> 3) Any other caveat, advise.. Before I purchase a second Itanium machine? Yes, unless you have an historical interest in ancient hardware, don't buy any more "Merced" based systems (aka Itanium 1). Stick with Itanium2 based systems. The Merced-based systems from HP were: *) i2000 *) rx4610 *) rx9610 sincerely, rick jones speaking as myself alone...