[ESS] Getting SAS to start

[Richard M. Heiberger]

I would have tried a soft link

cd ~/bin
ln -s /usr/local/SAS/SAS_9.1/sas sas


I don't see an obvious reason why your version didn't work.
Unless the redirections didn't carry forward---which might be the reason:

Try 
     /usr/local/SAS/SAS_9.1/sas $@