Old computers tend to lead sedentary lives. Parked in shelves and closets, maybe touched by the occasional dusting; the lucky ones still run old games from time to time. But sometimes one becomes a sensation.

The Twiggy Macintosh is a prototype Macintosh 128k that used a 5.25-inch disk drive. Long thought lost to history, two of these primordial Macinti were recently resurrected and returned to life in full working glory. Their rebirth brought about a rare reunion of the original Macintosh design team. And one of them recently repaid the effort by fetching about $40,000 at an auction.

They are — without a doubt — the oldest working Macs in the world.

Here is the story of their amazing journey.

UPDATE: Cult of Mac has learned that the Apple 1 did sell after the auction closed. Read more here.
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Markets rise and markets fall – that’s true for stocks, real estate, tulips, etc. That’s also true with vintage computers – though even in a down market there’s still some money to be made.

At an auction in Germany held on Saturday November 16, a working Apple 1 – from the first batch of 50 units made – did not receive any bids. Nor did a restored Lisa 1, with dual Twiggy floppy disk drives. But a prototype Twiggy Mac, one of only two known working units, sold for €25,000 ($33,725), quite possibly the highest price ever paid for a vintage Macintosh.

Auctions for rare Apple equipment have attracted a lot of attention the past few years, with prices for the Apple 1 going as high as an astounding $671,000! Another Apple 1 is going up for auction in Germany next month on November 16, but in addition a very different rare Apple item will be on the same auction block. One of only two known working Twiggy Macs in the world is going up for sale.

Twiggy Macs were prototype versions of the original Macintosh and used a proprietary 5.25-inch floppy disk drive, instead of the 3.5-inch disk which ultimately shipped with the system in 1984. All Twiggy prototypes were ordered destroyed by Steve Jobs – and long thought lost – but the last couple of years have seen an eventful rediscovery of this piece of Macintosh history. Now one can be yours – if the price is right.

Nearly three decades after Apple Computer introduced the Macintosh, a pair of incredibly rare Mac prototypes have been discovered and restored to working order.

The computers, known as Twiggy Macs because they used the same 5.25-inch Twiggy floppy disk drive found in Apple’s doomed Lisa, were tracked down and painstakingly brought back to life by Adam Goolevitch, a vintage Mac collector, and Gabreal Franklin, a former Apple software engineer.

“Throughout the past 15 years, I have heard stories of and researched the fabled ‘Twiggy Macintosh’ computer,” Goolevitch told Cult of Mac in an email. “It was a thing of myth and legend — like a unicorn.”

Locating these Macs was the first step, but getting them to work was the real challenge. Goolevitch and Franklin embarked on an all-out effort to resurrect these long-lost pieces of Macintosh history.

Now two Twiggy Macs have been returned to life in full working glory. They are — without a doubt — the oldest Macs in the world. With auction prices for Apple-1 computers nudging upward toward the half-million-dollar mark, these incredibly rare prototypes — which look a lot like something you might find at a garage sale — could prove priceless. Here is the story of their amazing resurrection.

What does it take to be a vintage Mac collector?

A love of all things Apple and an encyclopedic knowledge of the many successful, unsuccessful and downright notorious products Cupertino has released over the years are a given. But the job can be more perilous than you’d imagine.

Just ask Adam Goolevitch. Known as “wozniac” on eBay, Adam is one of the premier vintage Mac collectors around. In just he last couple of months, some of Googlevitch’s rarest finds — including a 128k Mac with a 5.25” Twiggy floppy disk drive and a Macintosh SE with a clear outer case — have hit the web and sparked a flurry of interest.

But collecting these Macs isn’t always easy. From almost losing a finger to a PowerMac G4 Cube to mistakenly being investigated by the police under the suspicion of dealing drugs instead of Macs, Googlevitch has some wild stories to tell that prove that being a vintage Mac collector isn’t necessarily for the faint of heart.

Cult of Mac sat down with Adam to hear some of his adventures and also get the scoop on the rarest machines in his collection.