exit panic: Abort trap

[Vic Hanby]

I'm running MacOsX 10.5.8 and I've been using the executables from the  
hpc website for some time. I recently obtained version 3.6.3 via  
macports which seemed to install smoothly. But every time I 'exit' I  
get the following

octave:1> exit
panic: Abort trap -- stopping myself...
attempting to save variables to `octave-core'...
save to `octave-core' complete
Abort trap

'cat octave-core' gives

Octave-1-.nargin.?scalar

.octave_hist only seems to accept commands from runs of the old  
version. Its permissions are

-rw-r--r--   1 vhanby  staff  20189 27 Nov 15:19 .octave_hist

Sorry to appear clueless, but any suggestions would be welcome. Octave  
3.6.3 seems to work OK but this makes me a bit nervous.

Vic

Professor V I Hanby
Institute of Energy and Sustainable Development
De Montfort University
Leicester LE1 9BH, UK
0116 257 7980