Stan,
  Thanks!  When I first read your reply, I was a little disappointed.  Here I
ask for help and he goes off talking about Pascal's Input and Output.  But I
tore them out and put in spout and cousins in and voila, it solved the problem.
"Curiouser and curiouser," said I.  So here's my present take on the situation:
I know that Pascal file handles take up a lot of space.  There has to be space
for the file num, of course, and probably some status info, but there's also
space for the file buffer.  Well that got reserved and the bottom of the
available memory.  However, since this was a subprogram, it overlapped with
working-storage in the COBOL program.  However, when I added the DISPLAY to
the COBOL program, it included a bunch (200 bytes) of space which it used
internally.  That was enough to get the working-storage up above where Pascal
thought input and output were and we were ok.  Anywho.

Thanks again,
Ted
--
Ted Ashton ([log in to unmask]), Info Serv, Southern Adventist University
          ==========================================================
In the company of friends, writers can discuss their books, economists the
state of the economy, lawyers their latest cases, and businessmen their
latest acquisitions, but mathematicians cannot discuss their mathematics at
all. And the more profound their work, the less understandable it is.
                                        -- Adler, Alfred