Atari XL Personal Computer User Manual


 
The Last Word 3.0 Reference Manual
8-55
running LW under an unsupported DOS, you MUST create a custom LW.SYS file
containing the following line:
BANKED ON
Since LW can’t differentiate between used and free banks when running under an
unsupported DOS, the internal list it builds when it first starts up is of ALL the extended
memory banks present on the system. Therefore, if you wish to configure LW to use
only specific banks of extended memory while co-existing with any installed RAMdisks
or other parts of DOS residing in extended RAM, you must first know which banks of
RAM are used by the operating system and specify only UNUSED banks after the
“BANKS” statement.
Examples:
BANKED ON
BANKS 1,2,3,4
The above LW.SYS file used with an unsupported DOS on a 128K machine will cause
LW to allocate three extended text banks, a 19K main text bank, and a single extended
bank for its macro/paste/directory buffer.
BANKED ON
BANKS 5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12
RESERVE 1
In the above example, assuming LW is running on a 320K machine under an
unsupported DOS which is using the lowest four banks of extended memory as a
RAMdisk, LW will allocate one bank for its macro/paste/directory buffer, six banks for
extended text buffers, and reserve a single bank for use by extensions. It will do this
while avoiding the lowest four banks of extended RAM (those in use by the operating
system’s RAMdisk, and having the banking values $23, $27, $2C, $2F).
Clearly when using unsupported RAMdisks with LW, careful planning is required.
However, when using an unsupported DOS with no RAMdisks or other components
residing in extended memory, it’s safe to have an LW.SYS consisting of just a
“BANKED ON” instruction. This will simply cause LW to use as many banks as it
needs (up to a maximum of 16), yielding up to ten text banks. If there aren’t 16 banks
fitted to the system, LW will simply use as many as it can find.
8.3.3 THE SEARCH PATH
The search path allows you to access LW’s config, macro, printer driver and font files
from specified drives/paths on the system without typing the pathnames every time
you load the files.
PATH D8:;D1:>LW
This line in a config file will cause LW to first search the current directory of drive 8
followed by the folder “LW” on drive 1 when loading fonts, macros, printer drivers and
config files, when no other path has been supplied. Note that if the file is not found by
searching the specified paths, the default drive will ALWAYS be searched last. Note
also that LW’s default drive is not necessarily the same as DOS’s default drive (usually
“D:”). LW’s default drive specifier is the same as the disk menu drive number and is
prepended to all filenames for which no device identifier has been explicitly provided. If