Early computing items sold at auction

updated 9:21 p.m. ET Feb. 23, 2005

NEW YORK - Documents from the early days of computing catalogued as "The Origins of Cyberspace" brought in more than $700,000 at auction, though nearly half the items didn't find a buyer.

Top sellers in the Christie's auction included a 1946 business plan with designs for the first electronic computers. It sold for $72,000 to a private buyer.

J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly, who wrote the document, were the engineers behind the Electronic Control Co., the world's first electronic computer firm. The two boldly predicted a market for their machines -- at a time before venture capital, microchips and software.

The highest-selling piece was a sketch of an analytical engine from 1843. It sold to a private buyer for $78,000.

All told, the sale brought in $714,060 from the sale of 133 out of 254 lots, Christie's said. The papers belonged to a longtime California book dealer, Jeremy Norman, who began gathering this collection of books and documents outlining the history of the digital world in 1998.

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