thinking cap

[--Pete]

Hi,

Whenever you enter a new level, the current level is stored away in a compressed form somewhere else and the new level is initialized . . . (emphasis mine)

That was my error. I was under the mistaken impression that the initialization of the level occurred when the game was started and the results of that initialization where stored away. Having it re-occur each time a level is *entered* explains why visiting other levels eventually "randomizes" the effects.

Thanks,

--Pete

Aside to Van. Null and zero are indeed different. In principle null means (none, empty, etc.) However, a memory location must contain some bit pattern. So, for instance, when a pointer is allocated as pointing to "null", it does not mean that it points nowhere (a literal implementation of the mathematical "null"). The pointer points to whatever location happens to be the address of the bit patter that resides in it's allocated storage. Now, this may be a valid location, it may be a "hole" in memory, it might be some ROM, or it might be something used by a memory mapped I/O device.

When a copy or move operation is performed, the contents of registers assigned to pointers that are pointing to "null" are copied. Whatever random information was in those locations before the copy/move will be in the image locations after. "Nulls" are moved just like everything else.

So, in a real sense, "null" in computers is more like "unknown" than like "nothing".

BTW, my commiseration to your wife, sounds like she's got two "children" to raise ;)

--Pete