Date: Thursday, 17 November 1988  14:37-MST
From: SAC.96BMW-LGSPP at E.ISI.EDU
To:   INFO-MICRO
Re:   ENVIRON statement in GW-BASIC

   While trying to use the ENVIRON statement in a GW-BASIC program that
I was going to compile, I noticed some problems...2 to be exact:
 
Problem #1...Environment space kept running out...

  Solution:   Set up an environment dummy variable, and set it to
  30 or so bytes, i.e. SET junk=123456789012345678901234567890 before
  calling your program, and set it to 0 bytes in the program..
  This is because Compiled BASIC will only reserve an exact copy of
  the DOS environment if you are using the SHELL command..So you must
  not use more memory in the child DOS than existed in the DOS you called
  the program from.

Problem #2...ENVIRON is CASE-SENSITIVE the first time you use it...
   Weird, but true...If you want to change a DOS var...Use CAPITAL
   letters everytime...to avoid possible problems..
   i.e. ENVIRON "PROMPT=$p$g"
  
Hope I helped someone out there....    :)
+-----------------+-------------------------------------------------+
|   _ __   (TFM)  | Richard A. Gautier, Airman First Class, USAF    |
|  ' )  )      /  | ARPA: SAC.96BMW-LGSPP@e.isi.edu                 |
|   /--' o _. /_  | Work: 915-696-4946  Play: 915-695-3406          |
|  /  \_<_(__/ /_ | Programmers never die, they just get debugged!  |
+-----------------+-------------------------------------------------+