notes@pur-ee.UUCP (11/19/83)
#N:isrnix:9500012:000:1016 isrnix!akp Nov 18 22:41:00 1983 I am reposting this, in the hopes of getting some response. I got NONE the first time. Has anybody else even NOTICED this stuff? ---------- ***** isrnix:net.micro.pc / akp / 6:49 pm Oct 30, 1983 I flipped through the IBM BASIC (Microsoft Basic) release 2.0 manual, and came across the following "reserved words" which are not mentioned anywhere but in the list of reserved words: ENVIRON and ENVIRON$ ERDEV and ERDEV$ INTER$, IOCTL, IOCTL$ KEY$ SHELL *** (these are not even in the Index...) I tried SHELL, and ZAP! I had forked a shell! I could execute commands or whatever. I typed EXIT because that gets out of a DOS subshell, and it returned to BASIC! Problem: my program vanished. No real useful, except to save the time it takes to load BASIC from disk. Does anybody know what all this is about? I couldn't PRINT or assign ENVIRON or ENVIRON$ without a SYNTAX ERROR, and I really haven't tried the rest. Any help out there? -- Allan Pratt ...decvax!pur-ee!iuvax!isrnix!akp ----------
jph@whuxle.UUCP (12/03/83)
#R:isrnix:9500012:whuxle:22700006:000:660 whuxle!jph Nov 19 11:20:00 1983 ENVIRON "name=(parameter)" This command apparently functions the same as the SET command used at the DOS level. See page 10-21 of your DOS 2.0 guide SHELL "dos command" The command apparently executes the DOS command contained within the quotes, keeping BASIC resident. The cursor is returned to the position where it was prior to executing the command. If used by itself (no arguments) will take you to the DOS shell. To return from the DOS shell, you only have to type EXIT. IOCTL channel#,"argument" This function is used to sommunicate with device drivers that use the IOCTL function. The only reference to IOCTL is on page 14-6 of the DOS 2.0 guide.