Mark, You might wish to check with Richard Oehm, Oehm Electronics, San Jose, California. He is one of our repairers and he also had some spare Optacons that that some of our list members had unearthed. We also have repairers in England, Australia and Canada. While it is true that no Optacons have been produced since the 1990's, many of our list members can tell you that the reconditioned machines work just fine. The repairers that we have each really care about Optacons. Richard's email is: oehmelec@xxxxxxx Phone: 408-971-6250 Occasionally Optacons turn up on ebay. Some of our listers keep track of that. With any luck at all, you could have an Optacon by Christmas (and they say there is no Santa Claus, what do they know)? Also, the Optacon user list has a survey which we ask Optacon users to complete. You've already told us most of the things which are on the survey, but I'll send it to you anyway. If any other list member needs the survey, let me know and I'll send it. Catherine ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -Catherine Thomas braille@xxxxxxxxx / ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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.