A documentary about strange inventions and unusual historical items. #film #history #documentary #series #episode #engsub #viral #video #education #show
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00:05I'm Mike Wolfe, and I've spent my life traveling the world, chasing forgotten objects and the
00:11histories behind them. People everywhere are turning up artifacts every day, often by chance.
00:19And if you're lucky, some of these finds can be worth serious money.
00:27Tonight, on History's Greatest Picks, from the wild ideas that never took off to the ones
00:35that changed everything. And for those that know where to look, there is serious money
00:40to be made in the misfires, the trial runs, and the weirdly wired. Because there might
00:46not have been a smartphone without a little blue box.
00:49Really simple little device, but it was a game changer.
00:52Long before artificial intelligence, there was the mother computer.
00:57One of the most iconic pieces of sci-fi movie history in existence.
01:03And home gaming began not with a bang, but with a palm.
01:08This plastic black and white console would usher in a pop culture revolution.
01:15So let's flip the switch. Let's dial it up. And let me tell you the stories behind History's
01:21greatest picks.
01:28Some pieces of technology are so historically significant and so valuable that collectors
01:34will go to extraordinary lengths to preserve them for posterity.
01:39Like the co-founder of Microsoft, Paul Allen, he spent nearly three decades amassing a collection
01:45of groundbreaking tech, which sold at auction in 2024 for more than $16 million.
01:52And then there's the kind of stuff that collectors can only dream about.
01:56Sometimes it's simply hiding inside a cardboard box, stacked inside a suburban garage.
02:08Alan Alcorn's wife, as wives will tend to do from time to time, issues her husband an ultimatum.
02:14Either you go out and clean up the garage, all that stuff and all that clutter, or everything
02:21in there is going straight into the trash.
02:23Now the thing you have to know about this guy is that he's an engineer.
02:26And he is somebody that is all about putting things together and seeing how they work.
02:31Circuitry, electronics, electronic equipment.
02:34So he's going through the garage and he comes to this box.
02:37And he lifts the lid and it just takes him back.
02:43It's very simple.
02:45It's black and white with two dials and a red button in the middle.
02:49It doesn't look like much.
02:50It's very unassuming.
02:51But this plastic black and white console would usher in a pop culture revolution.
03:01It all starts in 1972 with a little black and white console and a scrappy startup with
03:09a big idea.
03:10Their name, Atari.
03:13Atari gives Alcorn a specific task.
03:16We want you to create an electronic version of table tennis.
03:22And the purpose of this is that Atari wants to bring a new game into arcades.
03:31So Alcorn rolls up his sleeves, gets to work.
03:34He starts soldering wires to the circuit boards.
03:39He gets a $75 black and white TV and converts it into a monitor.
03:44Puts the whole thing into a cabinet so you can kind of stand up in front of it.
03:47And he gets a couple of controllers.
03:48He gets a coin slot.
03:49And the game, once it's finished, is called Pong.
03:57This is one little block on one side, a little block on the other side.
04:00And you're trying to get it past your opponent.
04:03Bing.
04:04Boom.
04:05So they take this prototype version of Pong and they put it in a bar.
04:09Andy Capp's pub in Sunnyvale.
04:12Several days later, they got a phone call from the bar owner.
04:15Hey man, you got to come down here and fix this.
04:17It's broken.
04:18What do you mean it's broken?
04:19It's all hardwired.
04:20I soldered it.
04:21And what had happened was so many quarters and the receptacle was jammed full of money.
04:29The reason for this is because Pong becomes so popular at this bar that people start lining
04:35up outside the bar at 10 o'clock in the morning, loose chains just filling all of their pockets
04:41in the hopes that they can get their round in.
04:44And that's when they said, we've got a hit.
04:48As you might expect, thousands of these units that have been shipped off to different bars
04:52and arcades around America, and they're all doing gangbusters.
04:57This thing has taken the nation by storm.
04:59Atari sees the significance of just how popular the game is in arcades.
05:04And they say to themselves, this is awesome.
05:06But what if we could take this same experience of Pong and put it in your house?
05:13Now for Alcorn, the main challenge here is to miniaturize everything because people don't
05:17want to buy a cabinet to put in their living room next to the TV just so they can play
05:21Pong.
