The solved riddle of the Apple-1 serial number

https://www.apple1registry.com/en/serial.html

by DamnInteresting • 4 years ago

88 31 4 years ago

apple1registry.com

adamhearn• 4 years ago

Link to the original article:

https://www.apple1registry.com/en/serial.html

dang• 4 years ago

Changed to that from https://9to5mac.com/2022/02/17/handwritten-apple-1-serial-nu.... Thanks!

(From the guidelines: "Please submit the original source. If a post reports on something found on another site, submit the latter." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

tyingq2• 4 years ago

Some Steve Jobs handwritten docs with numbers on them, if you wanted to make the comparison yourself:

https://www.cultofmac.com/ezoimgfmt/cdn.cultofmac.com/wp-con...

http://site-macgasm.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2012...

https://www.mactrast.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Apple-1_...

https://photos5.appleinsider.com/archive/jobs-111222.jpg

https://cdn.hiconsumption.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Ste...

https://news.justcollecting.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/j...

SeanLuke• 4 years ago

It's the 7 that's the giveaway.

tyingq2• 4 years ago

The zero as well...the start/end stroke overlap happening top/left-ish.

TedDoesntTalk• 4 years ago

Why is It important to know who wrote these serial numbers?

lapetitejort• 4 years ago

Obsessing over small details like this can be illustrative of the company culture at the time. Knowing that Steve Jobs himself wrote the numbers means that they handled all parts personally to some degree.

More bluntly, on a site devoted to a single computer model, every shared scuff mark on some part will get obsessed over by someone.

reaperducer• 4 years ago

Knowing that Steve Jobs himself wrote the numbers

I have been repeatedly told by the Woz worshippers on HN that Jobs was nothing more than a salesman who has zero involvement with the actual machines.

If I can't believe revisionist internet historians, who can I believe?

Stratoscope3• 4 years ago

"company culture" may be overstating it a bit. It was just Steve and Woz, and someone had to write the serial numbers.

Ron Wayne had already come and gone, and Daniel Kottke didn't join Apple until the next year (although he had been a friend of Steve's for years).

When I ran into Steve in June 1976 at Country Sun Natural Foods in Palo Alto (it's still there!) and he asked me if I could write a 6502 disassembler, it was pretty clear it was just the two of them. He wasn't even 100% sure on the company name yet, and tested it out with people he met. "My friend and I have this little company, we're calling it Apple Computer. Take a byte of the apple, get it?"

ddingus2• 4 years ago

The way I have always thought about it is we don't really know what will carry meaning in the future. We don't know the real questions asked, or why, or anything really.

So, what we can do in the now is just resolve it all as best we can, preserve and communicate it forward in high fidelity.

pengaru• 4 years ago

They're rare collectibles, Jobs is an idolized cult figure who allegedly rarely signed anything. Presumably being written by him may substantially increase their value.

sydthrowaway2• 4 years ago

The start of the greatest hustle of all time.

sydthrowaway2• 4 years ago

This article is written in a seriously weird manner.

xeeeeeeeeeeenu• 4 years ago

It seems the main purpose of that website is to pump the Apple-1 market. It shills certificates of authenticity, outrageous auction prices and makes preposterous claims like "the Apple-1 is the rarest microcomputer in the world".

dmonitor• 4 years ago

As soon as PSA was listed as the verifier, my shill detector started going off. They are a very shady company

xenomachina• 4 years ago

Yeah, it feels like the author wrote all the things they wanted to say as separate sentences, sometimes multiple times, and then randomized the order of the sentences. Really weird structure.

bmn__• 4 years ago

It's a press release, the material edited to several lengths in order to increase adoption among the press agencies and other recipients. I have seen this practice a few times.

armadsen• 4 years ago

I agree. But also, the author is not a native English speaker.

ddingus2• 4 years ago

I love this move to explore our computing history.

It's a lot more than the popular retro machines. It's so much, languages, people, systems, ideas...

Enjoying all of it very much. We have a rich history filled with vibrant people who really got after the future in their own way.

datavirtue• 4 years ago

Uh...Steve said he didn't write them. That will cast serious doubt on this as more years pass.

The solved riddle of the Apple-1 serial number

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