Bobbaro

I think that is a definite yes for 1.03 causing problems. I went to 103 with a scenario under design and found placement running differently from before. Since it had been tweeked for the earlier state of affairs, the new placements were not welcome. That the current play test is going against the somewhat human player is no fault of that placement difficulty however. Damn. I ended up with a bunch of assault boats rather more high and dry on the highway instead of being dropped neatly near the water. They had to be hauled across some brush tiles. Another location where less highway sat nearby had no problem. Since the upgrade squashed out the cracks between wooded tiles, I am not too sure I am alltogether thrilled about that. I found the little paths kinda nice. I would like the choice of manipulating such matters in the design process. Solid woods vs cracked woods. It still can be done but not as satisfactorily. I remember when the paths went in and how Steve and Charles thought they were neat. I still do. However, I can see a place for solid woods. A crack every 20 meters is just a little dense on openings in some places.

About throwing away crews (AND AFV that are out of ammo in operations as I did in doing play testing a scenario,) they both contribute to the next stage in the operation. Crews thrown away now can mean a AFV or other weapon missing in the next stage besides adding to the enemy score. But damn it was great running over that AT gun - - - - what a way to go.

Your review was very gratifying to those of us who have been rooting for this game, sometimes for years. The marketing scheme is a very interesting approach and so far has exceeded the expectations. As it forestalls the walk-in causal buyer in the retail outlets, and has virtually a zero advertising budget word of mouth and reviews on the net and in publications are its life blood. That it has appeal to both those who revel in military details and to those could not care less, it is really special. If any game has a chance with this marketing approach this one has - at least in my lowly view. As I have not played some of the games with lower demands on the hardware game wise, so that they can go stronger on the graphics; to me comments that the graphics are less than the greatest seem hollow. That is just my state of ignorance. To me they are beautiful. The 3d aspect is so strong that whatever improvements in appearance are possible are easy to overlook. I think most players could have a list of things they would like to see, some of which may even get implemented in the future. But, as is, it is so much more than previously available that such matters surface only slowly. I think that the kinds of improvements floating around are a great tribute to CM in that they often constitute matters of such detail, that would never surface in other games.

I have had morters target themsleves when a simular enemy target would be out of range because too close and an enemy armored car, rotate vehicle, then gun, then aim and fire, while my M8 is pointed in the correct direction, has been targeted on the enemy in out of sight mode and has hunted up to target acquisition point. All this at point blank range and both buttoned. This seems to be a bit out of range to me. I could attempt to rationalize the M8 failure easier than the morter, if forced. By the way both AFVs missed first shots and ended with a mutual kill. But, to get to the orignal question, it seems AI reaction in the hands of the computer side runs a bit faster than it does for me. We always have to watch ourselves, however, for anxieity driven time acceleration, when it is our chestnuts being scorched and deacceleration when it is otherwise.

Thanks Bill and Wendel. The assault boat seems a possible culprit. Otherwise it is a battle scenario. I shall test with the vessels removed. Thanks again. That was one angle that would have occured to me only after a long time if then. Those boats rides have been upsetting the Amis carrying morters. They get across and start firing -- on their own position. Suicide. Rather funny really. I could not direct them to do so because of being out of range due to such a target being too near. The AI has no such difficulty, though.

In a DYO design I am working on, when I seek to test as the Axis side I am not allowed the 1 Player playing option, just Hotseat. No AI Allied opponent. I must be overlooking some parameter in the editor, or am I - - - ? Most perplexing.

All my replays are going to a damned scenario I have been working on via the editor. Working out the bugs by that route is a rough row to hoe when the thing demands a lot of turns to make it reasonable. I have it in other hands to help with making it a worthy play. Making roads useable in rough terrain without ruining the topography is proving to be a difficult task. Especially when it seems that they work in one replay and fail in subsequent repeats. I will swear that tiles that proved passable in one play became impassable slopes in another. One possibility is that they were overcome in earlier attempts via a fast move with such momentum that the vehicles just rolled over them. In the present test, I have had a couple of units move across slope tiles to become trapped, surrounded on all sides by slopes. I keep seeking some sneaky path that will get them out. I think I found one for one vehicle, but that test was spoiled by a lockup. (Lockups seem to be inspired by leaving the game up and having the screen saver kick in.)

