>> I vaguely remember having read that the life time >> of a CD is about 5 YEARS. Is this right or highly over- This problem is being widely worried about - one technological solution is Rosetta - a disk that stores data in a format both machine readable and visible without electronic translation using just optical magnification. See: <http://www.norsam.com/index.htm> -Paul -------------------- Paul J. Morris Biodiversity Information Manager Academy of Natural Sciences mole at morris.net