--- gforth/prim	2008/10/09 16:30:56	1.237
+++ gforth/prim	2009/05/12 16:54:58	1.242
@@ -1662,7 +1662,11 @@ ucols=cols;
 
 wcwidth	( u -- n )	gforth
 ""The number of fixed-width characters per unicode character u""
+#ifdef HAVE_WCWIDTH
 n = wcwidth(u);
+#else
+n = 1;
+#endif
 
 flush-icache	( c_addr u -- )	gforth	flush_icache
 ""Make sure that the instruction cache of the processor (if there is
@@ -1694,6 +1698,7 @@ c_addr2 = (Char *)getenv(cstr(c_addr1,u1
 u2 = (c_addr2 == NULL ? 0 : strlen((char *)c_addr2));
 
 open-pipe	( c_addr u wfam -- wfileid wior )	gforth	open_pipe
+fflush(stdout);
 wfileid=(Cell)popen(cstr(c_addr,u,1),pfileattr[wfam]); /* ~ expansion of 1st arg? */
 wior = IOR(wfileid==0); /* !! the man page says that errno is not set reliably */
 
@@ -2145,6 +2150,7 @@ int flag;
 int decpt;
 sig=ecvt(r, u, &decpt, &flag);
 n=(r==0. ? 1 : decpt);
+flag=signbit(r); /* not all ecvt()s do this as desired */
 f1=FLAG(flag!=0);
 f2=FLAG(isdigit((unsigned)(sig[0]))!=0);
 siglen=strlen((char *)sig);