[Coco] Nitros9 Boot Disk "issues"

[Boisy Pitre]

Roger,

I located a bug in the boot_1773 module that prevents it from booting  
properly from a single sided disk.  Ken Carlin was having the exact  
same problems as you and emailed me yesterday.  I eyeballed the  
source last night, and it turns out that a beq should be a bne, and  
because of this faux pas, the problem occurs.

My thought at this point is to address this and any other issues and  
put out another release.  Really sorry about this guys; the fact is I  
don't test features that I don't use (like single-sided disks), and  
people are always checking in their changes which I usually only have  
time to eyeball.  True pre-release testing doesn't exist on this  
project, and that's probably because the size of the user base is  
quite small.  So you guys take the heat by being unwitting testers,  
fighting these problems and trying to diagnose them.

While I feel really bad about this, I am unsure of how to alleviate  
the situation.

So besides the single-sided boot issue, are there any other  
outstanding issues with the 3.2.6 release that are known?

Boisy

On May 22, 2006, at 12:20 AM, Roger Merchberger wrote:

> Well, the "issues" I have is that I are stoopid...
>
> I snagged the latest version of Nitros9, and I want to make "real"  
> boot disks for my CoCo3 setup to eventually transfer to Compact  
> Flash on the SuperIDE interface... but I have a few limitations,  
> and this is giving me fits.
>
> My PC system won't format a readable DS floppy with OmniFlop, but I  
> can write disks if they're formatted first on the CoCo; but as I  
> don't have a working Nitros9 boot floppy yet, I can't format a DS  
> disk on the CoCo. So, I'm limited to DECB for formatting which  
> limits me to single-sided disks.
>
> Yes, I *do* have Drivewire, yes I can boot nitros9 3.2.4 on it, no  
> I *can't* format real floppies on the system... When XP doesn't  
> bluescreen due to buggy Belkin USB->RS232 drivers (which I believe  
> I've got the right drivers now, but I've not tested it yet) the  
> CoCo locks *hard* no later than halfway through the format. :- 
> ( I've tried it *at least* 50 times with the same result (yea, I'm  
> a glutton for punishment) so there's got to be some weird little  
> timing issue or something with nitros9 3.2.4 and/or drivewire and/ 
> or my hardware and/or the alignment of the planets...
>
> I've taken the stock standard.bl file and made DS boot disks no  
> problem, but SS is just no worky.
>
> I've tried creating new SS device drivers - is it safe to assume  
> that dmode'ing the /dd and /d0 drivers, save'ing them to a  
> different disk, copying them into the ../MODULES/RBF directory and  
> calling them from the standard.bl bootlist is all that's necessary  
> to get a working device driver, or am I missing something? (At  
> first, I thought I was missing something, until I tried making a  
> boot disk with the supplied 35tk SS drivers, and that won't boot,  
> either.)
>
> It shows:
>
> KREL Boot Krn tb0.......
>
> (Yes, that's 7 dots after tb0) and locks.
>
> Now, *waaaaayy* back in the day, I could diagnose a failed OS-9  
> boot just by the sound of the floppy drive, but I've been testing  
> builds in the emulator - faster turnaround. MESS .103, CoCo3 6809 ROM.
>
> Any hints/tips/quibbles/quarrels/brickbats available out there?
>
> Good thing:
>
> My knowledge of OS-9 has improved immensely over the last few hours!
>
> Bad thing:
>
> My knowledge of 'edit' has improved immensely over the last few hours!
>
> Is there a small freeware full-screen editor for Nitros9 out there  
> anywhere??? I'm spoiled by Jove on the Linux platform... rather  
> like nano/pico but with a more emacs-like key-command set, so  
> moving to/from emacs is effortless... However, I'd be more than  
> happy to learn a new keyset... I'm OK with vi as well, but AFAIK TS- 
> Edit was never ported to the 80-column screen, was it?
>
> Anyway, thanks any & all for help on trying to get this rascal over  
> to the "real thing."
>
> Thanks & Have a good nite!
> Roger "Merch" Merchberger
>
> P.S. I have moved over the DriveWire RBF drivers to the Nitros9  
> boot disk on the emulator - would attempting to make a DriveWire  
> boot disk be as simple as using the DW /dd and /d0 drivers to make  
> a new boot disk? Would I be better served trying this next? Or is  
> the bootdisk crashing before that point?
>
> --
> Roger "Merch" Merchberger  --  SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers
> zmerch at 30below.com
>
> Hi! I am a .signature virus.  Copy me into your .signature to join in!
>
>
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