[Ryan Dognaux]

1) We were running on Max 5 last year, but since Max 6 is out now that's most likely what we'll get this year.
2) I'm not sure exactly what you're asking, or what you mean by "dongles" but since you lost your lastest 3DS Max CD, I dunno if you can run it or not. You could always get those 30 day trial version CD's which basically have everythign a liscenced copy of Max has.
3) Again w/ the dongles.. is this like an old form of registering or something?? We use CD Keys now...
4) By documentation do you mean... can you find tutorials and such?? There's tons of that stuff out there, and even some tutorials have been created specifically for FIRST.
5) What do you mean by SW?? Do you mean.. SM maybe?? Studio Max? To run a new version of Studio Max, you're going to need at least probably a Pentium 3 with around 850 Mhz and proabably at least 25 GB of space. This would be the minimum, meaning nothing else installed on the computer for it to run smoothly. A Pentium 4 with 1.5 Ghz + will really do you well, especially on the rendering part. Rendering takes forever on slower computers unless you want to net render... still, newer computers will do you better than older ones. SM can be run on a notebook as far as I know.. just have a good notebook.

I know my answers aren't very clear, but I didn't exactly understand your questions except for a few... so I hope that helps.