The scrtipt run on the host XP system...
I just discovered that KiXtart is reporting the full host name as:
CALLA not as expected CALLA.ucdavis.edu

The domain name is missing and that is causing the error I believe because I parce it with
$nlet=Instr($fhname,".")-1 ;find length of first part.
Substr($fhname,1,$nlet) to define the short host name.
I don't see how to configure the XP system to report the domain yet. It using DHCP like all other Win98. Except in Win98 there is a place to define the domain.

Thanks for your comments. They help a lot.