Gary Thuerk (1945/1946) was the first person to send a spam email back in 1978 to advertise a product presentation of the new DECSYSTEM-20 mainframe computers on ARPANET for the Digital Equipment Corporation, which he was a marketing manager for. The reaction to the email was overwhelmingly negative: one user claimed it broke his computer system, and the US Defense Communications Agency called his company to complain. Thuerk claims he sold $13 to $14 million worth of mainframe computers through the campaign.