05:22So Alcorn and his team are like, okay, they take all the circuitry of the arcade game and
05:27they compress it into one single chip.
05:31They then create this black and white plastic console, put the chip inside the console.
05:39They also add a very small speaker.
05:42Because Pong's not just something you watch on the screen.
05:45It makes noises.
05:48It's visceral when you play it.
05:49Everybody knows that sound.
05:51Boop, boop, boop.
05:52It becomes synonymous with the game.
05:55That sound basically brings Pong to life.
05:57If you have no sound, the game is just lifeless.
06:03So Atari manages to make a prototype of this home version.
06:08Sears, which is one of the biggest retailers in America at the time, catches wind of it.
06:12And they put in an order for $200,000 for that Christmas.
06:17And by Christmas, 1975, Pong and the Atari home gaming system is in stores for $98.95.
06:26And it sells like wildfire.
06:30America is completely changed that Christmas.
06:33The home video game system now exists.
06:38I remember the one guy in the neighborhood that had Atari.
06:42At the time, you're like, he must be rich.
06:44He has video games at home.
06:45It was a game changer, pun intended.
06:47And they become this gigantic video game company, Atari, from this prototype.
06:55Nearly 50 years later in 2022, after Alan Alcorn rediscovers his prototype, he decides to put it up for auction.
07:03After 35 bids, the legendary piece of gaming history, which originally retailed for only $98.95, sells for $270,000.
07:14And the wildest part?
07:15Apparently, it still works.
07:22For every spy movie that dreamed up a gadget, there was someone out there that was actually making one.
07:28They are the real-life cues.
07:31The inventors working in secrecy, building tools stranger than fiction.
07:36Like the KGB umbrella with a poison tip that sold for more than $19,000.
07:42Or the suicide tooth that sold for more than $7,000.
07:47And then there's the typewriter that doesn't type at all.
07:59A guy is rummaging through a flea market in Bucharest, Romania.
08:02And if you're a treasure hunter, there's few places on Earth so rife for the picking as Romania.
08:11It's been conquered and reconquered and taken again by dictators and Nazis and communists, centuries of history, all in one
08:22city.
08:24And I think what all this adds up to is that it's going to have some of the best flea
08:28markets in the world.
08:29They might have things left over from World War II.
08:30They might have interesting artifacts left over from the Cold War.
08:34So, it pays to keep your eyes open.
08:37And this one guy, he's keeping his eyes open, and he spots something.
08:43In one of the stalls, one of the vendors presents a wooden case, nothing special.
08:47And he opens it up and he says, oh, it's just an old typewriter.
08:54But here's the thing.
08:55This guy was no ordinary customer.
08:58And he knew that this was not actually an old typewriter.
09:02Yes, it's got a keyboard, but it's got lights, it's got rotors, it's got a plug board.
09:07This guy was a mathematician, and more importantly, he had also served as a cryptographer.
09:13So, this man was a codebreaker.
09:14And when he looked at this old typewriter, he realized, that's not an old typewriter.
09:19That's an Enigma machine.
09:23These are immensely valuable because they played such a pivotal role in World War II.
09:31He knows exactly what he's looking at.
09:34The price tag, 100 euros, or about 113 bucks.
09:39An unbelievable price for one of the most famous encrypting devices in history.
09:47When the war starts, the German military makes extensive use of it.
09:53It's the primary tool for providing operational security protection for broadcast messages from all branches of the German military.
10:03The Enigma machine operates through a plug board, a series of rotors that allows a plain text message to be
10:12encoded into alphabet soup gobbledygook.
10:16So, they're sending a bunch of scrambled letters that make no sense, except for the people on the other end
10:23who have a corresponding machine set to the same settings.
10:29But the big mystery is, how did a top secret German Enigma machine find its way to a Romanian flea
10:36market decades after the war?
10:40The Romanians fought with Nazi Germany during the opening years of the Second World War.
10:45That means that Romanian ground combat units serving alongside the Wehrmacht, they would have been issued the same Enigma machine
10:55that German units are using.
10:57The Germans manufactured over 20,000 of these machines, but today there are very few in perfect working condition.
