I was about to reinstall to include desktop environment and capture the exceptions but figured to upgrade the system first. The kernel image that downloaded on 13 december 2010 had other ideas though. When I rebooted, it rendered the computer non-verbal. So I put the installation disk in the drive and tried rebooting and getting speakup to come up and found out that was also a non-verbal situation. Fortunately I use drive sleds around here and have a back out sled with slackware on it otherwise I'd not be able to write this message now.