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From: csbrod@medusa.informatik.uni-erlangen.de (Claus Brod )
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st.tech
Subject: Re: environment in desktop
Message-ID: <3285@medusa.informatik.uni-erlangen.de>
Date: 28 Nov 90 09:03:36 GMT
References: <1070@nikhefh.nikhef.nl>
Organization: CSD, University of Erlangen, W-Germany
Lines: 31

t68@nikhefh.nikhef.nl (Jos Vermaseren) writes:

>is there an official legal Atari sanctioned way to add variables
>to the environment of the desktop? The only way I can come up
>with is a terrible hack that leaves a little resident job with
>the new string. It has to look amoung its ancestors for which one
>is the desktop and then modify its pointer to the environment.
>If this is the `official' way I would like to know that too,
>but it is quite thinkable that there are already better ways.

There seems to be no official way to extend the system environment.
You _could_ do it this way: Place some program in your AUTO folder
that links into the exec_os vector. Wait for someone to jump thru
the vector (that is, wait for AES to come up). In this moment,
patch the environment as desired or install a new one.

Unfortunately, this method has been discouraged by ATARI systems
programmer Allan Pratt at the last ATARI Messe in Duesseldorf.
Exec_os seems to be no longer a documented system variable. So
if you do this, it's your own problem if it won't work in upcoming
TOS versions. This is a pity because exec_os is such an extremely
useful system variable, but well... 

Maybe Mr Pratt has some better (and official) solution for this?


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Claus Brod, Am Felsenkeller 2,			Things. Take. Time.
D-8772 Marktheidenfeld, West Germany		(Piet Hein)
csbrod@medusa.informatik.uni-erlangen.de
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