In testing a scenario underway, I found that inevitably when some morters I had on one side of a river were boated across, they started shooting up themselves as soon as they could manage to set up their tubes. They managed to sink as many as 3 of the four boats, kill themselves and otherwise create a great deal of destruction and confusion. If I had attempted to target these weapons on the same territory, I would have recieved a out of range message, but the AI found no such difficulty. After I got off the floor and dryed the tears of laughter, I put an officer's area fire on the erring unit, which caused it to forget firing for a while as it humped its tube to safer places. Of course his own incoming did some of the same, but as the area of that was wider, it was more difficult to escape. There was some oscellation between firing and hiding in that case. This has proven repeatable and most difficult to control. Earlier another unit across a nearby river had rained destruction down on these guys, but that could have been explained as mistaken identity. Something about rivers ... Hummmmmmm.

I shall throw in another chunk into this pot of stew. Frontier warfare in North America pitting European style warefare against the Amerindian braves yielded a surprising high percentage, if not a majority of victories for the home team. Taking the battles in total, the Amerindan tactics tended to prevail until European tactics adjusted. There always seemed to be a new boy coming to the neighborhood to repeat the stu--- ah, shall we say inappropriate practices of their contenental roots and get a lot of guys scalped as a result, saying nothing of having to ignominously come slinking back to civilization to admit and rationalize defeat. General Braddock's example is probably the best known. He did not have to explain his defeat. But there are plenty of others lead by both colonials and professionals. Even as late as frontier Texas, using frontier trained Rangers and ad hoc militia, found these guys on the short end of victory. Here, tactics were more simular with the difference, being that Commanches had the best of the firepower. Their rate of fire using bows and arrows far exceeded what the folks of European stock could muster. The difference was eventualy made up by encased ammunition fired from repeating pistols and rifles. After these became available, the drift of victory shifted. But, not as rapidly as one might suppose as the Amerindian practices were adjusted and it took the removal of their food base and finally their mobility to completely subdue them. That the *last* battles were won by the Europeans seems to me to be due to these victories being characterized by one or more circumstances which proved decisive: decimating the warrior base; demoralizing the warriors; devistating the home village(s)and their stores and often their civil population. The Amerindian victories did not really touch the resource base of the Europeans, only temporary setback the frontier zone. Often the most effective agent of Amerindian defeat was biological, like smallpox. But a big but, the Amerindians probably won a majority of the armed confrontations out in the open and often by large and bloody margins. These battles were often sizable and pitched. They often represented supurb command and controll exerted by the Amerindian leaders using the means at hand. The litney of defeat upon repeated defeat for the Europeans read in concentrated sessions is almost unbearable as one army after another is led into the same trap. It is painful to see the approaching holicost as inevitable as the seasons. And along with that, the inevitable ultimate defeat of their Amerindian foes whose technology and resources will in the end find the European response gethering sufficient strength and leadership to win one for the "Gipper". As previously noted, these tended to be either finally decisive or sufficiently so as to significantly advance the European position. The situation to the south proved altogether different- until the Spanish met the Appaches and Commanches; oh, and not forgetting the Pueblo uprising. --------------------------------------------- Warning - large digression follows. We of European stock here in the States of later immigrant status love to wear sack cloth and pour ashes upon our heads about how selfish, greedy and immoral our forefathers were in their treatment of the peoples, who decended from earlier Asian immigrations, in comparison to the perfect society of tribes that were so badly mauled at European hands to the extent that the guilt *rightfully* is passed from generation to generation. While this view has some facts to recommend it, it overlooks that very often these tribal peoples treated each other no better. Their relationships were often no different from their counterparts