[Coco] WasL Ramdisk under NitrOS9

[Robert Gault]

Ed Orbea wrote:
> I am attempting to follow the directions/suggestions contained in the 
> above referenced thread so as to update my current VHD to the current 
> version of NitrOS9
> I am using VCC 1.4 on a Windows XP (SP3) laptop
> My VCC configuration has
> Slot 4: FS502.dll
> Slot 3: Harddrive.dll
> Slot 2: Empty
> Slot 1: Empty
> Slot 4 is selected as active
> NitrOS9.VHD is mounted in H0
> A 6809 processor is being emulated as normal speed (no acceleration)
> The FD controller is set for RGBDOS
> 
> When I execute a hard reboot, I get Robert Gault's default screen with 
> the 5 options, but the cursor never dsiplays a OK prompt. Any input from 
> the keyboard is ignored.
> 
> When I do not use RGBDOS and use a Boot VHD disk in drive d0, I can boot 
> NitrOS9, and access /h0, thus my question.
> 
> WHan do I need to do/change/configure to allow VCC to "basically" boot 
> NitrOS9 without a floppy drive using RBGDos and DOS253?
> 
> Thanks
> 

There is no OK because the AUTOEXEC.BAS program is waiting for you to 
make a selection. If none of the choices is what you want, just hit the 
BREAK key.

Once again I have to say that while I've given permission for my 
emulator version of RGBDOS to be used with VCC, any support for RGBDOS 
must be addressed to me not through VCC.
There is documentation about RGBDOS on my web site in the RGBDOS package.

Now regards VCC, the RGBDOS ROM is part of the harddrive.dll as well as 
an option for the FD502.dll. It can be accessed either by selecting the 
harddrive.dll slot or the FD502.dll slot+RGBDOS with the MPI control.
What you see on a cold boot, depends on the programs installed on the 
hard drive. If the hard drive is bare, you will not get a selection 
menu. If hard drive#0 contains AUTOEXEC.BAS, then that program will 
auto-run and the results will depend on the program.
The hard drive from the VCC site had contained an AUTOEXEC.BAS program 
and based on Ed's results it must still be there.

If you want VCC or any other RGBDOS / HDBDOS system to boot OS-9 / 
NitrOS-9 from a hard drive rather than a floppy, you must have installed 
on one of the hard drive Disk Basic drives a 35 track single sided OS-9 
boot disk. This boot disk must contain a boot module in the kernel aimed 
at hard drive use. Os9boot must contain a driver and descriptor for hard 
drive use.
The hard drive from the VCC site had such a boot disk installed on one 
of the drives in the region of 250-255; probably 253 or 254.
To boot from this drive, the LINK.BAS program must be run to place the 
correct information on LSN0 of the OS-9 portion of the hard drive. This 
had been done on the VCC supplied hard drive and probably is still set 
that way. That means you can just issue the command DOS# where # is the 
number of the boot disk, ex. DOS253

Ed, is one of the 5 options booting OS-9? If it is, then select it by 
pressing the number. If not, kill the program and try both DOS253 and 
DOS254, one of which probably will work.
For the future, create a custom boot disk and back it up to any drive# 
you wish. Then run LINK.BAS indicating which drive to use. Add that to 
the bootup menu.