11:05So, now that the math professor has the Enigma machine, he decides to clean it up, he looks for original
11:11parts and finds them, and he fully renovates it and turns it back into a working Enigma machine.
11:18After spending $113 to buy it, the professor restores it and puts it up for auction, pocketing $51,000.
11:27That's one heck of a return on your investment, but not nearly as impressive as Mark Twain's real typewriter, which
11:34sold for $106,000.
11:41When it comes to movie props, sci-fi tech can bring in serious money.
11:46One collector wanted Darth Vader's helmet and armor so badly that he paid over a million bucks for it.
11:53While the X-Wing starfighter was sold to another guy for more than $3 million.
12:00But there's one piece of sci-fi history with an even bigger price tag.
12:04He literally defined what movie robots would look like for a generation.
12:09And for one collector, he was the coolest robot of them all.
12:16There are a lot of auctions that you can look at in the history books and say, oh, that was
12:20a big deal.
12:20Oh, look at that.
12:21That was a big deal.
12:22But every once in a while, there is an auction that everyone has their eyes on in the weeks leading
12:27up.
12:27And this is that.
12:33On the back lot of MGM, they are having one of the all-time memorabilia bonanzas.
12:4140 years of memorabilia.
12:44From seven soundstages, more than 350,000 items all went up in the same auction.
12:50For collectors, it was a once-in-a-lifetime chance.
12:54Everything from Ben-Hur to The Wizard of Oz was up for grabs.
12:59For movie lovers, this was as good as it gets.
13:02Now, one guy who loves movies and who is there is William Malone.
13:07And there's one in particular that he's obsessed with, and that is the movie Forbidden Planet.
13:13Forbidden Planet is a movie from 1956, and it's got lots of human stars.
13:17But the real star of that movie is Robbie the Robot.
13:23It looked great, big glass dome with lights and gears and moving parts.
13:28It just looked like a real robot, the way you would imagine one to look.
13:33Previously, there had been other robots in movies, but they were these kind of lumbering tin can,
13:38sort of giant metal cylinder type things.
13:42At the time, Robbie the Robot cost about $100,000 to build.
13:46That's over a million dollars in today's money.
13:48That was, I think, was 7% of the entire film's budget was spent on this Robbie the Robot crop.
13:55When William is a kid, and he goes and he sees this movie, The Forbidden Planet,
14:00it's not like anything he's seen before.
14:02And the whole thing just completely blows his mind.
14:04He really becomes sort of obsessed with this film and owning a piece of its history.
14:1214 years after the release of Forbidden Planet,
14:15William Malone, now all grown up, goes to the auction with the hope of taking home a piece
14:21of movie history, maybe even Robbie himself.
14:27Unfortunately, he is not even close to being able to afford some of the items that are being auctioned.
14:33And worse yet, Robbie the Robot's not even up for sale.
14:37But his experience there, his knowledge that now these movie studios actually do get rid of things,
14:43he decides to stay persistent.
14:45So he keeps kind of contacting the studio and saying,
14:47Hey, you know, what are you doing with Robbie?
14:49Are you keeping it? Are you selling it? Are you selling it to me?
14:52When can I have it? Give me the robot.
14:54So William is pestering to find out what's going on with Robbie
14:57when he learns that actually Robbie the Robot has already been sold.
15:02And sadly, not to him.
15:04Now, the person who bought Robbie the Robot is a guy named Jim Brooker.
15:09He's got this big place called Movie World, Cars of the Stars.
15:13That's where Robbie the Robot sits, is in this place.
15:18And Robbie's not being properly taken care of.
15:20This museum is open to the public.
15:22And you can imagine, teenagers in the 70s, these prompts, including Robbie the Robot,
15:27you can actually reach right out and touch them.
15:29And over the years, he really falls into a state of disrepair.
15:35The thing about William Malone is, he's obsessed.
15:37And he really wants to have that robot.
15:40He can't have the real thing, so he's going to do the next best thing,
15:43which is to build one of his own.
15:44And when he's done, he's got to Robbie the Robot that looks pretty darn good.
15:49In fact, it looks better than the original, which is wasting away.