across the Big Water to the east. Not too many European nations sought total genocide from the losers in a dispute, but the Iroquoi Nation did exact such punishment upon one of their fellow Native American brothers. Morally, the transgressions of one's victim do not justify additional transgressions at one's own hands. However, I am not inclined to specially demonize the role of one people at the expense of another, who often acted equally badly at some point. Adolf was not the first to seek the extermination of some group. And he was not the first to succeed as well as he did. In fact I seem to recall a Middle Eastern people, as written in some rather old books concerning their history recording themsleves as having been admonished to exact that same sort of judgement upon the folks inhabitating lands they would soon be occupying. I heard a Nigerian citizen state say about a factional discussion in his native state, that it was a mistake not to kill all those members of the opposition including women and children, when the other party prevailed. He declaired that he knew his countrymen. They would hold a grudge and given the chance would exact retrubution. Loyalties were to the families and their associtions. So much absolutely so, that not to kill them off was to invite simular treatment to one's own in the future. The greatest shame of the European Colonials was what was done to those Amerindians, who were either assimilating or had assimilated into the European way of living, even to the point of adopting European religion and otherwise completely integrating into the civil life of the new nation. The combination of covetiousness and racial and cultural hatred (aided and abetted by the viciousness of frontier conflict)was too much for the veneer of the Christian ethic, so easily dropped by men of all ages and lands. There always seemed to be some faction able to apply their hatreds across the board to all alike. They did so with a lot of hand wringing after the fact by their more ethical fellows. But, as always these things seem to be enabled by the effective silence of "good people" at the points in time, when action might effect some deterence. Tragedy in life imatates the theater. The fatal flaw seems to be very simple; being human. It is something we all seem to share and not hold any exclusive rights upon. Excessive breast beating and excessive blame just falls into place with a lot of other excesses. Human excesses. Have mercy on us all. And give some. No cures just pallatives. Seems the best we can mangage for now. What is done is done. Living with these inheritances in the present makes for no easy solutions. General human practice is unashamedly to regard any opinion holding that restitution is in order, is straight from Bedlam. And where restitution of sorts have been implemented or at least attempted, most often just sees the tragedy enlarged. There are current examples of that. The horns of delimma are sharp indeed. Much of European history seems to be so pirced. And beyond Europe. Consider redrawing the political lines and demographic lines in just Europe, so as to restore some mythical state of just allocation of lands to peoples. The human answer seems to be for some one to just pick up the sword and cut the mythical knot, adding another layer of injustice upon all the old. The knot is restored even as the sword is removed from the cut.

Your defend arc suggestion occured to me as well. It would have application beyond the situation described. I could tell units to defend an arc just as units are instructed on the battlefield, "This your sector --defend it well." The Tactical AI would only release in self defense, not to be potting at everything in sight. Unit experence would appropriately determine how well such units would stick to order just as it does in the case of ambushes. And just as in the case of movement orders, a delay could be effected for the order to become operational. This would simulate the time it takes a radio communication to take effect.

Surely there are rocky areas in Europe where bogging isn't always an issue. Streams can vary considerably along their leangth, and it seems quite possible that where rocky conditions exist a ford that could support even a tank could be found. Troops performing delaying missions can be in a hurry to blow the bridge and put some territory between them and those guys hot on their trail. Even if they knew about the ford two km down the river, they could hope that finding it might take long enough for their own safety and not have to risk necks in mining it. On the otherhand veteran engineers might wink at the risk and grin at the thought of leaving a few surprises at the ford. It does not seem it would take too long to mine a bottleneck. I wish our engineers could do a hasty patch of mines.

