Msg: Beware TameDOS 5.0

In my continuing CLIP conundrum, it occured to me that if timing issues are involved then TameDOS might have something to do with it. So I foolishly installed the new version of TameDOS, 5.0.

This was unwise, to put it mildly. It changed the default font and substituted a different Properties menu (no Font) from the one I used to right-click on the "DOS" window. It also undid its previous cure for the Thesaurus problem in which the arrow keys are disabled. In what's likely a related problem, pressing the arrow keys once in a XY file moved the cursor; holding them down gave strings of numbers (2, 4, 6 or 8). And just as a bonus, it brought a huge cursor lag to Windows programs (specifically Yahoo mail under Firefox).

I went back to TameDOS 4.5e, which came up with configuration errors until I manually removed a C:\Program Files\Tame folder that 5.0 had left behind. But something has changed: now the arrow keys work in Thesaurus ! the first time XY4 is open, but not if it's closed and reopened in the same Windows session. NumLock has to be on for the arrows to work; the old solution of toggling it a few times no longer works.

I've asked David Thomas at TameDOS for a remedy, and I will share his reply.

The experience of course only reinforces the proverbial: If it ain't broke....

Jon Pareles