This article concerns Max - a computer environment for realising live electronic music. It focuses on Max as a paradigm (incorporating three currently supported computer programs - Max/MSP, jmax, and Pd) one that can be described as a way of combining pre-designed building blocks into configurations useful for real-time computer music performance. It addresses design issues, programming, musical potential, software and techniques. It concludes with a discussion on where Max fits, in terms of the changes in the social fabric that have occurred over the past seventeen years since it was first written (1985-2002).