'Apple Computer A' Prototype Apple-1 Owned by Steve Jobs Heads to Auction

A prototype Apple-1 computer that was owned by Steve Jobs is up for auction and is expected to fetch $500,000.

Steve Jobs used a printed circuit board to demonstrate the Apple-1 to the owner of The Byte Shop. The first store to sell Apple-1 computers was The Byte Shop.

A prototype of the Apple Computer A can be seen in the photographs taken in 1976. The number two machine on the Apple-1 registry was considered lost until it was found and verified by an Apple-1 expert.

There is some damage to the board at the site that hosts the sale.

This prototype resided on the 'Apple Garage' property for many years before being given by Steve Jobs to its current owner approximately 30 years ago. At that time, Jobs had been ousted from Apple and was looking forward to the promise of NeXT and Pixar. The board's present condition lends some insight into Jobs's judgment of it: he saw the prototype not as something to be enshrined, but as something to be repurposed. Several of the ICs have been plucked from their sockets, as have the microprocessor and other components, presumably for use on early production Apple-1 Computers.

The board appears to have been damaged by pressure on the upper right, resulting in a crack that runs from adjacent to the power supply area above D12 down through the bottom of the board to the right of A15. The missing piece is presumed to have been discarded, but can be reimagined thanks to Paul Terrell's photographs of the complete board. One of the distinguishing features of the "Apple Computer A" prototype was its use of three orange Sprague Atom capacitors, rather than the familiar 'Big Blue' capacitors used on the production Apple Computer 1.

Compared to production Apple-1 machines, the prototype lacks the green protective coating and has a different processor.

The prototype is rare and is expected to fetch a high price at the auction.