15:53One thing about passionate collectors, we don't give up.
15:57So in 1979, William hears that Movie World is closing up shop and all its props are up for sale.
16:05And he knows that this is his chance.
16:08So he goes and he shows up, hands over $10,000, and takes Robbie.
16:14So William Malone finally gets to start work on what he's been wanting to do for decades,
16:20which is to restore that robot to its former glory.
16:23Here's the best part.
16:24When he paid $10,000 for Robbie the Robot, it came with the original shipping containers.
16:30And those original shipping containers also have replacement parts.
16:35Replacement parts that have never been used.
16:37So he's got pristine, original pieces he can use to restore that robot.
16:44So he goes to work on truly restoring Robbie the Robot.
16:48And he's got everything he needs to do the work.
16:51Now, two of the details that he wanted to get just right are the hands and that iconic glass dome
16:56that goes over the head.
16:57And he's able to do it.
16:59The hands look perfect.
17:00And he's able to cast that dome from the original mold that it came with.
17:05He gets every knob, every bell and whistle to look exactly the way it needs to.
17:10And so instead of, like, turning it around and trying to sell it to somebody or putting it on display
17:16for other people to look at, he enjoys it himself.
17:20He puts this robot in his home and he lives with Robbie for 37 years.
17:25In fact, he even makes a routine of having coffee with Robbie in the kitchen every morning.
17:33As collectors, we're all just caretakers of these things.
17:37So eventually, William comes around and he decides to put Robbie back out into the world.
17:43In November of 2017, he goes up for auction.
17:47Robbie, who was originally bought for $10,000, now sells for an out-of-this-world price of $5.3
17:54million, which is a record for a movie prop.
18:03Celebrity always sells, no matter the item.
18:06And the tech world is no exception.
18:08Take Steve Jobs.
18:10One of his old job applications, written as a teenager, sold at auction for a remarkable $175,000.
18:19His old Birkenstocks?
18:21Yeah.
18:22The ones he actually wore?
18:23In 2022, a collector shelled out more than $218,000.
18:28But the real story and the real money starts with the first piece of primitive-looking tech he ever sold.
18:35Something no one could have imagined would kickstart a global tech revolution.
18:49Two guys are going room to room through the dorms, making some deals.
18:54One is a student, and the other is a dropout.
18:57And they meet this dude named Bill Claxton.
19:01They're going to sell him something for $150.
19:03And what is sold is illegal, but it's not drugs.
19:08It was small, like four inches by three inches.
19:12It had a few buttons on the top.
19:14It's got embedded circuitry.
19:16It's powered internally by a nine-volt battery.
19:20These two dorm hustlers that are selling this illegal contraband, they are no other than Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak.
19:30They were selling this thing called a blue box, and it was used for a phenomenon known as bone freaking.
19:37Not freaking with an F, freaking with a PH.
19:40A kid in the 1950s discovered that if he whistled at exactly 2,600 hertz, it mimicked the internal mechanism
19:51that phone companies used to communicate between devices.
19:56By whistling into the phone, he could hack the phone system and actually make phone calls.
20:03In particular, he could make free long-distance phone calls, which are otherwise pretty darn expensive.
20:10But to whistle at exactly 2,600 hertz, you need absolute perfect pitch.
20:16Luckily, Captain Crunch issued a souvenir giveaway whistle that hit exactly 2,600 hertz.
20:25The secret's out, and an underground network of geeks and nerds and people with tech proclivities start building so-called
20:33blue boxes.
20:35In October of 1971, Steve Wozniak reads an article in Esquire magazine about these phone freakers called The Secrets of
20:45the Blue Box, and this sparks an idea.
20:49So Wozniak decides he's going to build one of these things.
20:52He calls up his buddy, Steve Jobs, and says, we've got to make one of these blue boxes.
20:57And he just loves the technical challenge of it all.
21:00So he makes, in three weeks, a brand new blue box from scratch.
21:06Really simple little device.
21:08But technologically speaking, it was a game changer.
21:13Everything else up to this point has been analog.
21:16This thing is a computer.
21:18It's phone freaking digitally.
21:22So Jobs and Wozniak have this thing built.
21:25They need to prove that it works.
