Apple founder Steve Jobs.
A handwritten ad written by Apple founder Steve Jobs for the Apple-1 computer was recently sold at auction for $175,759 (approximately Rs 1.4 crore), according to the Boston-based company. RR Auction. It also includes two Polaroids of the working prototype, photographed at The Byte Shop in California. These photos show a full Apple-1 computer board, along with a keyboard and monitor. A screen from an Apple-1 computer is also shown with an Apple Basic program. In a photo annotated by Jobs, he said the photo is “blurred because the camera wobbled.”
The ad is signed in small print with Mr. Jobs’ full name: “Steven Jobs.” The phone number and address of his parent’s home, which functioned as Apple Computer Company’s first headquarters, “11161 Crist dr., Los Altos, Ca 94022, (415) 968-3596,” are listed under the contact information.
The auction house states in the description of the product: “The ad, which essentially serves as a rough draft of the spec sheet for the Apple-1, was neatly written in black ink on an off-white 8.5 x 11 binding sheet and attached to the back. Apple-1 given to sender during a visit to Jobs’s garage in 1976.”
The ad titled “Apple Computer-1” stated that it uses a 6800, 6501, or 6502 microprocessor, noting in parentheses that the 6501 or 6502 is “recommended because we have basics.” The founder of Apple also added an “on board” listing that includes “all power supplies, 8K bytes of RAM (16-pin 4K dynamic), full crt terminal input: ASC11 Keybd, output: composite video, fully expandable to 65K via edge connector, 58 ic’s of which 16 for 8K ram !! Monitor software (for 2 proms on board (256 bytes)) included.”
He also mentioned the use of “basic on the way (ROM)”, which according to RR Auctions never happened for the Apple-1, but did for the Apple 2. He closed the ad with a $75 price for “board only + manual, a real deal.”
The auction house added: “According to Apple historian Corey Cohen, the technical specifications of this handwritten ad concept neatly match the original ad for the Apple-1, which first printed in the July 1976 issue of Interface Magazine, which marked the public launch of what would become one of the most valuable and influential companies in the world.”
