The history of modern computing is written on napkins and punchcards - and Jeremy Norman owns hundreds of them. The Northern Californian book dealer has amassed what he calls the world’s largest private collection of rare and one-of-a-kind manuscripts, essays, and ephemera relating to the birth of the Internet. He’s cataloged more than 1,000 items from the 1600s to the 1990s, from the earliest papers on difference engines to the first digital-computer patents. "With rapidly changing technology, people throw things out because something new is coming out next week," Norman says. "Nobody thought this was something that should be preserved. But this is the real stuff." And now it can all be yours. In February, Norman plans to offer the whole lot at Christie’s, in its first auction of this kind of material. All told, the artifacts are expected to fetch upwards of $2 million. Maybe you should’ve saved those Commodore 64 manuals after all.
Calculating wheel, circa 1811
Engraved table, with moving arm and brass mount. Used by Heinrich Wilhelm Pfaff to find the volumes of cylinders in ammunition for the German military.
Value: $2,000
Univac I tape, circa 1951
Nickel-coated bronze. Magnetic data storage tape for the first supercomputer. It recorded at 128 characters per inch and output at 128,000 characters per second.
Value: $800-1,200
JR 01 Ordinateur, circa 1970
Metal plugs, cards, diagrams, lightbulbs, and styrofoam. A board game designed by Bull, a French computing company.
Value: $800-1,200
Television, issues 1-12, 1928-1929
The world’s first TV magazine, dedicated to "the science of seeing by wire and wireless."
Value: $6,000-8,000
Brainiac Electric Brain Kit, circa 1966
Insulated wire, battery box, circular masonite multiple-switch disks, and brass jumpers. A kit to teach children the principles of electronic digital computing, designed by Edmund Berkeley, who worked on the Harvard Mark I and II computers.
Value: $800-1,200
Sketch of the Analytical Engine Invented by Charles Babbage, ESQ., 1843
With explanatory notes by translator Ada Lovelace, daughter of Lord Byron. Babbage’s analytical engine, though never built, was the first programmable digital computer.
Value: $40,000
"Outline of plans for development of electronic computors," 1946
Business plan for the world’s first computer company, written by J. Presper Eckert and John W. Mauchly. (It may not look like much, but it’s the most valuable item in Norman’s collection.)
Value: $80,000
Palmer’s computing scale, circa 1843
Engraved volvelle (a device made of moving concentric circles) on cardboard, bound with gilt leather. The first circular slide rule produced in the US.
Value: $2,000
- Bernice Yeung
credit James Westman
Calculating wheel
credit James Westman
Univac I tape
credit James Westman
JR 01 Orinator
credit James Westman
Television
credit James Westman
Brainiac electric brain kit
credit James Westman
Sketch of the Analytical Engine Invented by Charles Babbage
credit James Westman
Outline of plans for development of electronic computors
credit James Westman
Palmer’s computing scale
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