John, I'd like to add my comments on the B box lifespan discussion. We have been using B series here since 1998. We've upgraded to 6.3 since then to use the CP60. It is difficult to make a business case for an upgrade, I can't tell management that they will put more pounds out the door if we purchase new DCS equipment. So, I've been purchasing Sparc stations on the secondary market. The last one purchased cost about $200 US. New SCSI drives are still available for these also. We plan on doing that until either the supply dries up or we need to upgrade for production reasons. On a related subject, the failure rates on our modules, FBMs and CPs, has been very low. These should continue to operate far into the future. We have some 20+ year old PLCs that are still chugging along. Regards, Rick Mol ESCO Company IT/Automation Admin. 231.727.6409 rdmol@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx _______________________________________________________________________ This mailing list is neither sponsored nor endorsed by Invensys Process Systems (formerly The Foxboro Company). Use the info you obtain here at your own risks. Read http://www.thecassandraproject.org/disclaimer.html foxboro mailing list: //www.freelists.org/list/foxboro to subscribe: mailto:foxboro-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=join to unsubscribe: mailto:foxboro-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=leave