HAHA.. better than me I suppose..
I 'play' both hardware and software guy! LOL 
What I need is PaulS to rip it apart and tell us (and when I say 'us', I mean,.. me) why that putstring_nl() line makes things 'work'.. and commenting it out breaks it.
(but I dont know if Im 'up' for all the other critique on the rest of the code....... better be in good shape and have your i's dotted and t's crossed if PaulS is gonna peek at it!!)) 