X-POP3-Rcpt: jfoust@threedee From: "Bob and Jennifer Usher" <jlazyb(a)fone.net> To: <jfoust(a)threedee.com> Subject: IBM PC Needs New Home Date: Mon, 16 Oct 2000 14:54:48 -0600 X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.72.3110.1 Dear John, I was pleased to find you on the Web under "computer rescue." We have an IBM original PC that needs a new home. Below is a letter that my husband (retired IBM) sent to a local museum which declined to accept the donation. Would you be interested or know of anyone else who might be? Dear Mr. Westley: Thank you very much for taking the time to speak with me by phone recently regarding the IBM personal computer that I would like to donate to your museum. Before you meet with your Acquisitions Committee, I thought it might be helpful for you to have a thorough list of the items I propose to include in the donation. As I told you over the phone, the system unit (processor), the monitor, the keyboard, and the dot matrix printer are all in their original packing cartons and will be delivered to you this way. In addition, we have all of the original documentation that was provided with the machine still in original packaging as well and floppy disks containing software. In going through our paperwork, we discovered that we also have, and would be happy to provide to you for historical purposes, the original invoice for the purchase, IBM product announcement brochures, a complete list of IBM personal computer products and retail outlets (as of 1981), details of the purchase plan, and some print-outs of BASIC programs that ran on the computer. To recap the history of the computer: When IBM first announced the release of personal computers early in 1981, it was clear that IBM employees would want to be among the first to purchase them. The company had a long history of employee purchase plans for its office equipment, so a program was developed for employee purchase of the new personal computers, too. Because it was anticipated that a large number of employees would want to buy PCs immediately, a lottery system was developed. All IBM employees throughout the country who wanted to be in the first group of purchasers turned in their orders in October of 1981. All orders received were then scheduled for delivery based on the outcome of the lottery. My shipment was scheduled for October of 1982, about in the middle of all of the employee deliveries for that first round of purchases. I was living in Chicago at the time I placed the order, but was transferred to Tampa effective in October of 1982, so we stopped at Compute!

I hope this information is helpful to your committee. If you or they have any further questions, please feel free to call me at 970-533-9060. Sincerely, Bob Usher By the way, John, who are you? Do you "collect" computers for yourself or an employer? How would you put this one to "use"? Hope to hear from you soon. Sincerely, Jennifer Usher