Nick, I also took my optacon to and from work, from 1977 to 1990; I didn't use the soft pack, and even then, there were no problems. Richard Oehm saw the terrible shape of my soft pack when I shipped one of my machines to him for repair. He suggested that, instead of soft packs, we get a padded lap top PC soft pack and use that instead. It won't be the right size, but the protection works very well. Mary To unsubscribe at any time, just send a message to: optacon-l-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word "unsubscribe" (without the quotes) in the message subject. Tell your friends about the list. They can subscribe by sending a message to: optacon-l-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word "subscribe" (without the quotes) in the message subject.