I love to tinker with things, and I have also discovered the best way to get info is to ask it. I don't have my cam hooked up to take a picture of it so what will do is describe what i see. i see the circuit board, battery, some small resistors and my question. Q: Imprinted on the board is SONY MZ-NE410; under that, i see 1-686-318-11; and to the right of these two lines i see a small box that appears related to this information and in the box is B-2. I would be delighted of course to know what each and everything else on that board is and what it's purpose is, although i have no idea what i would do with such knowledge, just like i don't know why i take covers off of things i have no clue how to fix. I suppose to marvel at the greatness of the technology or some crap like that. Either way, setting aside the wonder and amazement, my purpose for posting is a bit loftier, in which i was reading about the proprietary way these things help "manage" your copyrighted music in a way it deems best based on a bunch of artists that make way more money than i do. heh heh, so my thought, which carries forward from the very installment on my pc of my os and the way it is set up, is that forgiegn units are perhaps not copyrighted, and that foreign software or downloads are perhaps not equiped with such irritating micromanaging ability. Example: dvd burning software was at one time only available in CA, and i think there are gaming platforms that have data ports and other various options available in other world locations where here in the usa that is not so. ( norway and some european and/or japanese models of PS2 had the unix and usb ports unlocked; and there are cell phones that we will never see that are readily available overseas as well) so my logic is that if i knew what my NE410 really was USA made, overseas made etc, then perhaps i could find the right software that followed such ridiculous prime directives as ruin a person's file transferring fun. The other line of thought is that if i could see the circuit board, that i could find a board like this that could tell me all about it, but it would seem anything useful, (tech specs, or mods etc.) are in a bit more prestigious place on this server of which i have no intention of paying. MI is in a budget crisis, and with gas at 3.60 something a gallon, i can't afford much else. so the pretense behind the identification of the little widgets and gidgettes is to see which one of them perhaps could be misguided or easily modified (by easy i mean perhaps a wad of bubble gum here, or a strip of aluminum foil there held together maybe with some bread-ties ) ok, well not quite that elaborate, but that control mechanism that tells either my computer or my player that my computer is rebuilt for the 5th time this year, and that i have to find yet another box of these damn disx to record all my music on, because i didn't anticipate such things happening. A note to NERO 6 ULTRA (upgraded to 7 ENHANCED or something) - has a audio to ?file conversion module in it. this lossy thing can make a low grade mp3 44kbps file and i want to know if there is someone who has mastered and can produced step by step instructions to include how to go withthe smallest file conversion to mp3 to what the lowest normal default setting would be on the sony software. with nero i seem to have managed to take and convert them to other types of files, but i want to verify i am doing it the right way or perhaps there could be a better way i don't know??? at any rate all i want to know is what setting and how low sounds good. i don't have politicians riding in my car with me or drinking tea so i don't really care about perfection, if that were the case i would integrate a much higher level of sony compnent with some bose stuff and well you know how that goes. .... sorry for the long post, but lets see how resourceful folks are here