You will need Perl version 5.005 or higher to run MiniVend 4.0. Many sites are still running lower Perl versions. You can download the latest Perl 5 from any CPAN (Comprehensive Perl Archive Network) site. See
http://www.perl.com/CPAN/
Windows users will need to obtain the ActiveState Perl build 5xx. No earlier version will work -- for example, the old version on the NT Resource kit will definitely not work.
In addition, on systems that do not have GDBM or DB_File installed, large catalogs will use large amounts of memory if the databases must all reside there. If you use SQL, this is not a problem.