Steve Jobs' prototype of Apple original computer is up for auction

Apple founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak.

The prototype of Steve Jobs' Apple-1 computer, hand-soldered by the tech giant's co-founder Steve Wozniak, has gone up for auction.

It is this prototype that shaped the course of Apple. Steve Jobs had used it to demonstrate the Apple-1 computer to Paul Terrell, the owner of the Byte Shop California, one of the first personal computer stores in the world.

Jobs' demo to Terrell had led to Apple Computer bagging its first big order.

"What Jobs and Woz had conceived as part of a $40 do-it-yourself kit for hobbyists became, at Terrell's request, a fully assembled personal computer to be sold at $666.66," Boston-based RR Auction, that is inviting bids for the prototype, said.

Terrell ended up placing an order for 50 Apple-1 computers.

Woznaik would later describe the moment as "the biggest single episode" in the history of Apple. "Nothing in subsequent years was so great and so unexpected," he had said.

The prototype was considered lost until recently.

RR Auction said few Apple artifacts could be considered as "rare, early, or historic"  the prototype on auction

"(It) spent many years on the 'Apple Garage' property --a site now entwined in the folklore of American business, where two unlikely heroes founded an empire," the auction house said.

It added that in the absence of this prototype, Apple-1 might have been "just another computer kit", instead of the pathbreaking product that it eventually became.

The bidding for the Apple computer prototype will continue till August 18. So far, the highest bid has been of $407,029.