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"Max Eskin" &lt;maxeskin(a)hotmail.com&gt; wrote: Well, that depends how you define interesting. If you are thinking of the purported Chinese curse "may you live in interesting times", then I'd have to say no, they just work and don't try to be interesting at all. That's why I like 'em. On the other hand, they run an operating system called MPE that is interesting in that it's pretty much its own thing, so if you're thinking of the OS world in terms of "Windows" vs. "Unix" vs. "old stuff that isn't relevant any more" then this will expand your mind and maybe introduce you to interesting things like files that aren't just streams of bytes and pseudo-half-duplexish terminal I/O that is oriented toward transferring blocks of characters, not just one at a time. I looked at the URL that Greg Troutman posted. The description is about as clear as mud and somewhat less useful, but it does make clear that what is offered is a fairly large system. It's hard to say what an HP3000 is beyond "a minicomputer that runs MPE" because there are several different architectures (two major instruction-set flavors with several different hardware and I/O schemes) that could be inside the box. The series number is how you tell them apart; series >= 900 is PA-RISC and <= 70 (or with the name "Micro <mumble>" in place of a series) is the "classic" 16-bit stack-architecture. At a guess the system is a late-model "classic" (probably a Series 64/68/70), or an early-model PA-RISC (like a Series 950). If it is still supported by HP, HP is probably real close to dropping hardware maintenance on it. Oh yeah, that some of the classics are called "Micro" is a hint: they're smaller, lighter, and their Thirst for Power may be satisfied with residential electrical service. -Frank McConnell "I want my MPE" (w/apologies to Dire Straits)