LOL- I am also learning new things every time I attack the empeg and other facets of home computing.

Thanks for the input, Mark and Rory.

I prefer not to use the serial port because it means (whaa!) that I have to remove the empeg from my beautiful Mark Lord Home Dock, remove the power cord from the dock, fiddle with plugging in the empeg with cables from the back of the desk, and only then am I able to fire up HyperTerminal for the fun bits.
I was quite excited by the prospect of running everything with the empeg docked from a simple double-click.

As for the failings and weaknesses of MS and Win2k vs. the power of Linux, I can only say that I continue to learn and am not afraid of doing so. I know computing as a Windows experience, primarily, and am trying to set myself up with more options wrt OSes. It's a hobby that I'm having fun with, anyway.

Thanks again, guys!