Tabs (yikes)

["Tony Vitonis" <vitonis@comcast.deletethis.net>]

Hi.  I'm a newbie having a tough time getting tabs to work the way I
want in Emacs.  (From the searches I've done, I'm not alone in this
regard. :))

My problem is this: In text mode, I want the Tab key to move to the
next default-tab-width stop, no matter what the context.  I've been
able to do it with these options:

   (define-key text-mode-map [tab] 'tab-to-tab-stop)
   (setq tab-stop-list '(3 6 9 12 15 18 21 24 27 30 33 36 39 42 45 48
51 54 57 60 63 66 69 72 75 78))

But I can *not* seem to find a way to make it happen using my
default-tab-width, which I've specified this way:

   (setq default-tab-width 3)

Is there any way to make this happen without typing in the long dreary
list of tab stops?  Thanks very much.