[Coco] I finally got Nitros 3.2.4 to work!

[Frederick D Provoncha]

On Wed, 25 Aug 2004 21:55:27 -0500 Mark Marlette <mmarlett at isd.net>
writes:
> At 8/25/2004 08:07 PM -0600, you wrote:
> 
> Fred,
> 
> I put your system together for you remember?????? :)
> I do them all the same. The scripts are there. You are not looking in
the 
> correct spot or you over wrote them at some point. It is the ONLY way
to 
> get HDB-DOS on your hard drive and to boot. There are three scripts, 
 > make_floppy_d0, make_hard_dd and make_hdb_dd scripts. They have 
> changed in their names now but are functionally the same. There is only
ONE 
> script on the NitrOS-9 distribution call mb, that makes just a floppy
boot as 
> you indicated. I STRONGLY recommend that you understand the process 
> before you modify your scripts. Better yet, copy the scripts and/or
bootlist 
> filenames to an alternate name and reference those in the scripts.
Source 
> control is a GOOD thing. I personally would get your hardware issue(s)
repaired 
> first, while learning from the scripts. They are very simple. Look at
the 
> bootlists as well, that is where the modules are referenced and 
> included in the OS9boot.....

Hey Mark, don't worry, I can do it! It's all good :-)

I've had enough practice now in creating boot disks. I think I have it
down well enough. I still have the original unmodified scripts you
mentioned on my hard drive, as well as a few additional modified versions
I've made. But those scripts create a NitrOS-9 2.0 boot disk, and so I
didn't think they were suitable for my purposes. I know how to modify the
script 'mb' on the most recent NitrOS-9 distribution, but I just wasn't
sure which 'boot' file to include in the boottrack to get the latest
version of NitrOS to boot from Drive 255 of HDB-DOS. Remember, I'm
upgrading from Nitros 2.0.0 to Nitros 3.2.4, which is a pretty big jump
and I thought perhaps the newer versions of NitrOS-9 might require a new
'boot' file, and I just wasn't sure which one to use or where to find it.

In any case, I think I've solved the problem. I can now get the latest
version of NitrOS-9 to boot from Drive 255 of HDB-DOS! I'm quite
thrilled. It turns out the boot file 'rgbdos_boot_scsi512' located
already on my hard drive works in the boottrack to boot the latest
version of NitrOS-9 from my hard drive. Whether there is a more-recent
version of 'boot' out there, I don't know, but the one I'm using seems to
work fine.

Well, except for one little thing. It's minor, really. No one else has
ever mentioned this problem before as far as I know, but I'm not
imagining it. The problem is that with the boot file I'm using, there
definitely seems to be a limit to the size of the OS9Boot file you can
make. It only occurs when I use 'rgbdos_boot_scsi512' in my boottrack.
The limit appears to be somewhere just under or around $8000 bytes in
length. If the OS9Boot file is larger than that, then not all the modules
load upon bootup. If that causes a critical module not to be loaded, it
can cause the system to crash. But if it's something insignicant like a
window descriptor then there may be no ill effects. Has anyone noticed
this before? Are there any remedies?

By the way, just as a status report, I'm also making progress on getting
the hi-res joystick to work. If I run the program Control from within
Multi-Vue, the hi-res joysticks start working. Next step is to figure a
way to get them working upon bootup.

There's always something needing fixing.
Thanks for your help!

Fred Provoncha