[Coco] NitrOS-9 newbie needs some help

[Willard Goosey]

>From: Nickolas Marentes <NickM at qm.qld.gov.au>
>Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2004 13:07:33 +1000 

>This leads me to the present. My next idea is to try and replace the RAMS in
>my 512K upgrade (I have a 2 x 256Mb SIMM type upgrade) with another
>brand...if I can find some.

I've got a 512K SIMM upgrade, too.  Never had a problem.

>1) Why should NitrOS-9 be so fussy? I have NEVER had a problem with
>1) my CoCo3

OS-9 pushes the hardware pretty hard (NitrOS-9 pushes harder), in
different ways from the (beautiful, fast, rockin') games you've turned
out..  And the hardware is, after all, nearly 20 years old.

Your formatting problems might be a sign of this. For instance, the
old, slow OS-9 gave floppy drives 30ms to do a seek.  NitrOS-9?  6ms.
If you're unlucky you may have a floppy drive that's just too tired to
deal.

>(A PAL unit mind you, could this be the problem?). 

As someone already said, yep, especially if you're on 50Hz power.
>
>2) Other than the formatting, NitrOS-9 otherwise behaved
>perfectly. Is there a GUI available for it? [..] I know of MultiVue
>but I shudder at trying to run that again.

On a hard drive, MultiVue isn't too bad.  It's not the greatest GUI
ever seen, but it's not bad.  


>4) Have there been any new (well, newer than 1992) applications written for
>OS-9/NitrOS-9? 

Check on RTSI.  There weren't a lot of major OS-9 apps.
>
>Boisy and everyone else involved have done a marvalous job with
>NitrOS-9. 

Gotta agree.

>I guess I'm looking at it all from a newbie/outsider
>perspective. NitrOS-9 could do with a bit of "glitz". This would come
>in the form of a GUI front end and updated applications. 

Well, about the only parts of Multivue that don't have freely
available patchs/replacements for are control, and the demo apps.
There's a couple of different gshells (the GUI front end itself) to
choose from.

>Sure, I'd like to develop for it but it's taken me over 15 years to
>get this far. I hate having to battle with the OS.  The OS should be
>a tool towards creating other applications.

The downside of running an OS in active development itself... ;-)

>So far, OS-9 has been like a bent screwdriver with me spending more
>time trying to get the bends out that actually fixing the job at
>hand.
>
And if you want to do real development on it, you need the rest of the
toolbox.  (C, the dev system, etc).

>NitrOS-9 certainly has fixed many of the problems of the original CoCo3
>OS-9.

I have to admit, the NitrOS-9 distribution is geared towards those of
us that already have OS-9, already know it, and already have all the
other pieces.  And even then, Boisy manages to throw us a few curve
balls. 
>
>I'me determined to get it right this time. I've spent a week on it so far.
>I'll give it another week...before giving up again.
>
Rather than wait for Boisy and friends to get their updated docs
online, I recommend tracking down copies of the regular OS-9 docs,
either on-line or on paper.  So far, Boisy's changes have mostly been
either cosmetic (command-line option changes) or hidden internally
(bug fixes, speedups).  OS-9 is a pretty complicated thing, with
a different design concept than you may be used to.  

And, if you can afford it, go with a hard drive.  OS-9 (of any
version) is SO much happier with a hard drive.

>Nickolas Marentes

Willard
-- 
Willard Goosey  goosey at sdc.org
Socorro, New Mexico, USA
"I've never been to Contempt!  Isn't that somewhere in New Mexico?"
   --- Yacko