Hello, Herbert

Well obviously you're right, and yet.....

If you've never had the experience of getting a different reaction from your PC to an identical input, you're a lucky man.

It happens in ways that doesn't contradict your point in logic, but confirms my experience. One example would be where the PC caches info re a website that later interferes with a new visit. You need to clear the cache. I wondered whether a similar effect might enter (in this case positively) into the scenario Mark proposed. I.e. maybe the PC wouldn't, in your word, simply 'calculate' but might partly 'have to hand'. My variant (which is actually truer to practical use) probably would force it to calculate, and it might come up with a different result.

Hypothetically, that may already be happening within the conversion of a single file. As I pointed out in an earlier post, it seems to be the case that a given midi rhythm pattern may be notated differently by Composer at different points in the same score.

Sincerely

Ian G.