Thanks a lot for all the info--now I have something new to play with. :-) Now I'm wondering... what is a source for this information? Would any of Miami's libraries have a VMS programming manual (I must be crazy to think they might...)? Or is there anything (even an intro would be good) available via ftp from somewhere? I would be willing to use a high-level language (I assume it'd have to be C, right?), though programming like that through a dial-in connection would be tedious, to say the least (especially debugging). There are so many aspects of VMS that I would love to customize a bit, and there are as many things I would love to automate... but I have absolutely no idea how to get started. Hmmm... am I entering a new level of geekdom here? I need to get a life.... Regards, Bob -- Robert E. Williams, Jr. | He who simply runs away, lives to Macintosh Developer | fight another day. Enterprise Software | ______________________________________________________________ [log in to unmask] [log in to unmask] [log in to unmask] http://miavx1.muohio.edu/~williar2