I have been messing with the Editor. Doing that I discovered the anti-slope characterstics of the engine. Careful map elevation design avoids that problem. A pecular thing is that within a tile, portions may have impassable slope while others are passable. I found in one test that I had to run all my traffic over to one extreame side of the road to pass successfully. It created a bottle neck for traffic of some inconvience. A suggestion for designers: test all roads running over or adjacent to elevation changes for slope properties. It requires running paths over enough portions of the road for adequate recon. It seems that all vehicles have the equal slope capabiities.

Actually, the 3 figure cluster may look more tactical than a full cluster of jokers trying to hide behind the same tree. Somehow I wonder if actual deployment of a squad is as confined as we have it here. The fire team drills I participated in certainly could have spread over more than one of our tiles. I recall that a lot of defensive deployments were spread rather farther than the "book" called for. a little circle of up to 12 guys looking like flys on a speck from a honey bucket don't exactly appear as though they are trying to avoid being shot or as if trying to shoot back.

Problem now discontinued. Stupid me, I had somehow got a shortcut that referenced the diskett, not the installed game.

I have found Wild Bill to be a real class act. Motion carried.

And very appropriately placed, sir. Though I have the disk, I am frustrated that I can get my machine to neither play scenarios concocted by me or anyone else, just those already supplied. Damn. And no one else seems to have that problem. You know where to find sympathy. In the dictionary between **** and syphilis.

I thought I would call attention to the other sections set up for comment on Sceanarios, Tips and Techniques and Technical matters. It would be helpful for those to be used accordingly. I see a lot of topics better placed with one of the other sections. BUT, better placed here than not placed at all. Just notice that there are more appropriate places for some of your posts. It represents a sort of economy of force and concentration of strength at the schwer punct (if I spelled that term understandably).

Not everyone is utilizing these other subsections for posting. It helps to remind folks who either forget or do not know. [This message has been edited by Bobbaro (edited 06-29-2000).]

Hear, Hear!

