team wants to do annimation for 1st time in 5 years - HELP!

[KenWittlief]

we have several students who want to do an annimation this year - we have not done one since '99 - I have a few questions:

1. what version of 3D studio Max were we up to last year?
2. We have been unable to locate our copy of 3DSM from last year, but we have several copies going back to '99. Can we get the CD for the latest version from somewhere (or download it) and use our old dongles?
3. does the SW still require the dongles, or is there some other form of licensing used now? If the dongles work, how many of our old dongles would still be usable?
4. is the documetation for 3DSM all online?
5. In general terms, what do you really need, performace wise, to run the SW on a PC? could you run it on a notebook? I know rendering takes serious processing power, but for capturing drawings and the more simple (tedious) tasks, whats the min you would want in a PC?

The students want to get started learning the SW now - I have been able to find a copy of Release 3, but I dont know what year its from.