Miscellaneous thoughts about the discussion: a. I backup my Nobeltec with both a laptop and a Garmin Chartplotter, and have 3 GPS receivers on the boat. Not sure this is "ridiculous" but I wanted a NON pc system for backup up, and it solved the problem of a cost effective daylight viewable display on the flybridge. b. I don't run other software on my primary navigation computer for 2 reasons: 1. to enable rapid rebuilding of the system in the event of disk or OS failure, and 2. to enable me to tell the tech support people at Nobeltec the ONLY application running on the system is Nobeltec. This makes them accountable to resolve virtually any problem, and not blame it on virus scanning or other software. It's worth noting that one of my problems was diagnosed (correctly) as being caused by mouse drivers. How a mouse driver cause Nobeltec's Planbook application to crash is beyond comprehension (for me anyway) c. I have 2 large marine atlas volumes on board, these are the only paper charts on the boat. I just don't have room to effectively utilize paper charts. d. Electronic navigation has enabled me to operate my boat with a higher degree of confidence and know more about my boats capabilities than I would have achieved by using paper alone. Saving tracks, estimating fuel and travel time, evaluating alternative routes, knowing what ports and services are available in other locations have been tasks that are made much simpler by using Nobeltec. Not to mention the value of a RADAR image being overlayed on my display (everyone has their own opinion on this, so let's not start that discussion again). e. In 250 hours of operation I believe I've had 3 software lockups, all trivial, easily remedied, and 2 of these may have involved user (my) interaction. f. USB can be made to be extremely reliable. I don't know why the USB to Serial interface manufacture (SeaLevel) has not gone through the Windows Hardware Certification process. For $2,000 it seems like something they should do, or something Nobeltec should help them afford since they resell their boxes with the Nobeltec Radar solution. Of course their new generation of RADAR units eliminate this requirement. g. Support from a company is at least 50% of my criteria in choosing a product. For this reason, I wouldn't choose a product from a company that doesn't have a mature support infrastructure. That's no excuse for not building a quality product, but it's more valuable when using the PC as a central component of integration with Auto Pilots, GPS, VHS, or other devices. h. IMHO XP and Windows 2000 are the only Microsoft OS's that I trust enough to run Nobeltec. Running on earlier versions of a Microsoft OS will likely result in less software reliability. That's not to say someone can't run an old copy of VNS on an old OS, but that brings it's own set of problems for getting support, bug fixes, and new features. For more information: http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1158714,00.asp i. Just like the fact we all own and operate various boats, we are just as likely to implement different navigation solutions to meet our needs. There is value in sharing experience in a constructive, helpful way. You wont find paper charts at my helm because I'm more comfortable with a PC. I enjoy sitting with a cup of coffee and planning routes on my PC just as much as others have talked about doing the same thing with paper charts. For me, the benefits of using a PC simply outweigh the results of doing the same activity on paper. Scott Bulger Knot@Work, 31' Camano Email: scottebulger@comcast.net