[Coco] bootlink progress

[Gene Heskett]

On Saturday 20 October 2012 09:56:31 Bill Pierce did opine:

> Gene,
>  that sounds good. Between Drivewire, SuperIDE, SC^2, Becker, HDBDOS, &
> RGBDOS, there's a lot of different ways to boot. Sounds like you're
> making it possible to boot from either on a reboot. Am I right? If you
> get it to work, why not give it a UI that lists ... say, any file in
> the root with the name "os9boot" i.e. "os9boot.dw4", "os9boot.sid",
> "os9boot.hdb"... etc. and be able to set the boot to use?
> 
> Bill P

That could be done too I suppose, but my original idea wasn't to play with 
that, but to do effectively the same thing by just swapping out the DD.BT 
and DD.SIZ in LSN0 to point at the OS9Boot installed on vdisk xxx.  I doubt 
seriously if any of us would use more than 5 of them that way.

Furinstance, and I haven't generated that floppy yet, I need a boot that is 
sufficient stripped that I can run the std mb script that does use format.

There are more ways to do this than there are to vote Nov 6th. :)  
Fortunately, we managed to get the libertarian candidates on the ballot, 
here in WV, but we haven't managed to get the most needed ballot choice, 
none-of-the-above.

> 
> Music from the Tandy/Radio Shack Color Computer 2 & 3
> https://sites.google.com/site/dabarnstudio/
> Bill Pierce
> ooogalapasooo at aol.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Gene Heskett <gheskett at wdtv.com>
> To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts <coco at maltedmedia.com>
> Sent: Sat, Oct 20, 2012 12:31 am
> Subject: [Coco] bootlink progress
> 
> 
> First, it's been since early 2008 when I last wrote any os9 assembly
> stuff, meaning my wet ram is bright red with rust. ;)
> 
> But I'm making progress I think.
> 
> The first thing it needs in the way of data is a copy of /dd's LSN0, and
> I have that working, with proof being I have it dumping the readlsn0
> buffer back to a file that can be inspected with ded.
> 
> So now I have maybe 2 bugs, as it appears that dump doesn't like a
> filename like bootlink-trace, it won't dump it, but doesn't return an
> error either! ded can look at it just fine, and the data is correct.
> 
> Yes, its a bug in dump, I renamed the file from bootlink-trace to
> bootlink.trace, and dump works just fine.  Makes me wish I had a gallon
> jug of an old insect killer called Cooks Real-Kill.
> 
> Tomorrows project will be to parse the command line and recover the
> vdisk number entered and convert it to a hex number in one byte.
> 
> No one has said whether they think this utility might be useful to them.
> Perhaps I haven't explained it enough?
> 
> From the file header:
> **********************************************
> * bootlink.asm, Copyright 2012 by Gene Heskett
> * A utility to facilitate using different
> * boot vdisk images on a hard drive as the next
> * default vdisk to boot from.  The boot sequence
> * is this: load the boottrack from the default
> * vdisk 128 image coded into hdbdos.  The only
> * reason to change this is if one wanted to
> * change the rel module from what is being used
> * in the default vdisk 128.
> *
> * Once this is done, the boot module knows just
> * enough about the hard drive to reach out to it
> * and get LSN0 from it.  By reading DD.BT, and
> * DD.SIZ, it knows where on the disk to get,
> * and how much to get, to fetch the OS9Boot file
> * from ANYPLACE on the hard drive.  This means
> * that by re-writing the DD.BT and DD.SIZ values
> * in the selected by the boot module drive, we
> * can effect exactly the same as I believe that
> * LINK.BAS is doing but which is hard to get to
> * without doing a full reset into rsdos.
> *
> * The intention is to be able to do:
> * >bootlink 129;reboot
> * choose 1 or let it time out and it will reboot
> * using the OS9Boot file from vdisk 129.
> * instead of the default 128
> *
> * Caveat: be sure there is an OS9Boot file on
> * that vdisk, else you will need to find that
> * LINK.BAS and rerun it to restore your boot
> * drives LSN0 DD.BT and DD.SIZ to valid values.
> * I believe I would also keep a copy of ded on
> * an all floppy boot, and restore from a postit
> * note stuck to the monitor!  But that is just
> * my normal paranoia about maintaining more
> * than one rescue method. Insurance IOW :)
> 
> Perhaps that explains it better?
> 
> Comments welcome of course.
> 
> Cheers, Gene


Cheers, Gene
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