Atari XL Spartados X Lwpath Environment Variable, Spartados X Memory Configurations, USE Banked

The Last Word 3.0 Reference Manual

OFF” at the SDX command prompt before loading the program. You could write a batch file as follows:

KEY OFF

XLW.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.

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