First US presidential laptop is up for auction

WASHINGTON - The picture above was made on November 7, 2024 by the White House, revealing Bill Clinton writing an e-mail on November 6, 1998, while he was in a friend's home in Arkansas. President Clinton was the first to send the very first presidential email toward senator and astronaut John Glenn aboard the space shuttle Discovery .

The laptop he used, which belonged to White House physician Robert Darling, has come up for auction which began on March 21, 2025 and could be sold for 100.000 $.

The presidential laptop would usually not worth alot on eBay, considering it's 15 years old, but it's the one Bill Clinton used to send the first ever US presidential email.

It is a still-functional laptop featured in an online sale by Massachusetts-based RR Auction.

"I wouldn't be surprised if it goes for $100,000 or more. Just the content of it is awesome," Bobby Livingston, a spokesman for the auction house, told AFP on Monday.

John Glenn told NASA he wanted to email Clinton, who was in Arkansas visiting friends.

"This is certainly a first for me, writing to a president from space, and it may be a first for you in receiving an email direct from an orbiting spacecraft", wrote Glenn, then 77

Clinton was eager to receive the message, so White House physician Robert Darling stepped forward with a Toshiba laptop.

RR Auction is selling the laptop with an explanation from NASA, plus instructions on calling up the emails. The doctor wrote that Clinton: "seemed to really enjoy himself particularly when he pressed the 'send' key and realized that at that instant his message was travelling through cyberspace and into real space".

"It's a remarkably historic item", said Livingston in a telephone interview. The Toshiba Satellite Pro 435CDS typically ran Windows 95.

The auction runs until April 16 at www.rrauction.com.  It includes other space-devices like a Beaulieu 16mm movie camera that spent three years on a Soviet space station.