Apple VideoPad prototype axed by Steve Jobs to be auctioned off

(Pocket-lint) - Bonhams, the planetary auction house, announced it volition auction disconnected respective uncommon Apple prototypes successful November.

One of the items disposable is an unreleased instrumentality called VideoPad. According to Bonhams, it was primitively designed to beryllium a PDA (personal integer assistant) similar Apple's Newton MessagePad series, and Apple tested 3 versions of it - VideoPad 1, VideoPad 2, and VideoPad 3 - implicit 2 years starting successful 1993.

The VideoPad prototypes were each based connected a conceptual sketch drawn by Apple's erstwhile CEO John Sculley. But Bonhams said the full thought was yet ditched by Apple's precocious co-founder, Steve Jobs, erstwhile helium returned to the Cupertino-based institution successful the precocious 1990s.

The auction institution lone has the VideoPad 2 up for dibs, arsenic it is reportedly the lone surviving prototype device. It features a hinged flip-top plan with 2 screens and was seemingly going to battalion a built-in camera, 2 speakers, a representation paper slot, a powerfulness socket, and a telephone enactment input.

It's estimated to get up to $12,000 astatine the auction, which is scheduled to instrumentality spot successful Los Angeles connected 3 November 2021.

Other Apple devices up for bidding see the archetypal Apple II Personal Computer and prototypes similar the Apple Macintosh, Apple EMate 300, the first-generation iPad, and a handwritten missive from Jobs.

Writing by Maggie Tillman. Editing by Rik Henderson. Originally published connected 22 October 2021.