The original Apple Computer cost $666.66, but you can get Polaroids of Steve Jobs for $2,148

When Apple co-founder Steve Jobs set a price for his new Apple-1 computer, he chose a price that was about three times what it cost to build: $666.66. The price made his co-founder and chief designer Steve Wozniak laugh, since it was close to a joke line he used to make phone calls, and it eventually caused the pair some grief because of the number’s association with, well, the Mark of the Beast.

Nearly 50 years later, that price is a fraction of what you’d pay for Polaroid photos of the original Apple-1 computer prototype. A collection of three photos of the board, the board and computer without the case, and a monitor with Apple’s own brand of BASIC are up for auction at RRAction House and are currently sitting at a bid of $2,148. The auction is open until August 22nd, so the price may be different by the time you come by and possibly bid.

Jobs used these images as part of his pitch deck, which he presented to his first customer, Paul Terrell of the Byte Shop. By today’s standards, the Apple 1 looked like a homebrew system at best. Yet, according to Walter Isaacson’s Biography of Steve JobsJobs’ pitch and the images ultimately convinced Terrell to place an order for 50 pre-assembled Apple-1 systems.

For that $666.66, Terrell got, by 1976 standards, a revolutionary 8K (expandable to 65K RAM) system with a built-in video terminal and keyboard interface (instead of a TeleType system) that connected directly to a monitor or TV. There was even 1K of dedicated video memory. And then, of course, there was Apple BASIC. While it doesn’t sound like much, the system sold well enough to form the basis for the better-known and much more widely sold Apple II computer (I have a Apple IIe (for a while and loved it).