Hi Mark,   
      
   >> once I know what OS it is drived from I'll ask more about it in that OS's   
   >> echo.   
      
   > regex is not limited to any particular OS... one might say it comes from the   
   > *nix type world where the mantra is "do one thing and do it well"... however,   
   >i've used regex on winwhatever for several decades... as for "do one thing and   
   > do it well", regex is used to look for matches to a search pattern, the   
   > regex...   
      
   Yes, it's sure been "around" for a long long time across a number of platforms.   
      
   BBBS IIRC though is the only software out there that uses Regex so extensively.   
   It can use Wildcards as well, but as Kim mentions in his documention,   
   ""Normal" OS-shell wildcards like '?' and '*' are part of regexp, but they   
   have a completely different meaning in it."   
      
   Take care,   
   Janis   
      
   --- BBBS/Li6 v4.10 Toy-3   
    * Origin: Prism bbs (1:261/38)