Behold the Apple I, built in 1976 by college dropouts Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. The highly coveted computer is being put up for auction by Ted Perry, a retired school psychologist who owns the old (and still working!) Apple. He has kept it stored away in a cardboard box at his home just outside Sacramento.

Perry exchanged some of equipment for the second-hand Apple 1 in either 1979 or 1980, using it at the time to help special needs children who responded well to the "teletype machine."

"The 11-by-14 green piece of plastic covered with a copper-colored labyrinth of memory chips was one of the first 25 such computer elements, and sold for $666.66," notes AP. "About 200 were made but most have disappeared or been discarded. Various estimates put the number known to still exist from about 30 to 50. They came with eight kilobytes of memory — a million times less than the average computer today."

The computer is expected to fetch at least $500K at Christie's "First Bytes: Iconic Technology from the Twentieth Century" auction happening online only from June 24 to July 9. Last month, if you recall, an Apple 1 sold for around $671,400 at auction in Germany. The starting bid, according to Mercury News, comes in at a whopping $300,000.

Below, the Apple 1 (that sold in Germany) in action. Marvel at its open circuitry and dramatic illustration of Woz!

[AP]
[Mercury News]