Ok, thanks Krispy -- but I guess OFFSET is more difficult to understand than I thought. I don't see where that routine gets its keyboard input, for one thing. The other thing is, it won't load, but says it does; system will not respond to the defined name OR the name it inexplicably says the routine was loaded to respond to:
Command: ap
APPLOAD AutoDesk OFF.lsp successfully loaded.
Command: myoffset
Unknown command "MYOFFSET". Press F1 for help.
Command: off
Unknown command "OFF". Press F1 for help.
... so then I type OFFSET, and the built-in thing turns out to still be available, but the idea is to make a simple half-offset and double-offset.
Can anyone tell me why this thing won't load (or just write a half-offset, since AutoLISP is looking more opaque than even I gave it credit for)???