The MacOS is technically no more or less virus friendly than Windows. You just don't have some of the obvious security flaws (like VBScript). But the main reason viri aren't as rampant on the mac as they are on the PC is simply, if you are going to write a virus you are probably trying to hit as many computers as possible... so why write for a 5% market share when you can write for a 90% market share. As for recognizing SCSI devices. The Mac will recognize that a device is connected (if you have some kind of a scsi probe, you can see that the mac knows it is there), but depending on the device, it may or may not be usable without additional software. In the case of tape drives, you need software that will talk to them (like retrospect), Zip and Jaz drives have a small extension that will let the OS see them and treat them like high capacity floppy drives (and I think that extension may have been rolled into OS 9.x but I'm not positive). CDs are similar, they have a driver with the OS, (although that driver tends to only want to support Apple approved CDs, so there are 3rd party drivers like FWB's CD Toolkit, and Toast's CD Reader). Hard Drive support is built into the OS (low level formating and partitioning may need 3rd party software if it isn't an "Apple" drive). Most everything else needs 3rd party software (like scanners, SCSI->Ethernet adaptors, etc.), but usually, the software/drivers are free, and will come with the device (like my Umax scanner software is available free from Umax's web site... but it only works with their scanners) -chris <http://www.mythtech.net>