Get to know the groundbreaking machines that became the building blocks of modern technology, from the world’s once-fastest supercomputer to the Apple 1 that sat on Steve Jobs’ desk, offered in Gen One: Innovations from the Paul G. Allen Collection
‘Paul Allen had an insatiable curiosity for technology,’
recalls Stephen Jones, Senior Restoration & Collection Manager, Living Computers. With an aim to run his early software and collect first-generation artifacts from his field, Mr. Allen passionately acquired and restored many historic machines.
In 2012, he opened Living Computers in his native Seattle, which displayed his growing collection, restored and maintained by a team of engineers to working order. ‘Paul put this collection together to inspire the next generation of technologists,’ says Jones, who served as the senior restoration manager of the museum. ‘It represents the history of computing from all sorts of angles. We're talking mainframes, minicomputers, and microcomputers. These are really great examples of breakthrough technology, such as the use of discrete semiconductors to create a central processor and the subsequent miniaturization that integrated circuits afforded, which enabled further micro miniaturization and ultimately the microprocessor.’
Bill Gates and Paul Allen in the KI taperoom, 1981
From 23 August to 12 September, Christie’s will offer groundbreaking computers from the pioneering technologist’s collection as part of Gen One: Innovations from the Paul G. Allen Collection. The official company Apple 1 that belonged to Steve Jobs and a Cray 1 supercomputer will appear in the live sale, Pushing Boundaries: Ingenuity from the Paul G. Allen Collection, while a dedicated online sale, Firsts: The History of Computing, will feature mainframe, mini- and microcomputers and many more objects that formed the building blocks of modern technology.
These devices encompass pivotal firsts — from the advent of the graphical user interface to the point-and-click mouse — that helped make our digital world.
MITS Altair 8800 Microcomputer
Released by Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems, Inc. in 1974, the Altair 8800 attracted attention when it appeared on the cover of Popular Electronics in January 1975. Small and relatively inexpensive, the Altair 8800 became the world’s first commercially successful personal computer, pavin the way for the microcomputer revolution of the 1970s.
gA MITS Altair 8800 Microcomputer, MITS, 1976. Estimate: $3,000-5,000. Offered in Pushing Boundaries: Ingenuity from the Paul G. Allen Collection on 10 September 2024 at Christie’s in New York
‘A few months after the 8800 was announced, one of those brain waves came to me,’ Mr. Allen wrote in his 2011 memoir Idea Man. ‘What if a microprocessor could run a high-level language, the essential tool for programming a general-purpose computer?’ Mr. Allen and Gates contacted MITS founder Ed Roberts saying that they had a BASIC interpreter for the product they’d like to demo for him — though the truth was they hadn’t even started it yet. On the plane to the meeting, Mr. Allen realized they had forgotten an important piece of code. He then improvised a BOOT LOADER to key into the Altair, which was necessary for loading his BASIC paper tape via a Teletype ASR33. With an entrepreneurial mentality and on a tight deadline, Mr. Allen finalised the machine’s first programming language and Microsoft’s first product.
Apple 1 Personal Computer
A collection of the most influential computers in history would be incomplete with Apple’s inaugural product, but Mr. Allen didn’t source just any Apple 1. He acquired the official company computer that sat on Steve Jobs’ desk. The machine, which the Apple cofounder personally worked on, is set to be a highlight of the Gen One: Innovations from the Paul G. Allen Collection sale. In 1976 the first Apple Computer heralded the home computing revolution as the first personal computer sold with a fully assembled motherboard.
An Apple-1 Personal Computer, Apple Inc., 1976. Estimate: $500,000-800,000. Offered in Pushing Boundaries: Ingenuity from the Paul G. Allen Collection on 10 September 2024 at Christie’s in New York
Designed by Steve Wozniak, the computer came as a kit intended to be assembled by hobbyists. Its I/O (Input/Output) was a cassette tape, and it was one of the first personal computers with monitor and keyboard access.
‘It demonstrates how quickly the home computer was evolving,’ says Jones. ‘You have an all-in-one unit essentially. Just hook it into a monitor and get going.’ To keep costs low, the machine didn’t come with a case, so many Apple 1 owners simply mounted the computer on a plank of wood. Under 100 of the 200 original Apple 1s produced are known to exist today, making them incredibly scarce.
