Why Does Someone Recreate the Apple 1 in Exacting Detail with Original Parts?

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This is the essence of a question someone asked on Applefritter.

Here are my thoughts on this topic.

It’s really not that complicated, people do this stuff cause it’s fun for them. This hobby is not for everyone. It’s about personality, if you don’t get it, you either haven’t been exposed to enough of the possibilities, or you have a different personality.

This question is really applicable to many different vintage systems with similar followings – the Apple 1 gets a lot of press because it’s the very first computer of a very successful company that, at the moment, happens to be near the top of it’s game.

There are three main activities in this hobby, with a little different motivation for each.

1) The collector – For some people, it is a lot of fun to own an item of significant historic value.
2) The operator – For some people, it is a lot of fun learning how to build or restore and operate a vintage computer.
3) The developer – Some people find it fun to expand the capabilities of vintage computers, providing capabilites to vintage machines that could not be dreamed of, back in the day.

There is a lot of crossover between the people participating in each of these activities.

For some of the rarer computers, you may decide it’s better to use a reproduction, rather than risk damage to an original machine or you may not be able to find or afford an original machine.

The reasoning behind installing date code original parts and making the reproduction as accurate as possible, is two fold.

  • First- tracking down these parts is like a scavenger hunt and can be a lot fun in itself.
  • Second- making a reproduction more like an original, raises the level of pride and satisfaction in the end result to a significant degree.

    • In case you are trying to decide whether you might enjoy the hobby or not, consider this: how could you decide whether you might or might not like swimming, without going in the water?