[Coco] What do I need in my OS9Boot?

[Robert Gault]

Tveo Loatouse wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I wanted to know what modules I need in my OS9Boot for booting into the 32
 > character screen /TERM so I can run different games like King's Quest 3
 > and Where in the World is Carmen San Diego. Also, I want to run Deskmate 3
 > and Multi-Vue at the same time. I am a little fuzzy about which modules I
 > need to be able to do this. I remember reading in The Rainbow that you
 > could do this all in the same boot disk. I have a Color Computer 3 with
 > 2 Megs of memory and I use OS9 Level 2 patched for 2 Megs with Tuneup.

> Is it possible to have a boot file that will let you do all this at the
 > same time?
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> Tvefoo
>

There are several ways to do what you want. First realize that you can only boot 
to one /term, either 32 or more columns. For most users who have experienced 
working with an 80 column screen, the choice of 80 columns is a must have.
As you mentioned, many older Coco games require a vdg screen (32 columns) to 
run. However, many don't need that screen to be /term and will run from a 
non-term screen.

The NitrOS-9 distribution comes with vdg screens as an option in the scripts 
used to create new boot disks, v1, v2, etc. These descriptors can be added to an 
os9boot file along with covdg.io to provide vdg support.
Alternatively with covdg.io in the os9boot file, you can use xmode to change W# 
descriptors on the fly to act as vdg screens by changing par=80 to par=1 and 
pag=24 to pag=16.

Just start a shell in a vdg screen   shell i=/v1&    as an example. Then CLEAR 
to that screen, cd to the game directory, and cx to the game/CMDS directory.
The many vdg type games will run as normal with a few exceptions that have /term 
hard coded within the game.
I've patched some of these games to use a specific windows descriptor ex. /w5 or 
/v1. However, for these games it might be easier to convert /term to a vdg type 
screen.

You can convert /term on the fly with xmode and then using cobbler to save the 
result. Or you can create new disks with the NitrOS-9 scripts selecting the vdg 
/term descriptor.