Xerox Alto
Now best known for their copiers and printers, Xerox pioneered one of the first personal computer workstations with the release of the Xerox Alto in 1973 from their Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). The Alto ushered in major hallmarks of digital computing that we still use 50 years later, such as the graphical user interface (GUI) and the now ubiquitous mouse.
A Xerox Alto, Xerox, 1973. Estimate: $5,000-8,000. Offered in Pushing Boundaries: Ingenuity from the Paul G. Allen Collection on 10 September 2024 at Christie’s in New York
It marked one of the earliest departures from the text-based command-line interface, replacing it with the more inviting one we know today, in which users interact via onscreen icons and other visual indicators. The Alto was one of the first computers to employ a WYSIWYG (‘What You See Is What You Get’) bit-mapped display that showed exactly what would be output from a printer.
The Alto had a limited production totalling about 2,000 systems, but its impact on the look and feel of personal computing looms large. As immortalised in the movie Pirates of Silicon Valley, Gates and Allen as well as Jobs and Wozniak visited PARC to check out the Xerox Alto, which served as a major inspiration in the development of the Windows and Macintosh operating systems. According to Jones, the Alto’s GUI and mouse, as well as its use of Ethernet networking, informed Mr. Allen’s thinking as the head of the hardware division of Microsoft.
DEC PDP-10 KI-10 Mainframe Computer
Allen’s interests extended to machines that predate the personal computer. The Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-10, first manufactured in 1966, was a breakthrough in the history of computing. The mainframe computer family became the first widely used timesharing system, an operating system that allowed multiple users across various terminals to access the same computer simultaneously.
A DEC PDP-10 KI-10 Mainframe Computer, Digital Equipment Corporation, 1974. Estimate: $30,000-50,000. Offered in Firsts: The History of Computing from the Paul G. Allen Collection from 23 August to 12 September 2024 at Christie’s online
While a student at Lakeside School in Seattle, a 14-year-old Mr. Allen befriended his classmate Bill Gates, and the two first cut their teeth programming on a teletype connected to a remote GE-635 timesharing system, before moving on to a PDP-10 at the Computer Center Corporation (CCC) in the city’s University District. (As high school students they were banned from CCC after they manipulated bugs in the mainframe’s code to gain free computer time.)
Given the PDP-10’s formative role in honing Mr. Allen’s programming skills — ‘It was the first computer he could really get his head around and study because he had such direct access,’ says Jones — he was eager to acquire and restore one for his collection. ‘When it arrived, he wanted to see it immediately,’ recalls Jones of the DEC PDP-10 KI-10 from 1974 that will be offered in the upcoming sale. Mr. Allen devoted significant personal time to getting the computer up and running. The machine is one of, if not the only, KI-10 that is operational today.
Cray-1 Supercomputer
The Cray-1 Supercomputer — designed by the eccentric engineer Seymour Cray and released by his firm, Cray Research, in 1975 — offered unparalleled processing power and a distinctive C-shaped design surrounded by benches that came custom-upholstered in a variety of groovy colours. The fastest computer in the world at the time, the Cray-1 was essentially an ultra-high-speed calculator used by scientists and engineers for weather forecasting, computational chemistry, and physics simulations, amongst other applications. ‘The examples in this collection reflect early optimistic ideas of AI in the 1960s and 1970s, when folks were very optimistic that the computer could solve problems,’ says Jones.
A Cray-1 Supercomputer, Cray Research, Inc., 1976-78. Estimate: $150,000-250,000. Offered in Pushing Boundaries: Ingenuity from the Paul G. Allen Collection on 10 September 2024 at Christie’s in New York
In developing the costly, high-powered computer, Cray Research accumulated millions in debt, but with an original price tag of around $8 million on their product, they only needed to sell a dozen machines to stay afloat. In the end, they sold more than 80 Cray-1s, cementing the brand as a leader in supercomputing — not to mention innovative design. Mr. Allen didn’t have direct access to the Cray-1 in its heyday, according to Jones, but he was eager to acquire one of the iconic machines to tell the history of computing. When it finally arrived at the museum, he joked, ‘Should we put an emblem on the outside of the building that says, “Cray Inside,” like Intel Inside?’
Article courtesy of Christies
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