December 8, 1975: San Francisco Bay Area entrepreneur Paul Terrell opens The Byte Shop, one of the world’s first computer stores — and the first to sell an Apple computer.
Years before Apple would open its own retail outlets, the Byte Shop stocks the first 50 Apple-1 computers built by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak.
August 25, 2016: An ultra-rare Apple-1 computer raises $815,000 in a charity auction, one of the highest prices ever paid for one of the machines. Bidding actually reaches $1.2 million in the auction’s final minutes. However, that bid gets pulled seconds before a winner is announced.
The reason for the super-high price? This “Celebration” Apple-1 boasts a feature that did not appear on any production models of the computer.
One of the first computers ever created by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak is hitting the auction block, only unlock some of the previous auctions, this one is for a good cause.
When Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak first decided to make a computer together their first invention was the Apple-1. At first, the Apple-I was just a do-it-yourself computer making kit. Buyers would have to solder the chips onto the circuit board, then find other parts like the power supply, keyboard, and display.
As the owner of the Byte Shop in Mountain View California, Paul Terrell was approached by Jobs and Woz to sell their DIY computer kits. Terrell told them he really needed computers that are fully assembled and that he’d buy 50 Apple-1s if Jobs and Woz put them together. They struck a deal and Byte Shop became the first Apple retailers. Thirty six year later, Terrell recently posted pictures of some of the first Apple-1s ever. Check them out below:
