I'm not entirely sure of the best way to phrase it. But for what it's worth, I personally think the cutoff for OS's should be win95, exclusive. In other words, win95, 98, 98SE, NT, 2000, and XP are off-topic. However, Windows up to 3.x, and Windows for workgroups are on-topic. You really must separate hardware from software. The above is my feelings for software. For hardware, I think 386 and 486 architecture is on-topic. Pentium 4 certainly isn't on-topic. But what about P1,2,3? I don't know. If the discussion is just the hardware, I certianly don't think there's a problem with talk of P1 and 2 anyways. Unfortunately, the above comes across as being windows bigoted. It most certainly isn't. My criteria is more what I posted on the list a year ago. It's kinda like... when I tell non-computer people what kind of computers I'm interested in. I usually tell them "systems with blinking lights" because that's the EASY way to say it. In fact, it has nothing to do with blinking lights. It just so happens that most of the systems I want HAPPEN (unrelated) to have blinking lights. So, the above looks like I'm anti-windows, that's not the case. But it is the outward result of other criteria. Which is also why I don't favor a specific list of systems/environments. I'd rather "teach a man to fish", than give him a list of what varieties of fish there are. So I'd rather come up with a rule that can be applied by anyone to get a reasonable determination. That may be impossible, I'm open to ideas. One list thing.... as a note about my future thoughts - I firmly believe that whatever the final "rule" is, it will eventually have to be changed. Again, that's why I don't like a "hardware list". What is off-topic today may well be on-topic tomorrow. So the rule will have to be changed in the future, OR, it will have to be defined in such a way that its application is sound for future systems. Please take the above as just my own personal thoughts, and not some edict Jay