Steve Jobs 1974 memo to Atari could fetch $15k in auction

Steve Jobs may be dead, but his legacy still thrives. A handwritten note which he sent to Atari in 1974 could fetch up to $15,000 when it goes to auction.

Before Jobs co-founded Apple, he worked for Atari, helping the game company improve their game design. A note that he wrote to them when he was only 19 is going up for auction via Sotheby's.

They say “The present report, written for his supervisor Stephen Bristow, was meant to improve the functionality and fun of World Cup, a coin arcade-game with four simple buttons and an evolution from Atari's Pong game. Job's report is stamped “All-One Farm Design,” a name appropriated from the commune he frequented at the time, and the address of the Jobs family in Los Altos. At the bottom of the stamp is the Buddhist mantra, gate gate paragate parasangate bodhi svahdl.”

Sotheby's reckon that the memo will fetch between $10,000 and $15,000.

Jobs worked in Atari during the evenings in 1974. Steve Woziak, the other co founder of Apple worked there at that time and he created the prototype for the single player version of Pong, the game that went on to become Breakout. Jobs left Atari that summer to travel through India. Later he returned to California, to live in a commune.

Sotheby's are also auctioning an Apple I computer which is said to fetch between $120,000 and $150,000. There are only around 50 of these computers left worldwide, with less than 10 in working condition.

Kitguru says: The auction will commence on June 15th.

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