Hello, James,
As I understand it, the engine ecu responds to the distributor Hall sensor and crank sensor, and operates the h.t. coil. The crank sensor is a common failure, without it the ecu doesn't seem to regard the engine as rotating. I thought it doesn't inject fuel in this situation, but I'm not sure if it won't spark either.
There's a method I've used for checking the crank sensor, though. Are you aware of what's sometimes called the digital tachometer, part of a hidden section of the instrument cluster? See a topic here, tailed atm by my earliest post, titled 'hacking the Mfa'