Think your iPad is expensive? First Apple computer ever made sells for £398,000 (and it STILL works perfectly)
- The Apple 1, the first ready-made PC to ever come on the market, was created by Jobs and fellow founder Steve Wozniak in 1976
- The pair built 200 units in Jobs' parents garage in California, selling them for $666.66 each
Apple's first ever computer has been sold for £398,000 at a German auction - and it still runs.
The revolutionary Apple 1 has been signed by Apple computer inventor and co-founder Steve Wozniak, who designed and built the machine from scratch with his own hands in 1976.
Produced by Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs, only 200 units of the Apple 1 were ever built - and originally dol for $666.66
The first ever Apple computer which founder Steve Jobs sold from his parents' garage is expected to fetch £250,000 at auction. The Apple 1, the first ready-made PC to ever come on the market, was created by Jobs and fellow founder Steve Wozniak in 1976. The pair built 200 units in Jobs' parents garage in California, selling 50 to a local shop called Byte.
How the Apple 1 works
WHY DID IT COST $666.66?
The eye-catching price-tag of the original Apple caused wild speculation as to the reasons behind selling for $666 - the number of the Devil.
But the number was classic Apple; it was design for the sake of it. Beauty for no reason other than because it looked nice.
Steve Wozinak once revealed: 'I simply like triple digit numbers with all the things I'm involved with. The cost of making the Apple 1 was around $540 or there about and we agreed on the best markup, retail price above the cost of building it, which worked out to $666.
'Jobs then tacked on the 66 cents to make it an eye-catcher price for the ads with the sale and promotion publications of it to the public.
As the computer that gave birth to the Apple empire, including the MacBook, iPod, iPhone and iPad, it is among the most prized Apple products in the world.
Only 46 of these original Apple machines are known to exist on the planet and only six are in working order - like the one that was sold.
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Auctioneer Uwe H. Breker from Cologne in Germany said: 'This is the sensational first product of today's highest valued company,
'The Apple 1 is already a legendary milestone from the dynamic dawn of the personal computer age.
'This computer is one hundred-percent authentic and in fully-working condition.
'At the time it was first sold the machine was always delivered as a motherboard only.
'The peripheral equipment such as power pack, keyboard, monitor and cassette recorder had to be obtained personally by the user.
'Apple never offered a housing - every user had to make his own.
'The Apple 1 did not have an operating system, just a monitor-program, which provided the interface between keyboard entry, the computer memory and monitor exit.
'Any software system had to be loaded on cassettes.'
The machine's main motherboard. Steve Wozniak was renowned for his neat designs, and his ability to create machines using fewer chips than any of the competition
The rare part of computer history is being sold with an original manual, software tapes which allow it to be run and a company letter from Steve Jobs.
'To date, the only two fully-working Apple 1 sets in comparable condition to the one were auctioned in 2012,' said Uwe.
'The first was sold by Sotheby's New York on June 15th for $374,500 and the second on 24 November 24th by my auction house for $640,000.
The sale was held on May 24th by Auction Team Beker of Cologne, Germany.
The Apple 1, the first ready-made PC to ever come on the market, was created by Jobs and fellow founder Steve Wozniak in 1976.
The pair built 200 units in Jobs' parents garage in California, selling 50 to a local shop called Byte.
They cost 666.66 US dollars although buyers would have been expected to cough up extra to add a monitor, keyboard and cassette player. 
The Apple machine has even been signed by Apple computer wiz Steve Wozniak, who created the firm with Steve Jobs in 1976, building 200 units in Jobs' parents garage in California
The Apple 1 came with a tiny 8K memory - around 600,000 times less than is standard with today's Apple computers.
It would not even have the capacity to store one song.
This example comes with all the original gizmos needed to make it run and is one of only six of the 46 surviving Apple 1s still working.
It even carries Wozniak's signature on the motherboard, and also included in the auction is a company letter signed by Jobs.
The machine runs on the 'Basic' software system, which had to be loaded using a cassette.
Only two working Apple 1s have ever been auctioned; the first fetching around 241,000 pounds last year and the second selling for a record 412,500 pounds just months later.
Only two working Apple 1s have ever been auctioned; the first fetching around £241,000 last year and the second selling for a record £412,500 just months later
HOW APPLE STARTED
The Apple founders created the personal computer in 1976 and presented it at a Palo Alto computer club, but there were few takers at the time.
Paul Terrell, owner of a retail chain called Byte Shop, placed an order for 50 of the machines and sold them for $666.66 retail - once Wozniak and Jobs agreed to assemble the circuit boards rather than offer them as kits.
The pair then produced 150 more and sold them to friends and other vendors.
Fewer than 50 original Apple 1s are believed to survive, with only six known to be in working condition.
In a nod to the technology created by Jobs and Wozniak, potential buyers can even follow the auction online on their iPads.
Uwe Breker, the auctioneer who sold the machine, said: 'The Apple 1 really is the symbol for the American dream.
'Two students had an idea, built and marketed it, and 35 years later it is the highest valued company ever.
'Steve Wozniak designed the Apple 1 computer, the first fully assembled computer kit, in 1976 and Steve Jobs took on the task of selling it.
'In Jobs' parents garage the pair built 200 Apple machines and sold 50 to a computer shop called Byte.
'The shop marketed it with the slogan 'Byte into an Apple' which gave Jobs the idea for the iconic logo we know so well today.
The main board of the Apple machine, which is expected to sell for £250,000
The gadgets comes with all manuals & certificates, making it a unique purchase
The heart of the machine: The 6502 microprocessor which powered the Apple 1, which was chosen because of its low cost
'As with all Apple products the Apple 1 wasn't around long before a better model was launched, but a legend had begun.
'The rest is history. Apple is now the most valuable country in the world and interest in their early items only increased after Jobs' death.
'You couldn't actually do very much with the Apple 1.
'You had to load your program each time on a cassette and it only had eight kilobytes of memory - enough for only the most basic of word processing.
'From the 200 built only 46 remain but just six of them are working - and this is one of them.
'That makes it even more rare than it would be already - plus this one is signed on its motherboard by Steve Wozniak.
'This item was bought by a software company owner 30 years ago and when he saw our Apple 1 auction last November in which one sold for 640,000 US dollars he thought now was the time to sell.'
An original advert for the machine, which sold as a joke for $666.66
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