Given that games usually program close to the hardware, and are therefore the _most_ difficult things to port from one environment to another, it really makes one wonder why Excel isn't out for (for example) Linux or BSD today.

I can think of one good reason for starters: Microsoft makes Excel. Microsoft makes Windoze. Windoze runs on IBM's and Linux runs X-Windows on IBM's. Microsoft doesn't make Linux which already has a tremendous advantage in cost and capability. Now how many people would pay to upgrade to Windoze 95 if there were a true multitasking OS which was free and more efficient and capable of operating on more limited systems and with as strong a software base? If I could get Microsoft Office for Linux, I would have switched myself. Unfortuantely, I don't have the disk space for both DOS and Linux, and I need the commercial grade word-processors, etc... There isn't all that much that needs to be added to an OS like Linux to make it easy for the general public (perhaps a set of default settings that don't require much fiddling by a unix wizard). Finally, once Microsoft promotes a unix-based OS by making software for it, people will start realizing how much free stuff there already is for unix, and they will stop buying all those nifty utility packages that they buy for DOS/Windoze. And lastly, heaven forbid, people will have access to a windowed OS with command line capability! Now we couldn't have that now, could we? :) ----------------------------------------------------------------- Richard T. Freeman <rfreeman@netaxs.com> - finger for pgp key 3D CB AF BD FF E8 0B 10 4E 09 27 00 8D 27 E1 93 http://www.netaxs.com/~rfreeman - ftp.netaxs.com/people/rfreeman