transistors. And Fred replied: Kind of. It'd probably run Windows 98(it would definitely run Window 95) OK, but nothing newer from Microsoft as far as I can tell. Memory limitations within the confines of a P166MMX laptop of the day wouldn't allow anything newer to run. However, it would run various flavors of Linux or BSD without much fuss. I picked the 166MMX for my example as I have an old Dell laptop with a 166MMX, 640x480x256 color LCD, CDROM drive, 64MB of RAM, serial & parallel ports, as well as an early Soundblaster-compatible sound system in it that I use as a console for my PDP 8/e and PDP 11/34A systems. It is rock-solid reliable, and runs an older (late-90's) Red Hat Linux just fine. Don't know how it'd do on a current *BSD or Linux, though...if stripped down to eliminate all the GUI stuff, it just might be able to run something current, though it'd be pretty stripped. I think that if we never developed large-scale MOS and CMOS devices, and were stuck tech-wise with either small discrete transistor, or small-scale bipolar IC technology, we'd probably be lugging around "backpack" computers that have the rough computing power of a mid-1970's minicomputer, that'd run batteries that could be carried around for a few minutes -- enough time to perhaps to move between power outlets without shutting down. You'd end up having pretty well-developed leg, lower back, and shoulder musculature carrying such a beast around. TCP/IP Networking (not to mention wireless) not included. Of course, without the tech that came from LSI, we wouldn't have high-resolution LCD displays, either. Nothing like lugging a CRT around. The display would probably be a CRT or some kind of character-oriented plasma panel (Burroughs Self-Scan?) -- both big power hogs. Maybe the world would be better this way :-) At least we wouldn't have people trying to read their Email and TXTs on a cell phone while driving.