[Coco] DECB DOS Command

[Gene Heskett]

On Saturday 13 December 2003 22:14, jdaggett at gate.net wrote:
>Gene
>
>From what I have been able to determine there are three OS9 modules
> that are stored in track 34. REL, BOOT and OS9p1.
>
>DECB loads track 34 into ram and executes. IF it sucsessfully loads
> in the right 4608 bytes then the OS9 boot process can begin.
> Otherwise it fails and ends in an endless loop. REL is the
> relocator code that eventially calls OS9p1. BOOT is called from
> OS9p1 and contains the init table and loads the rest of the files
> needed into ram. OS9p1 passes control over to OS9p2 and then to
> CLock and then to CC3go. Then OS9 is ready to rock and roll.

Actually, IIRC its either init or cc3go that calls the clock the first 
time and gets it started.  Without a running clock module, there is 
no multitasking.

>The module BOOT is system specific. It can be tailored to for
> floppy, IDE or SCSI drives. Probalby even a multimeadia card or
> flash.
>
>I am wondering if all the necessary code be loaded into a rom, have
> the Rom COde create a ram drive and move all necessary code into
> the ramdrive and then deactivate the internal rom. Then OS9 boots
> from a ram drive as default.

No legit reason why not.

>I was looking at some of the OS9 source code and it seems as if the
> boot process is somewhat flexible and tailorable.

Yes, given access to it, it can be customized quite easily.  The 
biggest problem with heavy duty mods to boot is that it gets too big, 
there is relatively little growing room in that 4608 bytes.

[...]

-- 
Cheers, Gene
AMD K6-III at 500mhz 320M
Athlon1600XP at 1400mhz  512M
99.22% setiathome rank, not too shabby for a WV hillbilly
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by Gene Heskett are:
Copyright 2003 by Maurice Eugene Heskett, all rights reserved.