Woman dumps ultra-rare $200,000 Apple 1 computer in the trash A widow who dumped a 1976 Apple 1 computer at a recycling centre in California is unaware she's in line for a six-figure payout – after the facility sold the vintage kit for $200,000 (£131,700). CleanBayArea said the "anonymous lady around 60-70 years of age" left a couple of boxes of electronic waste at its Silicon Valley …
My original Atari 800 died, but I'm pretty sure I've got its replacement a 65XE that should still work as well maybe an Atari 400 in my parents' basement. Had a C64 but gave that to my uncle, he may still have it somewhere.
Unfortunately none of those are likely to be worth much, working or not, as they were produced in far larger numbers and don't have the same history associated with them. Maybe I could Craigslist them for $100 for the bunch.
That would be a fun thought exercise: what would one have to do to make a fake antique computer?
1. You would need a known-genuine Apple 1, for reference.
2. You would have to hunt down components. That sounds very possible.
3. Materials... is that PCB substrate still available? You would probably have to find some original unused stock... tricky. The solder composition, likewise... probably easier to have solder from a real Apple 1 analysed and replicated.
4. Forge Woz's signature.
Guess it depends on the lengths people will take to determine if your fake Apple 1 is real or not.
The recycling center says that the woman was "cleaning up" her late husband's stuff, which means she just grabbed everything and dumped it. Because she probably thought it was just annoying stuff taking up space, better used for cat furniture or something.
Maybe this will make housewives reassess what might be garbage, or actually highly valuable stuff.
Why would they "reassess what might be garbage"? Should they go through everything and try to find out what it is and look it up online to see if it is worth something? Do you know how much time that would take? Most of the time junk is junk, and doesn't justify all that effort to make a few hundred dollars with stuff that has some minimal value. The odds of finding something mega valuable like an Apple I, an unknown Picasso or Superman #1 are about on part with winning the lottery. Takes a lot less time to buy a lottery ticket, and it only costs a buck.
Besides, the Apple I didn't have a case, so there's nothing with 'Apple I' emblazoned on it anywhere for her to see which makes this particular item even more difficult to identify if you're just going through a bunch of junk.
Presumably her husband forgot he still had it or didn't realize its value, or it would have been kept separate and she would have known about it.
"Would be a good time to offer a service to widows for helping them "clean" house"
Just check your local yellow pages for "house clearances". They have a quick look around and make you an offer on the basis that they can sell it for more than they pay you, always with the hope of coming across something especially valuable in the "junk".
IIRC, to making a fake Apple I are the shift registers that were used for the video memory.
Everything else can probably be found. Even the solder. I have an ingot of mid-1970s solder around here somewhere. As for finding a real one to copy? In that area you may already know someone who has one.
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If you want to make one, here's how:
http://www.brielcomputers.com/wordpress/?cat=17
Funny thing, according to Woz, the original Apple was based off plans and schematics he'd been passing around for months:
http://gizmodo.com/ben-heck-shows-you-how-to-build-an-apple-1-replica-from-1656803971
"The designs were passed out freely with no copyright notice so that others could build a useful computer at low cost. Others even had hand-built versions of this computer before Steve Jobs even knew it existed."
So... 'replica Apples' have been around longer than original Apples.
"http://gizmodo.com/ben-heck-shows-you-how-to-build-an-apple-1-replica-from-1656803971"
Saying it's a replica is a bit strong. These are fairly generic 6502 systems with RAM and EPROM not available at the time of release of the Apple 1, video systems alien to the Apple 1 (generated using much more modern microcontrollers) and just arranged to be compatible with the Apple 1 memory and peripheral map where possible, programmed with the Apple 1 monitor and all built on completely different PCBs or prototyping boards.
It may be functionally similar, but you're not going to get rich passing it off as the real thing!
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