Well, when text is sent to the screen, the x's line are displayed above and the diff text below.
Then it just sits there with a blank line until the next diff file is displayed at which time any x's that have accumulated display as well (in a line as they should) and the diff text below.
Perhaps another cup of coffee should do the trick.
When I get to the office, I'll try your suggestion and FYI, this script is run on an WinXP machine running the latest ActiveState Perl release and the "screen" I'm referring to is the command prompt.
Adam