Well... never underestimate the efficacy of cursing loudly and throwing random things. I have discovered that the 11/44 te11 does not play well with the Cipher 880, tho I could make it do everything but actually read and write. I have discovered that there is a certain amount of 'connector ambiguity' as per usually with DEC stuff... the proper orientations were of course the last ones I tried, after mis-reading the pin numbers on the Pertec formatter twice. And wahoo! I can PIP files to and fro, and, scenes from my childhood computer dreams... I can watch the reels turning and incrementing. Too much fun! Thanks to all who have responded privately and I'm looking forward to more info here on The List or by e-mail. NOW: I have some DECUS tapes I would like to explore, but they are archived in .DSK format. I can run RT11 from within RSTS okay, but I have no idea how to un-do a .DSK. Any Help from someone here? And what a wonderful roar all this stuff makes... Cheers John