I think a file called learnsed.zip had come up for discussion over on blind-l awhile ago. That file though it u used a dos version of sed did lotss more to teach sed than the man pages do. Most unix man pages are only reference pointers anyway intended to jog the already initiated user's mind back to what they had learned earlier about a particular subject. That in itself is part of both the charm and challenge of linux and unix. Sometimes pople get lucky on fishing expeditions and sometimes not. In any case hitting alt followed by a number other than 1 will open up a different console and typing alt-1 gets you back to original login console. Same technique in dr-dos or open-dos once taskmgr.exe is running properly. Jude <jdashiel@shellworld.net>