MOTM

I bought a computer to do CAD work, I think it was in 1984 or 1985.  
It was an IBM PC running 4.77 Mhz.  I had plug in coprocessor card 
which had both an 8086 and 8087, 640K of RAM on the motherboard, 
another plug-in card with 2M of RAM usable only as a disk emulator, 
a 10M Maynard Hard Disk, and a Tecmar Video Adapter that could do 
640x480 at 16 colors.  I also had a Houston Instruments plotter 24" 
wide and a dot matric printer.  The total cost was around $20K !!!  
I ran the very first version of Autocad on this system along with 
some CAD programs of my own design.  I made up all my own blocks for 
doing schematics and PCB layout.  I was doing pretty good working as 
a consultant at the time, but I think the computer was close to half 
my income.  (I was single then.)  It about killed me when I threw 
the whole thing in the trash a few years ago.

On the UPS subject.  Nowdays among other things I run a 
manufacturing business.  We sometimes ship 100 or more cartons a day 
by UPS.  They actually are better than anyone else we use.  We have 
had more damage done by FEDEX on average, and the big LTL carriers 
like Roadway have sometimes mashed (and once left out in the rain 
for a week) entire skids of 50 or more cartons.  Now thats a serious 
damage claim.  In my opinion, having used practically everybody, the 
worst is the US Postal Service.