21:26And so they do a test call.
21:27They're big thinkers.
21:28So instead of just making a call to a random person somewhere in Japan, they decide to pretend to be
21:33Henry Kissinger and to call the Pope.
21:37And the call gets put through.
21:39The phone rings.
21:44But no one answers because it's the middle of the night and the Pope's asleep.
21:48But it works.
21:50They start to sell them.
21:52This is where Steve Jobs enters as entrepreneur.
21:54Steve and Steve made a great team because Wozniak was a great technical mind.
22:00And Steve Jobs, well, he knew how to sell.
22:04He's got the pitch.
22:05He's getting up in front of these undergrads and saying, you miss your family.
22:09What if I told you that here I have a device that could allow you to call anywhere in the
22:16world for free?
22:18Romania, Bulgaria, China, Japan.
22:22Customers are enthralled and eagerly pull out their wallets.
22:26One of the people they sell to is Bill Claxton.
22:29Him and his brother, they live 300 miles apart.
22:31So now they can talk all they want every day.
22:34And before the campus police can catch up with them, they've already sold 40 units and earned $6,000.
22:42$6,000 in 1972.
22:45And the Lennon-McCartney of the computer world is born.
22:51Steve Wozniak, now with Steve Jobs' partners, and they go on to invent the Apple one.
22:58And it's the start of the home computer revolution.
23:02Steve Jobs has said this himself.
23:04If there had been no blue box, there would be no Apple.
23:08And that means there would be no iPhone.
23:10And that means we would live in a very different world.
23:16That same blue box bought by Bill Claxton in 1972 for $150, goes up for auction 45 years later and
23:26sells for $125,000.
23:29But in 2023, an unopened first-generation iPhone found in a drawer, still sealed in plastic,
23:36sold at an auction for an astonishing $190,000.
23:48Some rivalries are legendary.
23:50Coca-Cola versus Pepsi, McDonald's versus Burger King.
23:54And then there's the rivalry between Sony and Nintendo.
23:58But this one didn't begin as competition.
24:00It began as collaboration.
24:02And it's a story that might have been forgotten if it hadn't been for a chance find at a clearance
24:07sale.
24:14We're in the middle of the financial crisis, and companies are falling like nine pins.
24:19And this includes the Advanta Corporation, which is falling for bankruptcy.
24:25They are out of money.
24:27So they have to get rid of and sell off everything.
24:31At Advanta, there's an employee by the name of Terry Dybold.
24:34He is responsible for helping to clean out the office, to sort and to organize things like all the furniture,
24:41boxes of random items.
24:43He's also organizing some of the dishware, very fine china, very fine silverware that was primarily used by executives.
24:51And so he thinks, okay, when this lot number goes up, I'm going to bid on it.
24:56Yeah, it'll get a great deal.
24:59When the day of auction comes, those boxes come up.
25:03He raises his paddle and he wins the lot.
25:06And he pays $75.
25:08And they say, the lot is all yours.
25:11And then he sees what the lot actually is.
25:14And it's more than he was bargaining for.
25:16It's so much stuff that Terry has to do two trips in the car to take all these boxes back
25:23to his house.
25:25When he gets home, he opens up all these boxes.
25:28And yeah, the dishware's there, the silverware's there.
25:30Well done.
25:31But inside are also hundreds of music CDs and neckties and plaques and shoes.
25:41And then there's this one item.
25:45He also sees a gaming console.
25:50Now, it's one that you would never see on the shelves.
25:53You've got a slot for game cartridges to be slid in, to be put in.
25:58But then you also have an area where CD-ROM can be put in there.
26:03You've also got a control pad.
26:06So you've got the D-pad.
26:07And then he notices that it's labeled both Sony and then on the other side it's labeled Nintendo.
26:13And that's weird because Nintendo and Sony were notorious rivals.
26:20Now, Terry is not a gamer himself.
26:22So he does what most of us do.
26:24He puts it away.
26:25He stores it in the attic and forgets about it.
26:28If only Terry knew what he was holding in his hands.
26:33Although Terry might not know it, this mysterious one-of-a-kind console found in a random box at a
26:40bankruptcy sale has one heck of a story to tell.
