SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — A science fair project created by Cupertino eighth-grader Steve Jobs in 1968 sold for nearly $35,000 at an auction this month.
Just days after turning 13 years old, Jobs wrote a school report about a specific type of semiconductor device, the silicon controlled rectifier. Along with the report, which included hand-drawn sketches and stenciling, the young tinkerer also built a three-panel plywood display to demonstrate its use.
“For my science project I have selected to do research and experiment with the silicon-controlled rectifier,” Jobs wrote. “I am making a circuit that demonstrates the basic properties and characteristics of this semiconductor.”
“The silicon-controlled rectifier is the most widely used of a family of four-layer semi-conductor power devices that exhibit regenerative or latching-type switching action,” the teenager explained, eight years before cofounding Apple in 1976 and launching the Apple I computer…