Remember that original Apple Lisa computer you’ve got in the basement, boxed next to your old VHS player and Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots toys? It may be time to dust it off and take it an auction house.
That’s based on the news that a Lisa 1 (a.k.a. Apple’s first computer to come with a graphical interface and a mouse) is expected to fetch $42,000 when it goes under the hammer in Germany late next month.
Perhaps equally famous for being the computer named after Steve Jobs’ daughter, the 1983 computer is one of supposedly one of just 100 that are thought to still exist in the world today.
The reason for this is that one year after its launch, the Lisa was superseded by a better and cheaper model, which Apple offered as a free replacement to customers who returned their original unit. The returned computers were then destroyed.
“It is incredible to think that the Apple 1 is really where modern computing began,” says Uwe Breker, auctioneer at Team Breker. “Apple had made previous computers but the Lisa 1 was the first to have many of the features we still use today like a mouse, an icon-based interface and of course the recycle bin,”
“The Apple Lisa 1 may not have been very popular at the time of their release but now they are very sought after indeed. This computer is incredibly basic by today’s standards, but it is part of computing history.”
This isn’t the first time a Lisa has scored big at an auction. In 2010, a Lisa 1 sold for the bargainous price of $15k in an eBay auction, while another was put up for sale for $25k in 2012.
With that kind of inflation going on, I know what my $42,000 blogging paycheck is going on this May 24.
To celebrate, here’s an ad for the original Lisa, starring none other than a young Kevin Costner:
Source: Telegraph
