diff --git a/CHANGES b/CHANGES
index 4f8e8bc090..a1b85c6e3c 100644
--- a/CHANGES
+++ b/CHANGES
@@ -5,6 +5,18 @@
 
  Changes between 0.9.1c and 0.9.2
 
+  *) Add a useful kludge to allow package maintainers to specify compiler and
+     other platforms details on the command line without having to patch the
+     Configure script everytime: One now can use ``perl Configure
+     <id>:<details>'', i.e. platform ids are allowed to have details appended
+     to them (seperated by colons). This is treated as there would be a static
+     pre-configured entry in Configure's %table under key <id> with value
+     <details> and ``perl Configure <id>'' is called.  So, when you want to
+     perform a quick test-compile under FreeBSD 3.1 with pgcc and without
+     assembler stuff you can use ``perl Configure "FreeBSD-elf:pgcc:-O6:::"''
+     now, which overrides the FreeBSD-elf entry on-the-fly.
+     [Ralf S. Engelschall]
+
   *) Disable new TLS1 ciphersuites by default: they aren't official yet.
      [Ben Laurie]
 
diff --git a/Configure b/Configure
index f9f92c34ee..70b979b4c9 100755
--- a/Configure
+++ b/Configure
@@ -298,6 +298,10 @@ foreach (@ARGV)
 			die "unknown options, only -Dxxx, -Lxxx, -lxxx, -fxxx and -Kxxx are supported\n";
 			}
 		}
+	elsif ($_ =~ /^([^:]+):(.+)$/) {
+		eval "\$table{\$1} = \"$2\""; # allow $xxx constructs in the string
+		$target=$1;
+	}
 	else
 		{
 		die "target already defined - $target\n" if ($target ne "");