Steve AA4U has kindly sent me an official Activestate version of DB_File for ActivePerl 5.8.9 build 825. You can get it from: http://www.dxcluster.org/download/DB_File-1.816.zip To install, unzip the file somewhere and then do: ppm install DB_File.ppd I imagine this is a 32bit version. Dirk G1TLH