🚀 go-pugleaf

I have just installed perl4.035 on my Amiga. The interpreter itself seems 
to be reasonably happy, but I can't get any back-quoted commands to work
    e.g. $var=`who`;
 
The installation instructions are very specific about providing assignments 
for USR: BIN: DEV: TMP:, but not at all clear on what (if anything) I need
to move into them. It also mentions installing IXPIPE: which I think I have
done, although the documentation on this is not in fact part of the package
(the README.amiga claims it is).
 
Question: is the backquote capability of the interpreter entirely absent
from the Amiga port, (e.g. I know that fork() isnt supported) or
have I failed to perform some important installation step?
 
I would appreciate email contact with anyone who actually uses this version 
of perl.
 
Thanks.
 
PS - is there a more recent port? 
 
brian@clrlight.demon.co.uk