[Coco] Help with floppy disk setup - first time user

[Willard Goosey]

On Tue, Jan 31, 2012 at 07:24:57PM -0500, Blake Patterson wrote:

> I have a CoCo 3 with Extended Color BASIC 2.0. 
> 
> I have just gotten a load of CoCo stuff from a user I traded
> with. I've got a dual floppy disk setup with controller cart, and
> RS-232 pack, a DriveWire, a CoCo 3 mobo w/ 512K exp, and some other
> kind of controller.
> 
> I connected the floppy drive to the cart and plugged it in and tried
> some basic disk commands (DIR 0, DIR 1, etc.), but nothing
> happens. It's as if the commands aren't in the system's syntax.
> 
With the disk controller plugged in it should come up as "Disk
Extended Color BASIC 2.1".  

If DIR 0 returns a ?SN ERROR then your disk ROM may be hosed.  If it
just sits for a while and then says ?IO ERROR you've  got
mechanical/connection problems.

More details please.

> http://www.cs.unc.edu/~yakowenk/coco/text/diskbasic.html
> 
> Do I need to upgrade the ROM in the CoCo 3 to Disk BASIC for things
> to work?

The Disk BASIC ROM should be in the disk controller.  If it's not,
something's weird.  Do regular ROM paks work with your CoCo?

Willard
-- 
Willard Goosey  goosey at sdc.org
Socorro, New Mexico, USA
I search my heart and find Cimmeria, land of Darkness and the Night.
  -- R.E. Howard