26:44A story that begins in 1991 at the Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago.
26:51You have a Sony engineer there by the name of Ken Kutaragi, who is ready to display a brand new
26:58prototype that he's been working on.
27:00He unveiled this revolutionary partnership between Nintendo and Sony.
27:05Now, they had this brand new console that they created together that could play Nintendo games and run Sony software.
27:16It combines all kinds of different stuff.
27:19A cartridge, a CD-ROM.
27:21This is a marriage made in gaming heaven.
27:27Some marriages are meant to last forever.
27:29Some marriages end before they even get to the altar.
27:34Only 24 hours, less than 24 hours after the announcement of this partnership, Nintendo just pulls out.
27:40They're ditching Sony, and instead, they partner with Philips.
27:44It is an incredibly messy breakup.
27:49Kutaragi goes back to Japan, not the tail between his legs, though.
27:53He's not defeated.
27:53He's like, I'm going to continue to develop this thing.
27:55And he goes on to create a gaming system that becomes known as the PlayStation.
28:02And Nintendo's doing the Super Nintendo, and this really becomes the beginning of the console wars that play out over
28:11the next decade.
28:12And so here you have this line in the sand that divides gamers.
28:16Are you Team Nintendo?
28:17Are you Team PlayStation?
28:20So Nintendo and Sony part ways, but that leaves one big question.
28:25Who's going to walk away with the only Nintendo PlayStation ever made?
28:30So this doomed prototype ends up in the hands of the president of Sony Computer Entertainment.
28:37That president leaves Sony and goes and works at Advanta for a while before he ultimately moves on to Time
28:44Warner.
28:44But when he leaves, he leaves some stuff behind, including this strange Sony-Nintendo hybrid console in the Advanta offices,
28:55which is how it ended up in the clearance sale when they filed for bankruptcy.
29:01It's not until 2015 that Terry's son Dan finally uncovers what's been hiding in his dad's attic for decades.
29:10Dan is reading a Reddit post online.
29:14About the collaborative effort between Sony and Nintendo.
29:17And as he's reading the Reddit post, he sees a picture of the machine, and he's thinking to himself, you
29:21know what?
29:21Dad, this sounds like exactly the thing we have sitting up in the attic.
29:26And at that point, Terry realizes, hang on a second.
29:31I think I may have something here.
29:35This console is revealed to the world, and gamers essentially just lose their minds over it.
29:44When it goes to auction in 2020, this relic of a failed partnership sells for $360,000,
29:53which just goes to show, if you keep your eyes peeled and trust your gut, this can happen to anyone.
30:07For around $280,000, you could have bought part of the NASA Guidance Computer that helped put a man on
30:14the moon.
30:14But how much would you pay for the Hollywood computer programmed to bring the most terrifying alien to ever hit
30:21the big screen back to Earth?
30:30So it's the mid-80s, and there's this old building in Orange County, California, that has kind of reached the
30:36end of its life, and it needs to be demolished.
30:39Thing is, though, sometimes it's what's inside that counts.
30:44This building has been used like an old storehouse, a junk room, if you will, for 20th Century Fox.
30:50Sets that were no longer being used, pieces of scenery, props.
30:54But a bit before the bulldozers arrive and they start tearing down the building, there's a call that goes out
30:59to anybody in the area that,
31:00if you're interested in wanting to save any of the stuff that's inside, come by the building, grab what you
31:05want.
31:06No money required.
31:10Now, one of the people who shows up is Roberta Brubacher, and she steps in, she looks around,
31:17and almost immediately she comes across something that is one of the most iconic pieces of sci-fi movie history
31:26in existence.
31:30It's a giant piece. It's six feet wide, three and a half feet tall.
31:34It's got this swivel chair and this electronic panel that's supposed to have all these lights.
31:39None of the lights are working at this point.
31:41Roberta says, I want that. I don't know how I'm going to get it out of here.
31:45It's massive, but I'm going to get it.
31:47I saw this on screen, and now I own it for nothing.
31:55It's a bit crusty and in pretty rough shape, but she recognizes it for what it is.
32:02The mother computer from Ridley Scott's film Alien.
32:07If you've never seen this movie, it is terrifying.
