<A 68040 -based machine is not that old, maybe a bit under 10 years. What I <was wondering is whether or not there is any objective advantage of old <machines to new ones. F.E. one could get an old IBM mini (System/3X) for <little or no money, but is there anything doable on it that is impossible t <do on a W****** 95 machine? It would be rare to say that a late W95 box isn't more capable. The only thing it cant do is support more than one user! Though I've seen PDP-8s that can. Now a late model PC running something other than w95 like linux can support multiple users, not that common though. Most older machines that was an expectation. After all they were expensive. ;-) There is something that is possible on older machine that is close to impossible on a win95 box. I can completely document my entire s100 machine right down to sources for CP/M, a significant number of applications and the circuits for all the cards, backplane and power supply. Some of my PDP-11 stuff I can do near as well. In other words I have all the resources to understand it and even copy it or improve it, something I have done. Allison