Somebody Is Selling a Rare Working Version of One of Apple’s First Computers on Ebay

Ellen Nold
Ellen Nold, the manager for support programs for the Apple Link program at Apple Computer, in 1986. On her desk sits a Lisa, the first consumer-oriented personal computer to use a graphical user interface. Many of its features were incorporated into the Macintosh. (Photo by Roger Ressmeyer/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images)
Corbis/VCG via Getty Images

You could be the proud owner of one of Apple’s earliest computers — if you have at least $55,000 to spare.

An eBay user is auctioning off a rare working Apple Lisa 1, which, when it hit the market in 1983, was the first commercial computer with a graphical user interface. Bids on the machine, which boasts a drive for Apple’s short-lived Twiggy floppy disks, will be accepted until Jan. 14, and had reached $55,100 by Saturday.

The Lisa 1, named for Steve Jobs’ daughter, was largely considered a flop for Jobs and Apple, according to a Wired retrospective. It cost the company $150 million to develop the model, but only 10,000 units — priced at $10,000 each — sold. The model was pulled from the market after only three years, Wired writes, and Jobs was eventually yanked from the project to focus on a new effort: the Macintosh.

“The Lisa was a milestone in history of the modern art [of] computers and is nowadays one of the rarest machines existing,” the eBay post reads. “Collectors guess between 20-100 are left on our planet.”

While the machine is probably best as a collector’s item, the eBay auctioneer assures buyers that the Lisa is in good working order, right down to its Twiggy drives.

“This Lisa 1 is optically and technically in excellent condition,” the post reads. “Both twiggy drives are working and spinning perfectly.”

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