I've mentioned this to one or two folks here privately, but now that it has come up...My mother is a journalist with Associated Press, and she recently took a new assignment in a different city. Their office has a VAX-4000 running VMS, handling some sort of database. They love it, and they have no plans to migrate away from it. It would be appreciated if a few interesting aspects concerning the system were shared so we could understand how such a mature system manages to compete. (a) When was the system first installed? (b) Approximately how long is the up-time between re-boots? (c) Do they have any virus problems? (d) Have they ever been hacked into? Other information such as the physical details would also be interesting along with the number of users. Anything else your mother felt willing to share would provide the list members with good hard information. Jerome Fine