Handwritten by Steve Jobs, a draft for an advert for the Apple I computer has sold at auction for $175,759 (R3.3 million).
According to the RR Auction listing, the piece of paper was expected to make no more than $30,000 (R560,349). It is said that the final bid was nearly six times higher than the anticipated price.
The listing reads: “Historic early advertising draft for the ‘Apple Computer-1,’ written entirely in the hand of ‘Steven Jobs’ in 1976, including two Polaroids of the working prototype, photographed at The Byte Shop and annotated by Jobs.”
Included on the ad is a brief description of the computer: “All Power Supplies, 8K bytes of RAM (16 pin 4K dynamic), full crt terminal—input: ASC11 Keybd, output: composite vidio [sic], fully expandable to 65K via edge connector, 58 ic’s which includes 16 for 8K ram!! Monitor software (for 2 proms on board (256 bytes) included.”
Jobs finalises the ad draft by quoting a price of $75 for “board only + manual, a real deal”.
According to Apple historian Corey Cohen, the tech specs of the handwritten advertising draft are a close match to the Apple I’s original advert, which first appeared in the July 1976 issue of Interface Magazine.
The auction listing goes on to read: “This first marketing blitz granted Apple the requisite funding to evolve from ‘two guys in a garage’ to two of the most influential figures of the late 20th century.”