For code breaking issues I would recommend R. Admiral Edwin T. Layton's book "And I Was There". Not only these issues are examinied from inside the doors of where the work was done, but others as well. It is a book much neglected in popularity compared to Prang's and undeservedly. Prang's book had the advantage of coming out first and with a flashy title along with a lot of favorable reviews at the right time. Layten's lay in it its shadow too much and in a false sense that the last word had been heard, for the public notice it deserved. Prang himself was unsatisfied with the state of knowledge on the subject at the time and submitted that future historians would likely have a lot to add to the story and likely provide corrections to the current view with better information. Layton wrote with the benifit of first hand knowledge, and a lifting of secrecy to documents and personal testimony unavailable to Prang. Prang cited Layten numerous times in his work. If Prang refered to Layton somewhat patronizingly as "loyal to Kimble", it must be noted that Prang was a "loyal" member of MacAuthur's staff in Toyko with some of what that entails. It is noteworthy that in that connection both Short and Kimmel recieve some criticism from Prang, but MacAuthur's total failure to be unsurprised in the Japanese attack on his command AFTER the war had begun, goes as unremarked by him as it was in Washington military and political circles. Layton has some interesting observations to make about the infighting and careerism in Washington that bore heavily on the Pearl Harbor attack and the actions taken there in anticipation of war. It is my observartion that a very large number of Americans are self-inflicted victums of the cult of conspiracy, wide spread and otherwise. The processes of that cult make it possible to make accusations in satisfaction of angers, frustrations and a general sense of boredom. It is the of the same genre as that of the hysteria of vigilantism that spreads far beyond the need for law and order. It is convienent. It requires a very uncritical and biased attitude in regards to one's own opinions and the opposite towards those differing. Fear and suspicion provide a lot of the power for the cult along with too often greed as well. It is served by ignorance and prostituted intellectuality. It possesses enough raw basic human motovational characteristics as to capture otherwise honorable and sensable minds and sidetrack them into its grasp. Conspiricies that include large numbers of participants, and often enough small numbers, face nearly impossible odds of success. The nature of its members does not support the absolute and unvarying excellence in secrecy, consistency in character, and execution in concert with avoiding Murphy, necessary to bring off the object of such conspiricies. Just observing the difficulties in bringing off a military operation unsullied by misfortune, where everyone is doing his best within the limitations of his own abilities or the lack thereof shows the difficulty. More or less successful conspericies are generally carried out where a faction or other organized group possesses a death grip power or extreem group cohesiveness with its membership, and even then, the fact of the conspiricy generally is transparent matter for all to see. Unfortunantly those of us who depend so much on the information that is provided by others, too often fall victum to those kinds of sources of erudite and apparantly expert history. The only antidote is to carry the same skepticism that creates some of the succeptibility over to applying it the the conspiricy theorists as well. That too uncommon commodity, common sense is of great assistance along with reserved judgement. I am gratified to see postings here which exemplify common sense, well applied skepticism, and strong reservations toward unsubstantuated and inflamatory conclusions, that relieve the boredom of those, whom one suspects have a need to feel the warmth and strength of being inside the REAL know about matters of which they don't. I remain as ignorant as any as to final *truth* in the matter. I have heard a navel officer serving at the time speculate as to that possibility, but his questions about the were based on scuttlebutt quality information. His questions were genuwine and infected me with a continuing curiosity that remains in me ever alert to information on the subject. Watching the play of accusations, testimony for the defence historical analysis and commentary has left me with a great appreciation of man's need for answers serving many purposes not the least of which is simply to know. In spite of Hisenburg's Theory of Uncertainty, Kurt Godel's proof that ultimately all symbolic systems including the English language and all others not excluding mathimatical systems, must ultimately contain an inherent contridiction, the human beaste still insists that he can know. I heard from childhood that language is incapable of ultimate discriptive capabilities, and that perhaps metaphor is better and more satisfying than the fruitless search for absolute accuracy - that the poet, minstral and ministers of religion have the better of the arguement. I contend that the metaphor of the conspircy theory exists in satisfaction the longing to know for sure at least something in face of the fact of its likely impossibility; in fact the more difficult of possibility, the greater the longing.

Whether Stuka's examples were entirely apt to the point, he made would be moot if one discredits that one individual in Western Civilization, who is credited therein for it's standards of morality; "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at - - -". And, it is not necessary to entirely credit all that is laid at the feet of that one individual to admire the astuteness of a great deal of that which is attributed. I endorse Stuka's position without getting into dots and tittles of his examples. Regardless of their merit, his point holds water for me.

Update: my system will not pick up for play downloaded or created scenarios, when placed in the scenario folder. Scenarios created on my computer works fine on other systems. Problem continues.

Well folks, here we sit, no better than before except having checked out a few negatives and positives. Positive: checks out ok as a battle for sure with Wild Bill; negative: nothing I do here has helped make it work. With a second copy in town on a nice computer setup, I have access to further local testing. Will update as info becomes available. I suspect some grimlin in Bill Gates system of file handling. It would be nice if it proved to be a minute pit in the diskette making the program blind to loading up properly. But, that seems remote.

