BPN 1603: Digital antiques: growth brilliants?

On June 15, 2012 Sotheby auctioned off an Apple 1 computer, which had been manufactured by hand by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in 1976. It was one of 200 handmade devices and it took 295.000 euro. On November 23, 2010 an Apple 1 was sold for 157.000 euro by the auctioneers Christie’s in London. This device was bought by the Italian business man and collector Marco Boglione.  The device, number 82 out of the 2000 devices,  had been sold before on eBay in November 2009 for 37.500 euro.

The devices  are the first digital ones being brought to be auctioned off. The value is partly due to the brand name Apple. The difference in the prices they took is depended on the configuration. The Boglione computer is a simple mother board with a 6502-micoprocessor, a 4Kb RAM memory, an audiocassette-interface and the Integer basic programming language built into the ROM chip. The original sales price of the computer was $ 666,66 (487,76 euro). A key board and monitor still had to be linked up separately.

Why did the Sotheby’s Apple 1 computer fetch a better price.  Quality factors. History: 36 years since its production. Moment: the auction was held one-and-a-half year later. The configuration: this computer was still working and had a keyboard and monitor linked to the motherboard; besides if was offered with four manuals.

This rise of financial value might indicate the beginning of a new branch in the auction business: digital hardware. The Apple 1 is in 2012 only 36 years old. Antiques usually are 70 years of age. So this Apple is only just a little bit over half the antique deadline. Or is this trend going to follow the law of Moore. Next will be the Apple II.

Looking around in my museum the following devices, still dating back to last century, should be kept ready for auction:

-        Apple IIe (e being the European edition), 1980

-        NEC portable computer, 1982 (see illustration; © Jak Boumans Collectie)

-        Tandy Model 100, 1983

-        Speak & spell, 1983

-        ZX Spectrum, 1984

-        Commodore 64, 1984

-        Olivetti Quattro, 1987

-        Sony Datadiskman, first e-reader with several ebooks on minidisk, 1993

-        The Nokia brick or Nokia Communicator, 1995

-        HP PDA, 1996

-        Franklin Rocket eBook, 1997.

And these are just hardware devices, which will be up for auction some day. Interesting will be to see the first auction of a content product, such as content on floppy disc or CD-ROM. Of course the content products will be country and/or language related. In my museum I have a number of English and Dutch language CD-ROMs, which were produced as text products between 1985 and 1990.

Are the devices and content products value growth brilliants? I guess that the small overview above might become valuable over the years, if they survive. But a better option will be to get these devices and content products exhibited in an experience center for later generations.

BPN 1603

My museum of content related artefacts (19)

1983: Sinclair ZX Spectrum

In 1983 I acquired for 175 British Pounds the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, a light weight and slim line home computer with 48K (serial number 012-843461) with ‘dead flesh’ (rubber) keys. The machine came onto the market in 1982. It was an instant success for more than one reason.

I knew Sinclair since 1972 from his drive of efforts to reduce voluminous machines. Directly visible was the calculator; Mr Sinclair reduced the desk calculator to a pocket calculator and made it jewellery for the businessman. Later on he made a portable television set, a tricycle and light weight, portable cycle of 5 kilo. He was a very inventive man and received in 1983, after the launch of the ZX Spectrum a CBE decoration.

The ZX Spectrum was also a small machine (23x14x1,5cm). All other home and professional PCs were larger at that time and more expensive. But Sinclair knew how to reduce the dimensions having produced the computer series ZX80 and ZX82. The device had to be connected to the television set, which served as monitor. New in the ZX Spectrum was the colour; in fact one of the code names for the computer was ZX Colour, but this was later changed into ZX Spectrum. The video was designed for use with contemporary portable television sets. Text could be displayed using 32 columns × 24 rows of characters. One could work with 16 colours, but this facility had its limitations. Each of the 8 colour squares of 8x8 pixels could be used for only 2 different colours. This created some bizarre effects in the animated graphics of arcade style games. The Commodore 64 for example used other colour attributes such as hardware sprites and scrolling were used to avoid attribute clash.

The ZX Spectrum was a success from the beginning. It changed the image of a computer from a working tool into a working and gaming tool, a real home computer. In less than one and a half year more than one million devices were sold. But the success had also its dark side as the mail-order business began to foul up; so it was decided to use computer chains for distribution. It also stimulated the distribution of software. One of the success factors of the ZX Spectrum was also the vast range of software and games. Presently there is still a list of the top 100 of best games, as voted for by the visitors of World of Spectrum Archive. One of the games I remember was the Ghost Busters, a licensed game by Activision based on the movie of the same name.

The Sinclair Research company was bought by Amstrad Computers in 1986. The computer lost the interest of people as other PCs came onto the market. The ZX Spectrum was in production till 1992.

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Tags: digital heritage