Attention Trekkies: Roddenberry’s Mac on auction block
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Apple's Macintosh Plus
In what may just be a perfect storm of technology geek gadget lust, an auction house in Southern California is preparing to auction off the first Apple Macintosh Plus ever made–a computer that was owned by “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry. The event promises to bring together two of the most famously devoted fan bases– Apple buyers and Trekkies.
Profiles in History, an auctioneer of Hollywood memorabilia, will offer the aging Mac at an auction scheduled for Oct. 8-9. (For those keeping score at home, the device bears the serial number F4200NUM0001.)
The Macintosh Plus was launched in 1986 and featured a whopping 1 megabyte of RAM (today’s comparable desktop computers come loaded with a base 1 gigabyte of RAM — a 1,000 times more). It was the third model in the Mac line and cost $2,600, according to Wikipedia. The very first Mac Plus to roll off an Apple assembly line was presented to Roddenberry as a gift. He died in 1991.
The auction house said It has an estimated sale price of $800-$1200.
Also on the auction list is Michael Jackson’s white glove that he wore on the Victory Tour. One would expect a somewhat higher price for that cultural artifact.
(Photo source: Wikipedia)
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1 gigabyte of RAM is 1024 times larger than 1 megabyte of RAM, not 1000.
Wonder what my original 128K Mac (serial number in the low 4000′s) would bring given that I am nobody famous? It was upgraded to 1M and still runs fine, ioncluding the 20M hard drive it can sit on. My Imagewriter was donated many years ago after I got my first Mac laser printer (which I also don’t have any longer).
kind of wondering what my old mac may be worth – it\’s only half as powerful (512K) – model # M0001W 512K, FCC ID: BCG9GRM0001.
It would be so much more fun if the Mac brought in more money than Jackson’s glove.
The picture implies the old gal still lights up. It would be cool to find an original, previously unknown script or story line on the drive.
1024K is 1MB of ram. 1024MB is 1GB of ram. William…the author is correct. KB, MB, and GB are usually in 1024 denominations. No one uses the incorrect statement that 1000kb is 1MB. Look it up.
Let us never forget how revolutionary those early Macs were. I distinctly remember my jaw hitting the floor upon my first glimpse of MacPaint! Well worth the 1200 bucks today.
“Computer?”"Computer.”"Hello Computer?”"Keyboard. How quaint.”-Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott, USS Enterprise NCC-1701
Being a Trekkie and a tech geek, this is cool. Im gonna be bidding on this for sure.
william is correct. 1MB = 1024^2 bytes while 1GB = 1024^3 bytes. this means 1GB is 1024 times bigger than 1MB.
Be cool if Roddenberry’s Mac had a collection of authentic ‘Vargas’ drawings in digital form like appeared in old issues of ‘Playboy’.
1 gigabyte = 10^9 bytes, 1 megabyte = 10^6 bytes. A gigabyte is 1,000 megabytes. The Mac came with a mebibyte of RAM. Most modern computers come with a gibibyte (+) of RAM. 2^30 is called a gibibyte and 2^20 is called a mebibyte. 1024 mebibytes = 1 gibibytesIf someone were to correct the author I would think it should be over the incorrect use of the term megabyte instead of mebibyte. But then again, nobody uses the correct term. Why people choose to incorrectly correct the author for incorrect relationships when clearly the relationships stated are technically correct (if incorrect as commonly but improperly used) but the terms are incorrect. I don’t get it?
Only non techs will use the newly minted mebibyte.Those of us who invented the lingo will continue to use mega, giga, terra, penta, and kilo bytes.
Computer memory is binary.1 megabyte = 2^20 bytes = 1,048,5761 gigabyte = 2^30 bytes = 1,073,741,8241000 * 1 megabyte = 1,048,576,0001 megabyte * 1000 1 gigabyteI’ll give you one gigabyte in your dollars if you give me one gigabyte in mine.William is right. If you want people to use the correct term you need to speak up when they’re incorrect.