>But I'm curious-- does
>anyone know what FB or the compiled app _thought_ it was doing when it
>encountered that single dot?

Referencing space in the master pointer block. I sure hope you were 
*reading* from that variable, not writing to it.

If you were writing to it, the fact that your app didn't crash horribly 
every time you drew breath is sheer luck. The master pointer table is 
what keeps track of *all* dynamically allocated memory - everything from 
resources and windows to arrays and code chunks. Everything but global 
variables, in fact.

-Mars