Paul Allen's Estate Auction Includes Vintage Apple-1, CP/M and DOS-Powered Computers (geekwire.com) 25
Long-time Slashdot reader theodp writes: Christie's this week announced the items that will be auctioned in three sales from the Paul G. Allen Collection, including historic computers and artifacts from the late Microsoft co-founder's former Living Computers Museum + Labs in Seattle.
They include an Apple-1 from the desk of late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, estimated at $500,000 to $800,000, to be auctioned as part of a live sale on Sept. 10 at Christie's Rockefeller Center in New York.
Among the lot of "Firsts" from the Paul Allen Collection is a circa-1984 PC's Limited Personal Computer (est. $600-$800), which comes with a manual for the Microsoft-developed IBM DOS. Also being offered is a circa-1975 IMSAI 8080 microcomputer (est. $2,000-$3,000). Both computers ran operating systems that can be traced back to the efforts of Digital Research founder Gary Kildall. Kildall's CP/M was adapted for IMSAI in 1975 and inspired the "CP/M work-alike" Quick And Dirty Operating System (QDOS) that Microsoft purchased in 1981, ported to the new IBM PC as MS-DOS, and licensed to IBM, who in turn offered it as PC-DOS...
Interestingly, not present in the any of the three Christie's Paul G. Allen Collection auctions is Allen's rare unedited copy of Kildall's Computer Connections: People, Places, and Events in the Evolution of the Personal Computer Industry (edited version available at CHM), one of only 20 copies that were originally distributed to family and friends shortly before Kildall's death in 1994. (In the unpublished memoir, Kildall's Seattle Times obit reported, Kildall called DOS "plain and simple theft" of CP/M). Documents released in response to a 2018 Washington Public Records Act request revealed that one of those copies found its way into the hands of Allen in 2017, gifted by University of Washington CS professor Ed Lazowska, who led fundraising campaigns for UW's Paul G. Allen Center for Computer Science & Engineering.
Among the lot of "Firsts" from the Paul Allen Collection is a circa-1984 PC's Limited Personal Computer (est. $600-$800), which comes with a manual for the Microsoft-developed IBM DOS. Also being offered is a circa-1975 IMSAI 8080 microcomputer (est. $2,000-$3,000). Both computers ran operating systems that can be traced back to the efforts of Digital Research founder Gary Kildall. Kildall's CP/M was adapted for IMSAI in 1975 and inspired the "CP/M work-alike" Quick And Dirty Operating System (QDOS) that Microsoft purchased in 1981, ported to the new IBM PC as MS-DOS, and licensed to IBM, who in turn offered it as PC-DOS...
Interestingly, not present in the any of the three Christie's Paul G. Allen Collection auctions is Allen's rare unedited copy of Kildall's Computer Connections: People, Places, and Events in the Evolution of the Personal Computer Industry (edited version available at CHM), one of only 20 copies that were originally distributed to family and friends shortly before Kildall's death in 1994. (In the unpublished memoir, Kildall's Seattle Times obit reported, Kildall called DOS "plain and simple theft" of CP/M). Documents released in response to a 2018 Washington Public Records Act request revealed that one of those copies found its way into the hands of Allen in 2017, gifted by University of Washington CS professor Ed Lazowska, who led fundraising campaigns for UW's Paul G. Allen Center for Computer Science & Engineering.
About that missing book... (Score:5, Funny)
Interestingly, not present in the any of the three Christie's Paul G. Allen Collection auctions is Allen's rare unedited copy of Kildall's Computer Connections: People, Places, and Events in the Evolution of the Personal Computer Industry
It's just as well. You haven't experienced Computer Connections until you've read it in the original Klingon.
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Thanks for the opening joke, even though it didn't get any follow up.
Me? I got nuttin'. As usual. Maybe I should feed your joke to ChatGPT and see if it can offer a good followup?
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OP is still the only Funny from the ripe story.
Me? (Again?) I must like the editor. The software, not the humans selecting the stories. I'm neutral towards the humans. But high on the list of improvements that will never happen on Slashdot would be "timing" improvements. Some stories should persist, especially if humor is possible...
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Greedy sister (Score:5, Insightful)
The fucked up part is a lot of these items were donated by others with the line of thought being it’s going to be safe. The guy has Microsoft founder money, his museum won’t be going anywhere. Some of these systems are literally the last remaining examples of and now because of greed they’re going to disappear into a private collectors black hole. Not to mention the truck loads of smaller items headed for the scrapyard or dump. His sister also sold off his massive art collection and aviation museum.
I don’t believe for one second his will stated everything should be sold. He paid a small fortune to restore these machines and keep them running for people to use. When it was open you could request an account on a running 40 year old mainframe. He was working on exhibits up until his health was failing. That’s not the behavior of a person who wants to see this stuff disappear to private collectors with deep pockets.
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The previous story [slashdot.org] claims the proceeds will go to charity.
Jody Allen's charity? (Score:3)
She apparently is involved with multiple charities.
Will the money go to one of the charities she holds a director, office, consultant, contractor, employee or other role with?
Better would be to donate the material and computers to the Smithstonian.
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This is the sad bit - because documentation is something that needs to be preserved. There are probably tons of documents that are one-offs that need to be preserved not just for history, but may be the last copy of some important user manual or other thing. Most of those things get scanned into the Internet Archive so future people can reference it.
Those things need preservation because who knows what kind of information they c
Re: Greedy sister (Score:2)
Commenting only to mention the Bitsavers (bitsavers.org) that is another massive archive of manuals and other information about computer systems from times long past.
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"We're all fortunate it was not published" (Score:2)
"I have two of the 20 copies of Gary Kildall's unpublished book," Lazowska wrote to Allen in a 2017 email [documentcloud.org] with the subject Kildall's Book. "I'll send one down to you at Vulcan.[...] (I think you'll agree, once you've read the book, that we're all fortunate it was not published ...)."
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Re: "We're all fortunate it was not published" (Score:2)
Why fortunate? It contains proof that MS-DOS was stolen?
PC Limited (Score:2)
I don't remember them being name PC's Limited I just remember PC Limited which is now Dell Computer. I was working for a small software company and we were growing and needed more PC's but owner didn't want IBM's. Owner want me to buy Radio Shack PC clones because they were an established company. It took a lot of talking but I finally got him to buy some PC's Limited PC clones and they were excellent computers. That IMSAI would be fun to play with CP/M again it was the main OS for small business sy
It's really too bad (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd expect there was a fair bit of intrinsic value in the Living Computers museum itself. Some tiny percentage of those Paul Allen billions could have been set aside as a endowment - just enough that the (monetary) interest it accrued could meet the ongoing costs of running the museum.
It belongs in a museum! (Score:3, Interesting)
This collection really does belong in a museum. Fuck his greedy heirs for selling it off in parts like this.
Wish I still had my IMSAI 8080 (Score:2)
business cards (Score:2)
How many of Paul Allen's business cards are included?