I live in an area of Texas which has changed from being a largely agriculturally based economy to tourism. A second element of change is retirement. I belong to the latter. My parents retired here in the 60's paying a reasonable price for 137 acres and a house on a ranch that had been broken up. The original settler population was German. The is still spoken here if you listen for it. It was a special environment and still retains a lot of that character, though rapidly being diluted out. I moved here to enjoy that agricultural and cultural life established back more than 150 years ago. Now, when I go to town, I pass a rapidly changing landscape that is filling with the effects of tastlessly spent American money, as wealthy people escape the big cities to enjoy the beauties of the hill country and the "cute", "quaint" and "peaceful country life" they see here. But, so many seem to be unable to leave their Dallas, Houston, etc behing but bring it along. Their huge houses do not nestle among the hills like those beautiful old stone German houses, they go up on top of a hill, breaking the skyline to anounce to all would see, that they have MADE IT BIG and you better know it. At the road side entrances you no longer find the modest and functional gate, but a monument in concrete, stone, to these people's success. It is bad enough that the nation's economy is so unfavorable to family farm and ranch life, that people like my family find a piece of a ranch to buy and live on, but so much worse is that these pieces are being further broken down into smaller bits as developers bring in more and more people. For these new people it is a paradise to them, but to those who developed deep affection to the original agricultural character of the area, it is a disgusting state of affairs. Such irony, the simple rual live that draws them, is destroyed as they flock in. Much of this is capable of being minimised as development could be done with far greater respect for the area's orignal character. It is sort of an insight into how the Amerindians must have felt. As one arrives in town, main street very little serves the local needs. It is devoted mostly to selling trinkets to the tourists that flock in especially on weekends. Not only American tourists, but folks from all over the world show up. There is a substantial reason to visit here with out wiping out mainstreet business to shops selling all manner of items attractive mainly to tourists. But that has generated a secondary attaraction for people to come here to find shopping that they don't find at home. As a resident this popular area of Texas and of the U.S. South, I have had an opportunity to obtain a little insight into the feelings of other peoples as they become recipiants of Yanke invasion. (I avoided saying the American South because that assumptive use of America for just that single country, the U.S.A. rings so unpleasantly arrogrant considering it is just one of three North American countries and just one of many of all of the American nations.) The southern states here still retain here and there definite elements of the cultural differences that separated them from their northern brethern over one hundred and fifty years ago. It seems to me that the largely agriculturally based Southern life and culture versus the manufacuuring and trade culture of the North is very much analogus to differences we find in much of U.S. relations with a lot of other nations. It seems that "those people", who so lustly sang Onward Christian Soldiers and the Battle Hymn of the Republic to prevail in that little difficulty settled in favor of the North, and who began a flow of immagration into the South at the end of the conflict with opportunity beckoning, are unable to halt their movement at the national borders. Nor halt their self rightous convictions concerning their relitave merits compared to the indigionus populations. Does a conquering visitor acquire a habit of attitude? Additonally, as southerners go along to get along with the dominant northern race, they become more like them as of a economical necessity. So, when southerners are called "yankee" by other nationals, they now flinch less. I would propose that the relationship of the invaders from the North to the people of the South 140 years ago, had a lot of characteristics simular to "Americans" and third world countries on through years since. And one of those characteristics was a strong element of hyprocracy. My local Fredericksburg was not a typical Southern community. It was Union in sympathy. The folks felt a loyalty to the national government that prevailed when they arrived here and they had no sympathy those who associated with slavery. Many of them having escaped European lives imbued with the class structures there, did not like to see them reflected in the slavery seen here. Yet, they neither had much interest in the plight of the Negro after the war. I spoke with a decendent, who said they had a relative in police work here some years ago. It seems that Fredericksburg was one those towns whose policy towards blacks following the war was one of "Nigger, don't let the sun set on you in town!" As far as I know there are essentially only two black families here to this date. The Army, whose songs I referenced a few lines back, had units which even shot blacks as opportunity arose to do it without reprocussions. These people credited and resented that the presence of the blacks in the country had been totally responsible for the war. It was also an army in being due somewhat to the political reprecussions of northern people who conducted the anti-slavery movement and the Underground Railroad. It contained those elements as well. So