>Interesting. I started with 8080 assembler (actually not true - I didn't have an assembler - just coding on paper and typing in the hex codes :-{ )

So was my solitaire game, v0.1, written on paper before I even knew how the ZX Basic worked, while waiting for the machine to arrive... and only 23 versions later it actually worked :).

>But you didn't answer the question - at least not as it was intended. You mentioned that you have learnt not the keep trying the same thing and expecting a different result. I was asking , given the ability to rewind, which things you would *not* have tried (and I suppose, by extension, what you would have tried instead)

I should have tried to convince Apple to buy Fox in front of Microsoft's nose :) (figure of speech translated, I hope the meaning stayed).

Actually no, every time I decided to stay with Microsoft's products, it was because they had Fox. Fox is about the only reason to use Windows, for me. So the policy of dropping any non-windows Fox that they adopted between VFP3 and VFP5 effectively blackmailed me to stay with Windows. They can do that to you when you're addicted - to Fox, in my case. So the question is irrelevant, there's nothing I'd do differently under the circumstances.

Now that Microsoft doesn't have Fox in the works anymore, I may be gradually dropping the droppings.