Geof, AskSam is the thing used to hold the DTDatbase or at least the DOS version. I presume it is what is used to enter the data.

AskSam is a free format database. I don't know how much you know about databases but relational database such as Microsoft Access require fields to be defined and some sort of structure to be defined before you store your records which you can search and manipulate. AskSam is more like a wordprocessor in that you can enter data without worrying about a structure but it still has some database capabilities for searching, etc.

I'm not a fan of the free format databases as it can be difficult to convert them to other formats as there is no enforced sequence of fields within the data. My feeling is that they may be good if all you want to do is keep data for yourself and never wish to export it for to use elsewhere. Having said that, the DT database is made available for different platforms...

Jon