32:13Alien is a masterpiece. It's one of the greatest movies ever made.
32:17And I hate to spoil it for you, but the basic idea is there's an alien.
32:23This awful-looking alien that's known as a xenomorph opens its mouth,
32:28and the little alien comes out of the mouth.
32:30The scene where John Hurt is lying on the table, and he's writhing in agony,
32:34and then his stomach just bursts open, and this tiny little xenomorph comes popping out of it.
32:38We've all seen it.
32:39It's a part of pop culture life.
32:46So the mother computer in the film is really a character in the film.
32:50It's this AI computer built by and run by the company.
32:54And it has to execute Special Order 937.
32:58The alien has to be brought back to Earth for study,
33:02regardless if that means that the crew aboard the ship has to die.
33:06This is the computer that tells Sigourney Weaver that she's expendable.
33:12And so the real enemy in Alien is Mother.
33:15It's this computer.
33:17It's actually a worse antagonist than the xenomorphs.
33:21This is the big bad from that movie.
33:24This is huge.
33:27Ridley Scott's classic space horror premieres on May 25th, 1979,
33:32and it is an instant sensation.
33:35So this computer is shipped to Groman's Egyptian Theater
33:38as part of the opening night festivities, right?
33:41The pieces of the set, and you get the whole cast there, and all this.
33:43It's very immersive.
33:44But not long after, a lot of it actually ends up getting set on fire.
33:50There's some vandalism that happens,
33:52and no one really knows the story of who torched them,
33:55although there's rumors there was some radical religious group
33:59who thinks the movie itself is demonic or satanic.
34:03And the pieces that are salvaged, including Mother,
34:06end up getting put in storage.
34:07And this building in California that's about to be demolished
34:11is where they end up.
34:14Now, Roberta hangs on to this thing,
34:16and she takes care of it, but she doesn't fix it up.
34:18So it's pretty battered as it is.
34:20And when 2006 rolls around,
34:23it goes up to auction in its current condition.
34:27It sits for another 10 years
34:29until the owner finally decides to fix it up
34:32and put it back on the movie memorabilia market.
34:35The metal is deoxidized,
34:38the wood is sanded, and it's repainted.
34:41All the circuitry is added back to the mother computer
34:45so that all the lights are starting to light up,
34:48all the circuitry, all the electronics work again,
34:50the swivel chair works again.
34:51And years later, in 2024,
34:55the mother computer makes its way back into headlines
34:57as now a fully working mother computer
35:00goes back on auction.
35:02And even though this film prop is too big
35:05for your average living room,
35:07the mother of all computers
35:09sells for more than $35,000.
35:17People collect for all kinds of reasons.
35:19Me, I'm a romantic.
35:21I'm in it for the stories
35:22and the history behind the pieces.
35:24Some collectors are in it for the art of the deal
35:26and the numbers behind it.
35:28Like the guy who sold a sealed copy
35:30of Super Mario 64
35:32still in its plastic wrapping
35:34for $1.5 million,
35:36making it the most expensive video game
35:39ever sold at auction.
35:40And then there's guys like Neil Hernandez,
35:42who's in it for the thrill of the chase
35:45and the love of the game.
35:49Picture a summer day in Florida.
35:51The beaches are packed.
35:53Everyone is out enjoying the beautiful weather,
35:56but not Neil.
35:59Guy's a gamer.
36:00Gamers thrive indoors.
36:02He's also an avid collector
36:04of classic arcade games.
36:07Neil Hernandez has just started
36:09his brand new business
36:10to turn his passion into his career.
36:13He wants to refurbish
36:14and rebuild old arcade video games.
36:17And one day,
36:19Neil is looking around
36:21on the internet as he does,
36:22looking at, you know,
36:23Craigslist,
36:23places where he might find
36:24one of these great old cabinet games.
36:27And he sees a listing
36:29that catches his eye.
36:31And the description is pretty vague.
36:35It says,
36:37my grandfather's arcade game
36:40needs motherboard.
36:42Great condition,
36:45$975.
36:47But Neil knows exactly
36:49what he's looking at
36:51and he is very excited.
