Since we're still pontificating: There's another aspect of the pros & cons of GUIs that I find particularly frustrating: trying to write instruction manuals or doing phone support when you have no idea or control over what the user's desktop looks like, which menu bars, buttons, shortcuts etc. are enabled or disabled, where they are, etc. Give me a "Press Control and Home; now Control, shift and end; now Control and C" over a "Do you have a menu bar on the top of the window you're in? The one that has the word EDIT in it? yes? Good; click on the word edit and then click on the word select. Did the window change colour? Good; now click on that word edit again, and this time click on the word copy..." any day... Particularly relevant right now since I just got off the phone after spending about 5 minutes walking a user through a problem with a fairly complex 150+ module menu-driven DOS program and then more than an hour taking them through a fairly simple routine Excel spreadsheet operation. m