I know this message is old, but my trailer explains the delay. Some may know who I am from my COmmodore Trivia and articles, but anyway, I was told that the intellectual property for all of the Commodore machines is currently held by Gateway 2000 COmputers, while Tulip COmputer owns the COmmodore Trademark and logo. The FACT that GMT owns the dies for the ICs does not mean evidently that they can reproduce them. Can anyone know if this is what I was told. I do know that Gateway Knows they own the 8-bit technology, since they have discussed licensing it to some folks, but I don't think the discussions went far. Jim -- -- *********** A NOTE FROM JIM BRAIN ******************************************** I would like to apologize for the lateness in replying to your letter or note. Please do not take offense at the lack of a reply from myself. The Brain family has had some very extenuating circumstances throughout the 1998 year. At the close of 1997, my wife became gravely ill while in her first trimester of pregnancy with our son. To support my wife's needs, I switched the www.jbrain.com web site, ftp.jbrain.com FTP site and mail.jbrain.com listserver to autopilot and discontinued all online activities, including FAQ maintenance, responses to email requests, and other demands for my time. I also shut down Brain Innovations, Inc., our side business. My wife's health improved by March of 1998, and in June 19, 1998, Brent Harrison Brain came into the world at 7:50 AM. However, at 5 pounds, 3 ounces, Brent was 5 weeks early and a bit of a preemie. We were very ecstatic at the arrival. A few weeks later, Brent, who had not learned how to nurse very well, weighed in at 4 pounds and was sent to the neonatal ICU to stabilize his weight and regain lost fluids. The cause was his underdeveloped "sucking" instinct, which is common in preemies. Brent quickly stabilized and he was sent home within 3 days. I am happy to report that Brent has now learned all he needed to get food and now tips the scale at 15 pounds. Abaout this time, my commercial Internet Service Provider upgraded some application libraries on my server (which I share with many others) and broke the entire www.jbrain.com. It took from June 1 to July 1 to fix the problem, which eventually led to the migration of the jbrain.com domain to a new server with upgraded scripting tools, rendering the old www.jbrain.com unusable. I then started working on a replacement. I was able to get email and mailing lists back in operation before my wife and I (Brent was at home with my parents) were involved in a broadside collision while on our first "date" after the birth. I was left unhurt, but my wife sustained bruises and broken bones. Due to the breastfeeding, she was unable to take adequate medication, and her immobility made taking care of our son a impossible task. With some regret, I packed her and my son off with my parents to drive 10 hours to IL, where my wife's mother would care for both of them. I stayed at our house to direct the replacement of our totaled Saturn automobile In early August, my wife and son returned to Nebraska, but it took a few months for my wife injuries to heal to the point where she could care for our son during the day alone and withut discomfort. The events of the past 7 months caused us both to "withdraw" from the world in some respects. I have let email and web maintenance go without intervention, while we've both been slow to start back into any projects or start up our side business again. However, we are finally feeling better able to tackle the many demands on our time and the many hobbies we enjoy. My hope is that we can start out 1999 with a clean slate and forget about our many trials in 1998. We will, though, always remember 1998 as the year our son came to us (but I hope that is all we remember from it). I am happy to report that as of December 7, 1998, Brent is doing great, my wife is hoping to make a full recovery (though her back and feet still hurt occasionally). I am finally finishing some projects around the house and finding time and the energy to restart enjoying my hobbies and my online presence. As I write this, I am preparing to work my wife through 9 months of accumulated email from mail.jbrain.com. If you have sent me more than one message, please excuse the redundancy of the note when you receive it additional times. For simplicity sake, this is my .signature file for the next few weeks. We appreciate the responses we have received from folks during our trials. However, please do not feel it necesary to respond to this message, at least not for a few weeks. Doing so now will simply put more email in my inbox, of which I have plenty at present. Merry Christmas to everyone, and look for the Brain Christmas Letter on our web site. Jim Brain (and family) -- Jim Brain, Embedded System Designer, Brain Innovations, Inc. (BII)(offline sig) bii(a)mail.jbrain.com "Above views DO reflect my employer, since I'm my employer" Dabbling in WWW, Embedded Systems, Old CBM computers, and Good Times! -Me- BII Home: http://www.jbrain.com CBM Info: http://www.jbrain.com/vicug/