36:53And if it is what he thinks it is,
36:56it is one of the holy grails
36:59of the arcade
37:01and gaming collector's universe.
37:04The game in question
37:05is called Asterac.
37:07And it is an origin point
37:10of many, many, many
37:12gaming innovations to come.
37:17More than 30 years earlier,
37:20Centuri was a little company
37:21with big dreams,
37:23hoping to ride the arcade wave
37:25and take on giants like Atari.
37:27And to help them do that,
37:29they hire a hotshot programmer
37:32named Tim Stryker.
37:35whiz kid of an engineer,
37:37like, ahead of his time.
37:40In the early 1980s,
37:43arcade games were everything.
37:44And whenever a new game came out,
37:47that was the center attraction
37:48in the arcade.
37:49So Tim creates Asterac.
37:52And Asterac's actually really innovative.
37:54It has these vector visuals,
37:56it's got beautiful colors,
37:58it's doing stuff
37:59that other gaming arcade systems
38:01were not doing.
38:03But the difference between Asterac
38:04and Space Invaders Galaga,
38:06your ship is only pointed up
38:07in one direction
38:08and you just get the little
38:09boop, boop, boop, boop.
38:11Asterac was also a space game,
38:14but it had the ability
38:15to turn the spaceship,
38:17to turn the guns.
38:19It was sort of stunning
38:20compared to what else
38:21was out at that time.
38:23Unfortunately,
38:25it just doesn't catch on.
38:26They can't market it,
38:28they can't get it in front of people,
38:30and it doesn't sell.
38:32In fact, they only end up making
38:33around 200 of them,
38:36and they all just kind of disappear.
38:43Frustrated with this experience
38:45of pouring his genius
38:46into this failed system,
38:49Tim Stryker leaves the company,
38:51but he is really a visionary genius,
38:54and he goes on to do work
38:56that helps build
38:57the modern foundation
38:58of the internet.
38:59As for Asterac,
39:01it basically disappears from view
39:03until Neil sees the ad online.
39:07So Neil jumps into his truck,
39:10drives off to the location
39:11to get his hands on this game.
39:12Now, when he gets there,
39:13it turns out that there's somebody else
39:15that's also making a bid.
39:17But the guy trying to buy it
39:19just wants it for the case,
39:21like, is going to gut the whole thing.
39:23Like, he just wants it as decor.
39:25Neil literally elbows this dude
39:28out the way,
39:28strikes a deal right there on the spot,
39:31gets the cab in full,
39:33puts it on his truck,
39:34takes it away.
39:36So he gets it home,
39:37and he opens it up,
39:38and it needs work.
39:40This isn't just
39:41a minor restoration job.
39:43This is a daunting challenge
39:45that Neil has.
39:46And so he doesn't really know
39:48a whole lot about it
39:48because he really just got started
39:50in the restoration game.
39:51But he goes and he looks,
39:53and he sees something very strange.
39:56He looks at the coin meter,
39:57and he sees the number
39:59zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, one.
40:03And he looks inside that bucket.
40:06There's one quarter,
40:08dated from 1983,
40:10which means this particular cabinet,
40:14Asterac, was only played one time.
40:17And then, even more incredible,
40:20he finds the receipt.
40:22This machine was sent to Tim Stryker,
40:26the visionary, creative genius
40:29who designed the entire system.
40:32This was Stryker's cabinet.
40:34He put one quarter in,
40:36he played one time,
40:38probably just to see if the game worked,
40:40and then never touched it again.
40:43Over time, years even,
40:45Neil went out and recruited
40:47different specialists,
40:48not just to get it back in working order,
40:50but to get it to the condition
40:52that Tim Stryker knew it in.
40:57After years of hard work
40:58and thousands of dollars on restoration,
41:01the estimated value of Tim Stryker's
41:03personal Asterac game
41:04is $100,000.
41:07But currently,
41:08there are no plans
41:09to put it up for auction.
41:11Imagine how proud
41:13Tim Stryker would be
41:14knowing that people
41:16are finally playing his game.
41:18which just goes to show,
41:19whether it's a one-of-a-kind video game,
41:22a little blue box,
41:23or a lovable robot,
41:25if it's weirdly wired,
41:27there's money to be made.
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