"Historic Relic," The Apple-1 Introduced in 1976 - - Up for Auction Through Christie's and Hope to Fetch $242,400

The first Apple computer - along with a letter signed by Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs to the original owner - will be sold at a London auction on Nov. 23.

This machine was hand-carved and contained 8K of memory. It was the first fully pre-assembled computer, produced with a 1.0 MHz MOS 6502 processor and a cassette for read/write capability. (Imagine saving info on a cassette tape instead of a CD or a flash drive!) It would now be considered a "glorified calculator." It comes in its original packaging, complete with instruction manual and a letter signed by Jobs.

Described by Christie's as a "historic relic," the Apple-1 was introduced in 1976 and sold without a casing, power supply, keyboard or monitor.

But it was the first personal computer with a fully assembled motherboard, at a time when personal computers were sold as self-assembly kits.

It is expected to fetch as much as $242,400.

The first Apple-1 computers were priced at $666.66.