[Coco] Nitros9 Boot Disk "issues"

[Gene Heskett]

Boisy Pitre wrote:
> 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.
> 
A one byte change can be done either with ded, or modpatch, so that 
shouldn't be too difficult to fix & certainly shouldn't need a whole new 
release.  For ded, we'd need instructions of course.  Post it here, and 
on the web page for later usage.

> 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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> 
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-- 
Cheers, Gene