If you value your time, higher level languages are most definitely worth it. (4MB RAM is a huge amount of RAM for most System 6 programming.) And to the OP, find a copy of THINK C 5 or THINK Pascal 4 to use. There is heaps of sample code on the net - for internet/TCP/Sockets type stuff look at things like Peter Lewis's sample code (Stairways Software) and the NewsWatcher source. Old USENET articles are worth checking (google groups) and also the MacTech archives. Another thing is any info-mac archives have various bits of source code you can check - especially the old comp.sys.mac.programmer archives.

Ken