>I am mostly with Dragan, as _cliptext functionality exceeds normal variables.
>So what is a "system variable" ? Something to read or write to the OS.
>Help says about _cliptext:"Specifies the character expression to store in the Clipboard"
>
>Uncertain if implementing read/write functions would have sidestepped current errors,
>but _cliptext felt like a shortcut with no real reason to me.

Frankly, as with other OS calls, use sparingly. In case of clipboard, I prefer to call it only once, i.e. do everything to a local variable, and then when I'm done with it, copy it to _cliptext.

I've had similar cases with other system calls, like erase file - which is just a wrapper for the filesystem function, which is then executed... a bit later. So in the next step I try to create a new version of that file and bang, file still exists. Or, open a file for something, close it, try to erase - bang, still not closed, I was too fast. Will close a few milliseconds later, when the OS finishes doing other stuff.

So my rule of pinky is to not call OS stuff in a fast loop, but rather when I get out of it.