[Coco] Glenside IDE booting problems

[Don Johnson]

On 2010-12-03, at 4:04 AM, gene heskett wrote:

> On Friday, December 03, 2010 05:59:08 am Don Johnson did opine:
> 
>> On 2010-12-02, at 6:38 PM, Robert Gault wrote:
>>> Don Johnson wrote:
>>>> Robert
>>>> 
>>>> Okay, well let me restate my problem and try to fill in some of your
>>>> questions.
>>>> 
>>>> For a first step I copied the drivers available from the Glenside
>>>> disk to the module directory on a copy of the OS-9 Boot disk.  I
>>>> re-named the cc3hdisk_16_50.dr driver to cc3hdisk.dr because after
>>>> many failed attempts the config utility program in the next step
>>>> seemed to be looking for that name. I did not re-name the h0_16.dd.
>>>> 
>>>> I then called the config command from the Boot disk and followed the
>>>> instructions as directed on screen, as described in the OS-9 manual,
>>>> Chapter 7, on how to create a new system diskette.  During that
>>>> process I selected to include the module for printer (P), PIPE,
>>>> /d0_35S, /d1_35S, and /h0_16.  I selected the TERM_WIN with all the
>>>> available windows.  I put in a newly formatted floppy and let the
>>>> work begin in created a new system disk.
>>>> 
>>>> When I tried to boot into OS-9 with that system disk (floppy),  which
>>>> I believe to have been built with a hard drive device, it starts off
>>>> normal enough with the 'OS-9 BOOT' message on the screen, and then
>>>> shortly after that the word 'FAILED' appears below and the floppy
>>>> stops.
>>>> 
>>>> That is as far as I have gotten.
>>> 
>>> Don,
>>> 
>>> OK, it would seem you would like to boot into OS-9 from a floppy and
>>> then have access to the hard drive. That would require you to use the
>>> normal Boot module for floppies and Init and Sysgo should point to
>>> the floppy as the default directories; /D0 and /D0/CMDS. For this to
>>> work, all you need to do is add a Glenside driver and descriptor to
>>> the OS9Boot file. Not having the Glenside package, I've no idea how
>>> easy their documentation is to follow. Gene and Willard can offer
>>> advise on that score.
>>> 
>>> As Gene requested, please post the contents of your new OS9Boot file.
>>> That is easily obtained. Once you have created the new boot disk
>>> enter ident /d0/os9boot
>> 
>> Okay, so this is good stuff, and useful as well.  I ran the ident
>> command as you suggested and compared it to my other system disks that
>> I created that work, but without the hard disk drivers and descriptors.
>> The lists were the same except for the CC3HDisk and H0 modules
>> existing in the non-working System Disk, and not there on the working
>> System Disks.  From other responses I realized that the DD module was
>> not there before because I did not add it during the Config process, so
>> I went back and did the same steps over again.  Here is the list of
>> modules in the newly created OS9Boot file (that still does not work so
>> for sanity sake at least I'm consistent).
>> 
>> 17	$C0		$47B370	.	OS9p2
>> 12	$C1		$FD1FEA	.	IOMan
>> 67	$C0		$0B2322	.	Init
>>  5	$11		$1006FE	.	CC3Go
>>  9	$C1		$D28AFD	.	Clock
> 
> This issue clock has an issue.  It doesn't handle the gime correctly on an 
> IRQ return, leaving the gime in a state where it no longer transmits the 
> floppies IRQ's, a problem we called the bootlist order bug back in the day, 
> and which was fixed by the package of clocks called clock-ed9.
> 
> It was a major PITA back then, and the solution many of us used was to copy 
> the init module 3 more times, padding its length with 1, 2, or 3 extra 
> bytes to adjust the clocks position in memory by up to 3 extra bytes, which 
> was found empirically by os9gen'ing a disk using first the OEM module, then 
> the +1 sized version, wash rinse repeat till it worked.  Because of the way 
> os9 scanned the file, the trash bytes had to be added by using ded to adjust 
> its SIZE integer, the 'v' to fix the crc and 'w' to actually write the new, 
> longer module.
> 
>> 28	$D1		$EFBE13	.	RBF
> 
>>  5	$E1		$02BF2A	.	CC3HDisk
>> 82	$F1		$0C9F6C	.	H0
> 
> If these modules are the tandy issued modules, you may as well give up.  
> They are hard coded for the very outrageously priced ($129 & local taxes) 
> Tandy HD controller which was not a scsi controller, but s SASI controller, 
> and the /H0 descriptor AIR there were two) were hard coded for the sizes of 
> a couple of hard drives Tandy was trying to sell at about $600, set for 5 
> and 15 megabytes IIRC.
> 
>>  9	$E1		$759161	.	CC3Disk
>> 82	$F1		$FC1918	.	D0
>> 82	$F1		$9F46Ca	.	D1
>> 82	$F1		$E6B118	.	DD
>> 13	$D1		$F946CA	.	SCF
>> 12	$E1		$CC3EA4	.	PRINTER
>> 83	$F1		$FE3BAE	. 	P
>> 16	$E1		$F737C2	.	CC3IO
>> 14	$C1		$6E4441	.	GrfInt
>> 83	$F1		$EC1C40	.	Term
>> 83 	$F1		$75DEBB	.	 W
>> 83	$F1		$7CD180	.	W1
>> 83 	$F1		$8EE4C6	.	W2
>> 83 	$F1		$E42902	.	W3
>> 83	$F1		$119408	.	W4
>> 83	$F1		$C109F3	.	W5
>> 83	$F1		$A3C36E	.	W6
>> 83	$F1		$AC6B4B	.	W7
>>  4	$D1		$AD6718	.	PipeMan
>>  2	$E1		$5B2B56	.	Piper
>> 80	$F1		$CC06AF	.	Pipe
>> 
>> 
>> I produced this list with the -s option, but without it all the CRC
>> checks showed (Good).
>> 
>>> and a list of the contents will be printed to the screen. Each module
>>> listed should say Good and you should list all the module names. The
>>> list should look exactly like any other OS9Boot file you have
>>> created, except for the presence of the Glenside driver and
>>> descriptor. Can we assume you have been able to create any boot disks
>>> that work for a pure floppy system and actually boot you into OS-9?
>>> 
>>> Make sure that your new boot disk contains a shell and gfrdrv in the
>>> CMDS directory.
>> 
>> I created the system disk with a full copy of the commands from the
>> original System disk, and I verified that both the shell and gfrdrv
>> commands were there.
> 
> You can build a working floppy only system from the stock disks, but its so 
> much easier to 'get it right' with nitros9 simply because so many bugs have 
> been fixed, and even on a 6809 cpu, it is now about twice as fast as the 
> original os9 was.  There are working drivers for many of the hard drive 
> controllers we can use in nitros9, but the superdriver from the cloud9 site 
> works faster & with all but the LR-Tech kit, it hasn't been tested as no 
> one has one.
> 
> You said you didn't have a 'pc' to download this stuff with?  How are you 
> posting these messages?

