Environment Variables

HOME User home directory.

KEYBOARD nu/TPU keyboard driver to be used.

SHELL Shell to be forked during SPAWN.

TERM Terminfo/termcap terminal device.

TPU_DEFAULTS_FILE Location of startup defaults file.

TPU_HOME Location of nu/TPU directory tree.

Which environment variables are necessary is dependent upon the installation process and platform. DOS requires TERM, and also TPU_HOME if nu/TPU isn’t installed in the C:\nu_tpu directory. UNIX requires TERM, and also TPU_HOME if not installed in /usr/local.

Although only one or two environment variables are necessary for nu/TPU to work, you may want to review all of them in case the need arises for some minor modification which could quickly be facilitated through the use of environment variables.

HOME

The HOME variable tells nu/TPU where the user’s home directory is located on the system. The HOME environment variable is used only on UNIX systems. The value of the HOME variable will be used in the process of locating the nu/TPU defaults file and as the text string for file specifications using the tilde (~) character.

KEYBOARD

The KEYBOARD variable tells nu/TPU which keyboard driver to use. nu/TPU must have the correct keyboard driver active for editing keys to be assigned properly. a/Soft’s preconfigured keyboard drivers are located in the nu_tpu/dev directory. The KEYBOARD variable will override the KEYBOARD settings in nu/TPU defaults files.

SHELL

The SHELL variable tells nu/TPU what operation is used with the SPAWN command. An example of this would be using an alternative command processor utility to house all SPAWNed operations. A DOS example would be:

SHELL=TEMP\COMMAND

Don’t confuse the SHELL environment variable with the si SHELL command.

TERM

The TERM variable tells the UNIX and DOS character-cell version of nu/TPU what terminal it is running on. This variable is normally set by the system administrator during installation and never needs to be reset. If and when it does, consult your hardware documentation to determine what type of terminal you’re using.

nu/TPU uses the TERM variable to determine which screen update method to use.

Valid TERM setting for DOS include:

IBM-PC Default

EGA-PC Uses 43 line display mode.

BIOS-PC Uses only bios calls for screen output.

ANSI-PC Uses the ANSI.SYS driver for screen output.

VGA-PC Uses VGA display mode.

For UNIX systems, the TERM variable may be set to any valid TERMINFO screen device.

TPU_DEFAULTS_FILE

The TPU_DEFAULTS_FILE variable tells nu/TPU where to perform its initial search for the nu/TPU defaults file. If TPU_DEFAULTS_FILE is not specified, nu/TPU looks first in the user’s home directory then in the TPU_HOME/nu_tpu directory.

TPU_HOME

The TPU_HOME variable tells nu/TPU the starting point in the directory tree to find its supporting directories and files.

For UNIX systems, TPU_HOME should match the directory path up to the nu_tpu directory. The default location is /usr/local. During the installation process, any valid directory specification can be used to override the default.

On DOS systems, TPU_HOME should match the directory path up to the nu_tpu directory. The default location is C:\nu_tpu, and this may be changed by the user during installation.

If the nu_tpu directory structure is moved to a new location, the change must be reflected in the TPU_HOME variable.