[Coco] NitrOS-9 instant boot CoCo

[Frank Pittel]

On Mon, Aug 06, 2007 at 09:29:50AM -0500, Joel Ewy wrote:
> Robert Gault wrote:
> > Roger Taylor wrote:
> >> I'm trying to gather the setups some of you OS-9/NitrOS-9 users have
> >> in place that allows you to hit the power button on your CoCo then
> >> have the OS-9 prompt within a few seconds, with no moving hard drives
> >> or MPI, or DriveWire cable (although that's a very nice idea).
> >>
> >> Can the SuperIDE interface do this, and if so, what add-ons are
> >> needed?  What about a NItrOS-9 ROM that completely boots up from the
> >> ROM?  If so, can this ROM be put on a 32 kByte EPROM and replace the
> >> CoCo 3 ROM.  What about piggybacking an EPROM on the CoCo motherboard
> >> and clipping some pins on the old ROM?  Anyone done this kind of hack
> >> to avoid the infamous killer desolder job?
> >>
> >
> >  The "problem" with booting from a ROM as Roger asks rather than a
> > hard drive, is that you are locked into at least a specific kernel.
> > That means cobbler and os9gen have lost some of their usefulness. It
> > is important to be able to make changes to the core OS-9/NitrOS-9
> > modules at will as needed without needing to burn a new EPROM.
> I wouldn't call it a "problem" so much as a "trade-off".  It would be no
> different from running (D)ECB from ROM, except that you would have an
> arguably better OS in your ROM.  But the latency between power-on and
> cursor would be negligible booting from ROM, and only minimal booting
> from IDE/CF.  Though IDE/CF would certainly be the next best thing to
> ROM, especially if you have an auto-boot ROM installed.
> 
> The ideal, of course, would be to boot NitrOS-9 directly from a Flash
> ROM that could be updated with a new kernel.  Best of both worlds.
> >  Using a CF card more easily reloaded with new code should be just as
> > good as booting from hard drive directly.
> >
> Even better of course, because you have no physical r/w heads to move
> around or crash, no spindle motor bearing to wear out, no platters to
> scratch, lower power consumption (by far!), less heat, and a much
> smaller package.
> >  At the moment the size of a typical NitrOS-9 OS9Boot file plus kernel
> > is about 12.5K. It would certainly fit into a ROM. However, if you
> > plan to include the CMDS directory as well, forget it!
> >  It is not enough to load just the OS9Boot file to run OS-9. You also
> > need all of the commands and software. Where would they be without
> > some type of drive system unless you use a very large CF card?
> >
> But of course, (D)ECB doesn't include all the programs you might want in
> ROM either.  Having attached mass-storage and booting off of it are two
> different things.  I like the idea of having the kernel, drivers for
> essential built-in hardware, a shell, and a few must-have commands in
> (Flash)ROM, and available at the touch of the power switch.  The rest
> (including drivers and descriptors (and maybe even file managers?) for
> other peripherals (printers, auxiliary drives, serial/network, e.g.) can
> be loaded from mass-storage when / if needed.
> 
> I remember reading that OS-9 was designed with the idea in mind that
> device driver modules could be distributed in ROM chips along with
> expansion boards.  I never saw that idea implemented, but I thought it
> was a great notion.  Plug in your FDC and the driver for it is detected
> and loaded automatically.  Flash ROMs weren't around at the time that
> idea was current, but updated in that way, I think it would be a really
> spiffy thing for the CoCo.

Let's not forget that the Superide has for flash roms that can be used
to auto boot nitros.