>   :say < rhyme
>   Mary had a little lamb
>   its fleece was white as snow
>   and everywhere that Mary went
>   the lamb was sure to go
>
>   :help say
>   User-defined command:
>
>   setvar n finfo(hpstdin,"eof")
>   while setvar(n,n-1) >=0
>      setvar buf input()
>      echo !buf
>   endwhile

I read through the message file and the print file idea, and this one
appears to be the best of the 3. I don't want to create any more files
then I have to (message file), and the cpu overhead on the print
command would hurt. Using the 'input()' command has little cpu
overhead, as that I can see. The one thing that hurts is that
'input()' command isn't documented in the Command Reference Manual,
just 'input'...

Some comments on your code, concerning MPE 4.0:

* I had to use "setvar n finfo('filename',19)". Differences in MPE
versions?

* I couldn't do an 'if' condition on a 'setvar' on the same line. I
had to:

setvar aba(str('!buf',15,8))
if aba = '07200032'

Is there a way to get this down to one line, in MPE 4.0?

Thanks much to everyone who contributed to this! As there's only one
HP3000 resource in our section (918RX), there isn't much bantering
going on over the cube walls... :)

Steve B.