Origin Systems Rejection Letter

Courtesy of Kevin Fishburne (the developer behind Sanctimonia), The Origin Gallery is pleased to present this letter — on Origin Systems letterhead — signed by Richard “Lord British” Garriott himself. It is a rejection letter, in which Lord British turns down a request to tour the OSI offices…but does so in a way that, while short, is much more warm than curt.

As Kevin explains: “My dad had written OSI about getting me a tour of the facility, as I was programming games and loved the Ultima series. Sadly the request was denied, but at least I got this letter signed by LB.”

Now, a disclaimer.

The image is quite large, though not as large as the one that Kevin initially sent me. I have scaled it to approximately 7 MP resolution, and it may take time to load when clicked on (the master file is 9.5 MB). When clicked, it will load in an overlay.

Oh, and I’ve taken the liberty of blanking out the Fishburne’s address.

But anyhow…enjoy! This is a piece of Origin Systems’ history, and though it is a memory of a time that a kid who was very interested in computers didn’t get to take a tour of the offices of the most awesome gaming company in the world, it’s heartening to think that said kid did indeed go on to develop a very healthy — and productive! — interest in computers and programming. The Origin Gallery is deeply indebted to Kevin Fishburne for sharing this fine piece of OSI’s history.

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1 Response

  1. sanctimonia says:

    Glad this one made it to the new site. 🙂 Funny how just reading it brings back the emotions and memories of the time. My dad’s theory was trade secret protection, that they didn’t want competitors sending spies to glean info from the team early in the phases of their next hit. While that sounds like a paranoid delusion, it’s probably not too far removed from the truth. Either that, or they didn’t believe some kid was actually interested in what they were doing. If only they’d known the truth, they would have hired me at 15 and nurtured my obsession.

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