The VLC (as you know) is small, uses one low profile SCSI disk internally, has an external SCSI connector, supports a max of 24MB or memory and weighs in at 6 VUPs or so. There is no real expansion available. A VAX 4000-500 is bigger (coffee table size), usually comes with DSSI drives (although it can use SCSI with the right additional h/w) can have many disks, supports more memory (512MB max - 32MB min!) and runs at 24VUPs on a bad day (more if it is really a -700A or 705A). DSSI is available for storage and the box has a Q-bus. Whether any of this matters or not depends on what the VAX is supposed to do. If they wanted an OpenVMS compute engine, almost any cheap Alpha would eat both of the above for breakfast, so I assume that there is either a software constraint (e.g. VAX-only 3rd party s/w) or a hardware one (must use this Q-bus interface card). Antonio