This November 7, 1998 file photo released by the White House, shows US President Bill Clinton preparing an e-mail on November 6, 1998 from the home of a friend in Arkansas
Washington:
A more than 15-year old laptop doesn't go for much on eBay - unless it's the one Bill Clinton used to send the first ever US presidential email.
The still-functional laptop - with Clinton's cheerful exchange with Space Shuttle astronaut John Glenn in November 1998 still on the hard drive - is the featured item 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 that specializes in rare and unusual collectibles, told AFP on today.
Glenn, a US senator who in 1962 had been the first US astronaut to orbit Earth, was on a nine-day mission aboard the space shuttle Discovery when he 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 keen to receive the message, but when his staff couldn't readily find him a computer to do so, White House physician Robert Darling stepped forward with his trusty Toshiba and his personal AOL email address.
"Hillary and I had a great time at the launch," wrote Clinton, referring to Discovery's liftoff from the Kennedy Space Center a few days earlier, in his reply.
"We are very proud of you and the entire crew, and a little jealous."