[Coco] NitrOS9 VHD under MESS

[Mark Marlette]

Robert,

The Cloud-9 boot is a nightly build snapshot with basically custom descriptors added in. The scripts and bootlists are executed to build the boots, so it is functional.

It is just a baseline, customers can add whatever modules / descriptors they would like. Like you said...read the documentation as you are entering the chicken / egg syndrome if you build a bad boot.

Always modify the bootlists and run the scripts.

First build a floppy boot, hard drive boot(CF) then an HDB-DOS boot. If the CF boot works, the only difference between a HDB-DOS boot and a CF boot is the boot loader module / track. The Cloud-9 scripts are a bit different than the nightly build scripts....not much. Floppy boot for instance has full CMDS, in case something goes haywire, you will then have the modules / descriptors to at least solve the problem.

Regards,

Mark
http://www.cloud9tech.com




________________________________
 From: Robert Gault <robert.gault at att.net>
To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts <coco at maltedmedia.com> 
Sent: Thursday, October 4, 2012 10:41 AM
Subject: Re: [Coco] NitrOS9 VHD under MESS
 
Mike Rowen wrote:
> Hi Robert,
> 
> I don't have your URL, but would like to have it. :) I successfully built a
> boot floppy that includes EmuDsk and the H0 descriptor. I can access the
> VHD, but of course I still am booting from /D0. If I understand you
> correctly, what you are suggesting is that I create a DECB partition on the
> HD that contains a boot image, that is built using a different boot module
> (one that knows about the partition offset).
> 
> So my immediate questions would be;
> 
> What and where is this alternate boot module?
> How does the partition offest get assigned to the boot module?
> How do I format/partition my HD to create the DECB portion of the HD?
> 
> I think HDBDOS includes utilties to do this exact thing, but at the time, I
> simply ran the included the utility to do this. I am interested in knowing
> how to do this "manually" to better understand the workings of the
> environment. Thanks.
> 
> Cheers,
> -Mike
> 

Hmmm, not sure what Cloud-9 sends out but it looks like the nightly builds do not include everything for VCC or MESS.

You can find the source code for the boot module in the Sourceforge repository NitrOS-9\3rdparty\booters. Also look at the NitrOS-9\3rdparty\drivers\emudsk for emudsk support if you want to build your own modules from scratch.

The easy way to get documentation and programs is at
http://aaronwolfe.com/robert.gault/Coco/Downloads/Downloads.htm
under 10) RGBDOS. Make sure to also get the package under UPDATES.
The documentation will walk you through the process of creating a .vhd image with both OS-9 and Disk Basic partitions. LINK.BAS and other support programs are included.
I'm sure that something similar is available from Cloud-9 for HDBDOS SCII and IDE systems.

The program LINK handles alterations of LSN0 in the .vhd OS-9 partition so that it points to OS9Boot in the Disk Basic partition. Normally LINK runs interactively but you can modify the Basic program to run silently. That means you could have multiple Boot disks with different OS9Boot files and select what you want from a menu program. The version of LINK run would select the type of boot you get.

Try the above and if you have questions, you can contact me directly. I've also got an OS-9 program that reads Disk Basic disks floppy or on the .vhd image. I've a package that permits I/O from OS-9 with 35-track OS-9 disks on the .vhd image, although it may not be on the web page.


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