thanks, everyone, for your suggestions. after going through an exhaustive workup of changing the fuell filter, spark plugs, swapping wires, coil, relay, fuse, ii finally pulled out an injector and found it was not spraying very much, if at all. having seen an earlier post by somebody, i thought of checking on the in-tank pump, to see if the sock was clogged. it was not, but the little hose connecting the pump to the pickup tube had come off. (my bad, i replaced that pump maybe a year ago and used wire ties to secure it to the sending unit body. silly me!) so i applied some proper hose clamps and resecured the tube, and she started right up. thanks everyone!