It seems that collectors bidding for a slice of Apple's computing history are not prepared to pay as much these days.

A recent auction for an Apple I computer, complete with monochrome screen and cassette drive, was only able to fetch the reserve price of $14,000 at the recent Vintage Computer Festival.

A few years ago such a rare machine in good condition would have sold for more than $50,000.

Salem Ismail, the festival organiser who arranged the auction, said that a couple of years ago there were a lot of people with disposable incomes and stock options to spend.

But he pointed out that the old Apple I was still holding its value considering that in 1976 it was selling for only $666, although buyers had to shell out extra for the monitor, cassette drive and power supply.

Designed by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak while he was still working for Hewlett Packard, Apple only sold about 200 of the machines.

Then the Apple II managed to capture the hearts and minds of the computer world, and the rest is history.

The Apple I was snapped up by multimedia magnate Roger Wagner who made his fortune selling his company Roger Wagner Publishing to Knowledge Adventure in 1998.

He said that he had bought the old machine as a way of "celebrating its connection with my life's work".