Thanks for the input...
It happens on any PHP version and the current one is set to 5.x
It's like the display (code view) rewrites wonky changes while the visual mode still respects the correct prior code. Also, that cut n paste where the code showed as truncated and changed but the Cut code when re-pasted still looked good.
This does not happen on the PC and I will retest on another PowerMac but this time a M1 version rather than my M2.
Thanks again for the reply