> Judging from the two printk2 statements, they each pick every other value, so the k-data written by tabrec would be interleaved?

yes, here is another example with a phone-matrix:

test.txt:

0
1 2 3
4 5 6
7 8 9

with

instr 1
k1 init 0
k2 init 0
k3 init 0
tabplay 1, 3, 1, k1, k2, k3
printk2 k1
printk2 k2
printk2 k3
endin

we get

 i1     1.00000
 i1     2.00000
 i1     3.00000
 i1     4.00000
 i1     5.00000
 i1     6.00000
 i1     7.00000
 i1     8.00000
 i1     9.00000
 i1     1.00000
 i1     2.00000
 i1     3.00000
 i1     4.00000
 i1     5.00000
 i1     6.00000
 i1     7.00000
 i1     8.00000
 i1     9.00000
...

tito