John, Andy,
First let me thank you both for the response. John you have never seen me rant and before I ever posted here I tried all of those suggestions and yes I read the manual before that too. Like I said I am not new to programming as I am a retired electrical engineer.. or to be more precise a computer engineer as they call them these days.
Andy please forgive me but I a a bit slow where white space is concerned and I will reread that section of the book again you can be sure.
I will retry all of the suggestions you guys have put forth and then if they still dont work I will reinstall the entire python/pyscripter setup..
thanks again
M