Blank page on redefinition of function, behavior of function depends on where in the system one places it

On defining the ajaxtable user-supplied function in the examples directly in a content page as php code and previewing, one gets blank screen. This somehow depends on the ajaxtable_docs module. When ajaxtable_docs is deactivated and the function is entered into the page content, the example displays primarily ok, but the functions "sort" and "goto page" result in empty tables. Same problem occurs when I define the function in the theme's template.php

(Drupal 5.5, Apache 2.0.59, php 5.1.6, MySQL 5.0.45, win xp)