$^E was reset on the second read, and contained ".\r\n" at the end.
after 5.005_53:
+ Would segfault system()ing non-existing program;
+ AOUT build was hosed;
warning-test for getpriority() might lock the system hard on
pre-fixpak22 configuration (calling getpriority() on
non-existing process triggers a system-wide bug).