Dare I ask why your friend needs this machine? A humdrum answer would be that he collects old computers. A spectacular answer would be that he's running a piece of legacy software, perhaps something in COBOL that the government relies upon, and the hardware is on its last legs.
Actually, it a matter of both. He does collect old computers, but he also runs a lot of old software too. As for why this partictular machine when others would do the same job; it is the same reason I finally bought an IBM 5150 when other vintage computers are so much better.
In my case, the 5150 pc was the very first computer I used in college after they migrated away from terminals connected to a mainframe almost 500 miles away. The 5150 is also where I learned to write in BASIC, CPL, and yes, even COBOL and FORTRAN to "print punch cards we used on the larger computer we had in the computer lab. I don't know how they made the pc accept the other languages we used, but it was pretty cool.
So to answer your question, it is really all of the above, collecting, using and finally history with the machine.
