Vintage tech

Something a little different this month, looking back at some vintage tech pieced that have recently been put under the hammer in New York, that include an Apple 1 motherboard, a 79-year-old TV and the only surviving processor of the last supercomputer designed by Seymour Cray

The 1936 Baird television set may not work and delivers a huge electrical charge of 5000 volts, but it could still fetch between $20,000 (£13,000) and $30,000, according to auctioneer Bonhams.

lid” TV set h

The Apple has a starting price of B300,000!a 15in screen and is described as being in “time capsule” condition

Last year, a similar model fetched $365,000, and in 2013 the Henry Ford organisation paid $905,000 for one of the original Apple computers.

Fewer than 50 Apple 1s are believed to still exist.

Supercomputer power

Seymour Cray is widely considered to have designed the world’s first commercial supercomputers.

Cray-4 supercomputer processor from 1995 is believed to be the only one in existence.

He was working on the Cray-4 model when his company went bankrupt in 1995, and the following year he died in a traffic accident. The processor, with serial number 001, is listed at $50,000 – $80,000 .

Other lots include an early German Enigma machine, handwritten paperwork by Albert Einstein and a 19th Century telegraph sending and receiving set used by spies during the US Civil War (see photo).

messages

CCS analyst and mobile phone collector Ben Wood said: “During a period of birth, amazing things happen. These devices become almost curiosities which shape an industry. Their scarcity is always going to bring inflation in terms of the value of these devices. You can go right back to the evolution of technology – lots of people are collecting typewriters.”

Mr Wood, has a collection of more than 1,000 mobile handsets dating back to 1982, added that despite their comparatively limited performance, collectors do still tend to prefer working models.

“To me personally it doesn’t matter whether they still work as I am interested in physical design,” he said. “However, for a lot of people it would matter immensely.”

So…. I guess it may well be worth hanging on to your ‘obsolete’ hardware as who knows what the collectables of tomorrow will be!