XRF can be a powerful tool for quantitative elemental analysis-it can also be a big headache. The problem is, of course, that to perform a proper quantitative analysis one needs to first develop a good matrix correction model to convert the measured line intensities to concentrations. For empirical models, aside from the inherent difficulties in optimizing a set of interelement correction coefficients, the commercially available computer controlled spectrometers have in the past either provided rather poor regression analysis programs with their software or none at all. The reason for this has been the rather limited core size of the online computer and the lack of fast efficient mass storage facilities such as floppy disks.