Am 7 Sep 2006 2:02 meinte Alan Perry: Not wrong, but definitly the wrong era. *G* Way better trace - just, I'm not shure if it fits. Al's remark points to the 4004 Series, where the first models where OEM versions of RCA /360alikes, especialy the models 15/25/45 - until RCA folded up their IBM compatible department, and Siemens had to decide what to do. After having invested a huge lump of money to marketing the machines, they did go ahead and startet with two clones (model 16/46) where the most notable difference was that all measurements changed to metric. That became the orgin of 30 years as manufacturer for IBM compatible machines. Now, the S400, Alan is mentioning was a classic vector CPU, and originaly a Fujitsu development. Mybe that'S something you're searching for. The S400 mid to upper end model of the Fujitsu VPP2000 family and was sold under the same number as Fujitsu VPP S400. THe models differed in speed and number of vector units - IIRC, the S400 had one scalar and two vector CPUs, with something arround 500 MFLOP for the scalar part and 5 GFLOP for the Vector side. Then again, the 8870 mentioned in Albetos original question is a small multi user system for office tasks. Introduced in the mid 70s, the concept was way similar to MAI and Wang systems at the same time. Foundation was a Business Basic and an ERP software written in that Basic, called COMET. You could see it almost as the 70s and 80s version of SAP - with a similar market domination. Including all the weired 'customisation' - since it was interpreted Basic, everybody added functionality. The 8870/COMET combination was the main cash cow of Nixdorf Computers (beside two other, similar families) - this strong focus was also part of the problems in the late 80s, when comparable applications became available for cheap of shelf PCs. COMET as a package is BTW still arround. So having a disk pack labeled S400 on a 8870 is a puzzeling combination :) Gruss H. -- VCF Europa 8.0 am 28/29.April 2007 in Muenchen http://www.vcfe.org/