots being included in the auction include an early German Enigma machine, an American Civil War-era spy telegraph set, and handwritten paperwork from Albert Einstein himself.
See how far Apple’s computer range has come since the Apple 1 in our MacBook Pro 2015 review video:
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
