The tty problem reminded me that I wanted to ask this. I don't know how to explain this technically, but it usually happens when you've accidentally put a file through "more' that wasn't really text but didn't give you a complaint from more, or if you accidentally use less when you should have used zless. Can't think of other incidents where it happens though there probably are others. Anyway, even though you can quit the program, what appears on your console from then on, whether typing or reading, is not intelligible; i don't know if it's converting to binary or another character set--I would think maybe binary. Neither logging out (you can do it but your loggin prompt and command prompt after you've logged in come out in the same characters) or killing the tty does any good and while I can use the rest of my system fine, if I really want that tty back I eventually have to succumb and reboot. Is there a way around this? I hope I've explained it well enough for somebody to know what I'm talking about. I suppose I could make it happen and paste some of the result here but I'd rather not do it. Thanks. -- Cheryl "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."