Once one of the crucial great newswires, it had fallen on hardtimes and been via a series of owners. Eventually it'd loseall its newspaper consumers and be sold to the Saudis and finally theMoonies. In 1992 it still was enough of a serious newsorganization, but to expand ClariNet it was time to try to get thebig boys the Associated Press and Reuters. I entered initialcontract talks they were going to be a load more dear, but wehad grown and could afford it. However, unlike UPI, Reuters didno editorial classification of stories at our level of product, and APdid a reasonably meager class in their stripped down AP Onlineproduct. I have said that this represents the highest level of desktop reliabilitypossible. I call it "M5 Reliability. " In a famous episode of Star Trek,called The Ultimate Computer,the Enterprise has a new advanced AI computer named M5 placed on board andin manage. Of course, M5 goes wrong, and takes over the ship and triesto spoil real ships. Kirk sends a red shirted crewman to turn itoff, and also you know what occurs next. M5 sends out a power beamand vapourizes the red shirt.