everyone has an angle to get into your pocket! (like thats news to anyone huh!) noaa, the place supported by my taxes wants to sell me the charts my taxes paid for. these charts will of course be obsolete by the time they are in the mail but thats ok.....they will be glad to sell me an update....through their preferred third party vendors! my magellan nav 6000 with c-map technology is great. c-map has of course obsoleted the c-map nt technology in favor of the NEW IMPROVED c-map nt+ technology which of course is not back compatable with my unit. (it is but its slow). they are pretty obvious about not supporting the "old", (2 years!), technology......but i of course can buy the new stuff!! for that matter magellan doesn't support my 3 year-old $800.00 unit either! raster, vector, and a plathora of proprietary software vendors for each flavor! all quite expensive and non compatable with anyone else....i'm gonna go find me an old Texico map of the coastline and be done with it!! ok, i feel better now....(not really, just clamer. maybe my medication is starting to work). so, i'll pose my question as a for instance: if i wanted paper charts and/or electronic charts of the texas gulf coast, just as an example....anywhere would do, where should i look for reasonable, cost effective solutions. i probably don't need the latest off the press rev. free is best!