John thank you SO much for taking the time to explain all that! I'm copying your post out now (hope you don't mind!) so I have more of a clue what I'm looking for re ports on this tower, and a little more knowledge before I talk to the music store people re cables/soundcards (if I do need 'em - which I probably do). It's been quite the challenge just getting familiar with this new Windows program the last few days.

I have this dream of updating my piano studio with computer games/programs without going broke in the process - I know my students will love it, and I'll feel a little less like a dinosaur! Just looking through the programs above I can see how helpful they'd be for making theory lessons fun, and composing too.

Bill I've got the latest Norton anti-virus/internet security programs, and I'll check into re-configuring it so it stops blocking almost everything I try to download. My son set it up last week with a "medium" security setting (sheesh I wonder if anything would get through it on "high" security)!

daylia