A few months ago, we provided details of an auction that featured a Mac that had been given to Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry by Apple. If you missed your chance to pick up that prime item, now you have an opportunity to own an Apple that is even more rare: an Apple-1 (also known as the Apple I) that's currently on auction on eBay.

The starting bid for the Apple-1 is US$50,000. What do you get with your winning bid? A non-working Apple 1 motherboard, the original shipping box (with the return address being the home of Steve Jobs' parents), and the original manual, complete with schematics on how to take the motherboard and build a workable computer out of it.

There's also a tape interface card, used to load or save software from cassette tapes. The card comes with a manual and a cassette with a typed label that says "BASIC" on it.

If you're a fan of Steve Jobs, you'll want two of the items that are included. The first is a letter signed by Steve Jobs that explains how to connect a keyboard and monitor to the computer, and telling the buyer (someone who wanted to be a dealer) when dealer applications would be available. The second is a hand-typed invoice for the computer, showing "Steven" as the salesman for the machine.

The original full-page advertisement for Apple was included with each Apple-1. This features the original Apple "Isaac Newton" logo that was designed by the third founder of Apple, Ronald Wayne. Wayne also wrote the Apple-1 manual. Finally, you'll get a photograph of every other owner of this computer. The existing owner has a picture of himself, the computer, and Steve Wozniak that he's including.

If you're the successful bidder, you are asked to travel to Roseville, California to pick it up due to the irreplaceable nature of the Apple-1. A gallery of the photos included in the auction can be viewed below. And remember, this could be the perfect holiday gift for that special someone...

In 1994, I was working as the IT manager for a natural gas pipeline company (all Macs, of course), had long hair pulled back in a ponytail, and none of that hair was gray. In January of '94, I remember being invited down to Apple's Denver office -- they had a Denver office in those days -- to see some new products that were being introduced.

While I was disappointed that they didn't show us an updated Newton (the MessagePad 110 would be introduced in March), I was intrigued by another device that was demonstrated -- the Apple QuickTake 100 digital camera. At the time, the only other small business / consumer digital cameras on the market were the Canon Ion, a device from Kodak (rebranded by Apple as the QuickTake 100), and the Logitech PhotoMan.

After the demo, we passed around the camera and took photos of each other, and then waited as the pictures were uploaded to a Mac. Considering that "digital photography" for us at that time meant taking a picture with a film camera, waiting for the film to be developed and prints made, and then scanning the pictures on an expensive and slow SCSI scanner, this seemed like the future. Of course, I remember comments from many of the people in attendance to the effect of "digital photography will never replace film photography."

Sure, the Mac made a big splash back in January of 1984, but that didn't make it a popular desktop computer for the enterprise. Most companies looked at the Mac the same way they do now; as an overpriced toy that wasn't compatible with the IBM PCs of the day.

What started sneaking Macs into corporations wasn't the color Mac II or the original Microsoft Excel. No, it was the Apple LaserWriter, which was introduced on March 3, 1985 at the everyday low price of $6,995. For the first time, companies and individuals could get high-quality black and white printouts of their documents from a fast, 300 dpi printer.

The LaserWriter also introduced Adobe Postscript to a wider audience, as it was embedded in the raster image processor for the printer. The LaserWriter was the first printer to feature the AppleTalk Personal Network, so the expensive 8 page per minute printer could be shared with a workgroup.

When you use your little sub-$100 black and white laser printer today, remember those hardy pioneers of the Mac world who sacrificed their wallets to eventually bring you low-cost laser printing.

Thanks to Hadley for the tip!

[via Apple Matters]