I believe that you will find (sb-kernel:charpos) to return 2 in this case (the "* " prompt), and there is no intervening newline to reset the position. (format t "~%~3tXXX~%~36YYY~%") should print something more to your liking (though with an additional linefeed).
I believe that you will find (sb-kernel:charpos) to return 2 in this case (the "* " prompt), and there is no intervening newline to reset the position. (format t "~%~3tXXX~ %~36YYY~ %") should print something more to your liking (though with an additional linefeed).