[Coco] A hint for NitrOS-9, MPI, and "hard drive" PAK

[Luis Antoniosi (CoCoDemus)]

SALT chip ?

There is one online copy:

https://archive.org/details/TandyServiceManualColorComputer3

hard to see the schematics though


On Thu, Dec 19, 2013 at 10:54 AM, Gene Heskett <gheskett at wdtv.com> wrote:
> On Thursday 19 December 2013 10:43:40 Robert Gault did opine:
>
>> Many years ago I wrote a Basic09 utility to graphically display a floppy
>> drive's RPM. Just recently I was booting NitrOS-9 using Roger Taylor's
>> Drive Pak and my rpm program crashed NitrOS-9. This is the same code
>> that works when booting NitrOS-9 from my scsi hard drive.
>> Let's make it very clear that the problem was NOT Roger's Drive PAK.
>> Well this bug drove me crazy for about a week. Finally I found out what
>> was wrong and I expect that any user of a "drive" PAK regardless of
>> make is likely to run into the same bug.
>>
>> My Coco system is a Coco3, MPI, two scsi Hard drives, DistoSCII in
>> slot4, hard drive interface in slot3, RS-232 PAK in slot2, and a Drive
>> Pak in slot1. Recently I've had the slot selector set to #1 and have
>> been booting NitrOS-9 from the Drive PAK.
>> Well when I booted from the hard drive, the MPI selector was set to
>> slot4 which made the floppy controller active. When booting from the
>> Drive PAK with the selector in slot1, the floppies had not yet been
>> used.
>> Hmmm, my program POKEs the floppy controller but if that has not been
>> initialized either by hardware or software ....
>>
>> Well adding a single line to the Basic09 program let the program work
>> correctly regardless of where the MPI selector was set during the boot
>> process: SHELL "iniz /d0"
>>
>> This is not something you would expect to be required, and I never
>> needed it when booting from the scsi hard drives even though both
>> kernel and OS9Boot were on the hard drive and not a floppy. I still
>> don't understand why the above line is needed as OS-9 does not mess
>> with the MPI unless a driver requires it. Still with the recent
>> interest in ROM and Drive PAKs, if you have unexpected crashes with
>> previously working programs, keep the above in mind.
>>
>> Robert
>
> Thanks for the heads up. And I am out of the drivewire business until I can
> get my coco3 fixed, I've apparently blown something in the bitbanger
> circuitry while trying to make inetd actually work.
>
> Most will recall that I've long ago converted my system to run on an old AT
> power supply, which puts a true + and - 12 volts into the com circuitry in
> the coco which usually limps along on +-8 volts or so.  The extra voltage
> seems to have overheated and destroyed something in the bitbanger when it
> was being asked to handle, non-stop because of some sort of an error loop,
> something over 1000 packets a second according to the server, which was
> echoing 10: Unk API back at the coco just as fast, and taking from 10 to
> 97% of one core of a phenom 4 core cpu to do it here on this machine.  I
> let it run that way for a couple days, so an overheating related failure is
> quite possible.
>
> And somehow, despite owning 2 copies of the coco3 service manual, I can't
> find either in my "midden heaps" here or in the basement.  They'll turn up
> eventually, but...  I am out of business in the meantime.
>
>> --
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>> Coco at maltedmedia.com
>> http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco
>
>
> 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)
> Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene>
>
> Win98 error 003: Illegal ASM instruction. If your modem worked properly,
> the
> FBI would have been called.
> A pen in the hand of this president is far more
> dangerous than 200 million guns in the hands of
>          law-abiding citizens.
>
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