Atari XL Personal Computer User Manual


 
The Last Word 3.0 Reference Manual
9-63
OFF” at the SDX command prompt before loading the program. You could write a
batch file as follows:
KEY OFF
X LW.EXE
KEY ON
The above will ensure the SDX key buffer is off, run LW, then turn the key buffer on
again.
9.6.1 THE SPARTADOS X LWPATH” ENVIRONMENT VARIABLE
SpartaDOS X users may be familiar with that operating system’s PATH environment
variable. LW has its own path, and under SpartaDOS X this path is defined using the
LWPATH environment variable. LWPATH can contain multiple paths, just like the SDX
PATH, is this path is searched every time an LW system file is loaded unless a
different path is explicitly provided by the user. This means LW fonts, macros, printer
drivers, etc, can all be stored in the same folder and accessed without typing any path
names or drive identifiers. To set up the LWPATH variable, you would include a line
similar to the following in your CONFIG.SYS:
SET LWPATH=D8:;D1:\LW
This will cause LW to first search the current directory of drive 8 followed by the folder
LW” on drive 1 when loading fonts, macros, etc, when no other path has been
supplied. Note that if the file is not found by searching the paths in LWPATH, 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 for any reason you want to ensure
that the default DOS drive is searched, include “D:” (without quotes) as an entry in
LWPATH.
Another point to note about the search path is that since it is also part of the config
(CFG) file, it’s possible that the path defined via a PATH command in LW.CFG might
immediately overwrite the path defined via the LWPATH environment variable when
LW loads. Careful synchronisation of configuration files is clearly required. If you want
to make sure only the path in LWPATH is used, remove all PATH lines from you CFG
files.
9.6.2 SPARTADOS X MEMORY CONFIGURATIONS
LW 3.0 requires that SpartaDOS X is using “BANKED” memory. This is because the
program loads under the operating system (making a “USE OSRAM” configuration
unusable), and if SpartaDOS X uses conventional (LOW) memory, MEMLO will be too
high for LW to load. So, unless you have more than 128K fitted to your machine, you
must boot SDX with a CONFIG.SYS which contains the following line:
USE BANKED
If your Atari has more than 128K, SDX will automatically use BANKED RAM unless
you tell it otherwise.