Re: Apple I sells for $671k

[nyder <nyder.23@gmail.com>]

On Sunday, May 26, 2013 10:26:51 AM UTC-7, Michael Black wrote:
> On Sun, 26 May 2013, Michael J. Mahon wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> > Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> wrote:
> 
> >> On Sun, 26 May 2013, nyder wrote:
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> >>
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> >>> http://apple.slashdot.org/story/13/05/26/0323250/apple-1-sells-for-671400-breaks-previous-auction-record
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> >>>
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> >>>
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> >>> Nice price.
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> >>>
> 
> >>>
> 
> >> There was a most of a page article in the local paper yesterday about
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> >> Apple Is in general, in the business section.  About how they can draw so
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> >> much, if they work, a bit of history about the Apple I. I guess it was a
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> >> syndicated article, but I can't remember where it came from.
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> >>
> 
> >>   Michael
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> >
> 
> > And it would be trivial to get any physically intact Apple I
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> > working--likely adding a couple hundred thousand dollars to its value.
> 
> >
> 
> > We are apparently in an age where anyone who can fix broken electronics is
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> > a magician!  ;-)
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> >
> 
> You picked upon that.  It mentioned some of the auctions, then mentins a 
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> bust "it didn't work".
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> 
> 
> I didn't think people were spending hundreds of thoursand of dollars to 
> 
> get an Apple I to use, I thought it was about bragging rights.  They are 
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> likelt to sit in a glass case on display, so whether it works or not won't 
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> matter.
> 
> 
> 
> But didnt the Apple I use long shift registers in the video display?  I 
> 
> can't remember if I've seen detail of that, but I gather Don Lancaster's 
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> first TV Typewriter used long shift registers, it was right on the cusp 
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> of when RAM was available.  If it did use those, fiding replacements might 
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> be an issue, likely the one part that isn't so easy to find replacements.
> 
> 
> 
> I remember in the early seventies, people were building equipment for slow 
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> scan tv (which originally used about 8 seconds to fill the screen, a long 
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> persistence CRT was used to "hold" the picture on the screen while the 
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> update was going on, otherwise you'd never see the whole picture). They'd 
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> build digital things that collected the image in memory, and then display 
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> it on a tv set.  And at the time, it used "a lot" of memory, and initially 
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> it was hard to get long shift registers.  There was a very small window 
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> where they became available as surplus, and I gather in only small 
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> quantities, and when RAM became viable (ie cheap and "dense enough").  By 
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> the time the ALtair 8800 came along, RAM was the only way to go.
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> 
> 
>    Michael

weird, every article that mentions that Apple I (like the Apple I wiki) claims it works.  Unless I misunderstood what you said.