not only was the nation divided north and south; it was also divided within those designations. Beyond a national tendency to hypocracy, the relative wealth of the people of the U.S. enables a lot of tourism by individuals who are not well prepared to interact with other cultures. And a lot of them are conditioned in their ignorance by their glitzy insular lives to look down on others, who have learned to do very well and gracefully with less. I think to the people of my mother's generation a number of whom did live with a great deal less and in rather more primative circumstances without electricity, indoor plumbing, common transportation not much different from Romans 2000 years ago. The change from the lives they lived just that short time ago to now is unprecedented. It has placed in foregn travel numerous folks, who are such a mixture of provencialisms and sophistications, that it is guarenteed that bazarre demonstrations of behavior will occur. Add to that an unprecedented success and influence in world politics, economics, culture, language, communications etc, of which they are aware along with a very large number of failures and competitive shortfalls as well, and there is all it takes for someone to become an obnoxous visitor. It is incredible to my own eyes to have experenced the conversion of my own Texas into a cosmopolitan population. In the 40's and 50's when I was growing up and reaching adulthood folks largely stayed put. War opened up eyes to the rest of the world to a small extent, but folks here remained largely made up of older Texan stock. And those who moved in, assumed Texanhood as rapidly as possible for the most part. The population was Black, Euro-Texan and Euro-newcomer. The Euros were of the dominant English speaking nationalites, a strong representation of other northern Europeans minorities with some southern and eastern countries represented. Then a final large block of Spanish speaking Amerindians and mixed breeds of indigenous and Mexican decent. Grossly it broke down into Whites, Mexicans, and Niggers according to the vernacular of the dominant Euros often refered to as Anglos, since a large chunk of people of European decent were English and Scotch-Irish who were appropriated as Anglish. The other folks of European decent, now English speaking, mainly took up simular views along with the language. Skin color helped in the separation. Beginning before the 60's and particularly during that time a rapid expansion of the population bagan. Racial and national representation that had been in the past isolated curiosities began to become commonplace. Asian peoples began to be seen as war, economics and immagration started to expand the population rather faster than natural increase. The face of Texas is very much different from what it was 50 years ago and continues to change at a rapid pace. I am sure to various degrees it represents the rest of the country and to an extent, some of the rest of the world. The times they are a changing. Anyway, I offer these observations in reflection of peoples and places seen as locals and visitors. The guys who live on the other side of the river just aren't like us, ever. Sometimes to their credit and sometimes not. And sometimes the wart on their face may be a speck of sand in our eye. Given the volumunous human capacity for misunderstanding and umbrage, it is amaising that they get along as well as they do. Could it be that they have other capacities as well, that it is just more intertaining to look at the more spectacular dark side? It helps pass the time until the great leveler of death comes. Every neighborhood, however, small, seems to have its shining stars, its every day folks, and the trailing anuses of bunch; and, sometimes it seems they trade roles for a minute or two. Characteristic national traits may be as often proven by their exceptions. "Americans" so much becoming more a people of the world than of just some parts of it, may be more a mirror of that world than anything else available. If the world looks in and does not like what it sees, then it should consider, why it is that that mirror has grown with such force. Perhaps those forces are indigenous to humanity and are not so particularly "American." If we, here and there, are more civilized and better behaved than others somewhere else, perhaps it is encumbant upon us to gently lead the rest to do better by doing better ourselves, lighting a candle to that purpose rather than cursing the darkness. As anyone slogging through this diatribe can observe, I have overly endevored to contribute to the net sum of mass misunderstanding and ignorance via a personal point of view. Perhaps if we encompass a large enough mass of such views and misunderstandings, the average of it all will amount to something useful. I know I do enjoy reading and appreciating the various views expressed in these threads off topic as well as on. If I am so shortsighted as to fail to see any wisdom, where it is amply plain to others, at least it needles me into attempting a statement of my own views to stand in better clearity and more readily available to be knocked and chipped at into something better. At least I hope.

Thanx fellows, I reinstalled and it is still inoperative. I am going to send it zipped and e-mail attached to Wild Bill as per his offer. Oh, and I did up another test scenario and no difference. This time I was more exacting in watching the save destinations etc. Maybe I am just missing some little simple step here, being prone to dumb things like leaving out a dot in e-mail addresses and the like. But, it seems that the editor interface is so simple and straight forward that it can handle all manner of clumsiness.