Original Apple Macintosh 128K prototype for sale on eBay for $99K

The Macintosh 128K, the first in a long line of Macintosh computers, had originally come with a price tag of U.S.$2,495 when it hit the market back in 1984.

A prototype of the very same computer is now for sale on eBay, but this nostalgic trip down memory lane is currently priced at U.S. $99,995, approximately 40 times the computer's original cost.

The archaic computer features a 9 inch (23 cm) monitor, a keyboard and a mouse. But what makes this specific prototype unique is the 5.25-inch "Twiggy" drive, a proprietary feature considered a rarity when the Macintosh 128K was created 28 years ago.

"For a period in the Mac's development, it was assumed that the computer would feature Apple's proprietary Twiggy 5.25-inch floppy disk drive, which also came as standard issue on the original Lisa," explains Zachary Lutz in an Endgadget piece. "Just recently, an extremely rare prototype of the 128k Mac with a Twiggy drive has surfaced on eBay."

The Twiggy drive boasted the ability to store 860 KB, which was considered a large amount of data storage in 1984, but Apple's engineers found it to be problematic.

"While the Twiggy disk could store an impressive 860KB of data, it was also notoriously unreliable," reports Lutz. "So bad, in fact, that one engineer responsible for the drive remarked to Steve Jobs, 'Take out your .45 and shoot the friggin' horse in the head.'"

Apple fanatics who happen to have $100,000 burning a whole through their pockets better hurry up: only four days left to place your bid.

(Screengrab eBay)