Well I have pile of Macs and one Linux server here, but none of them have a floppy connected to them.  Even the linux box won't support the insertion of one of my old 5 1/4" floppy drives that I have lying around for my CoCo because it has a different floppy connector on the motherboard and an incompatible power connector.  

> 
> If it helps any, my web pages have disk images that IF you have a floppy 
> controller, something like the linux 'dd' command can write these to a 3.5" 
> or 5.25" 360k floppy disk.  Various operating systems have various tools for 
> this.  For my own lashup here, my ASUS motherboards floppy controller does 
> not do 256 byte/sector disk formats, so I am forced to run a session of 
> minicom on this linux box, to a shell running against my deluxe 232 pack, 
> so I am logged into the coco from here, and can then run rz/sz to move this 
> stuff back and forth.  

Okay this may have potential as I do have a mini232 pack here from CoNect that I can use.  Of course I have no experience in this form of communication between a Linux box and the CoCo3, but I should have all the parts.   I different task than this thread, but do you have any instructions on how you set this up?

> I see that a basic09 util I wrote to write these 
> images from my 1Gb HD to floppies on the coco isn't available, but I will 
> try to make it so at some point today.  

> The coco isn't on ATM as I haven't 
> booted it since we got back from a wedding in FL this past weekend.
> 
> See <http://gene.homelinux.net:85/gene/nitros9/level2/coco3/>
> and download the "nos96809l2v030209coco3_40d_1.dsk"
> and "	nos96809l2v030209coco3_40d_2.dsk" files.  Then get them onto floppies, 
> writing them as whole disk images, not as  common files.
> The first image s/b directly boot able when placed on a floppy and inserted 
> in drive 0 IF your drives are actually double sided drives, which many 
> were.  The 40d_2.dsk is all the tools and modules to build your own boot 
> disks, which in turn can give you the tools to run some hard drives.
> 
> My images are now about 10 months old, and I see that Mark has a link to 
> the sourceforge repo, which if you click on the nitros9 disk image will 
> take you to where you can either buy it on floppies for a small fee, or 
> download the nightly build which are even newer than what is available on 
> my pages.  My pages as you can see, have no commercials, they are actually 
> living on this machine, a linux box running pclos.
> 
> And I can recommend both HDB-DOS and the superdriver, plus one of the HD 
> controllers Mark sells as the ultimate coco3 hard drive system.

Yeah that is bound to be my end point of this whole experience I'm sure.


> 
> -- 
> Cheers, Gene
> "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
> soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
> -Ed Howdershelt (Author)
> To downgrade the human mind is bad theology.
> - C. K. Chesterton