[Coco] ack!

[Bill Pierce]

Wayne, the only person I know that has tinkered with level 3 is Gene Heskett. He was recently trying to get it to boot but ran into problems trying to get drivewire drivers in the mix. It seems there has to be a seperation of rbf and scf and dw crosses the line and uses both from one driver. Level 3 doesn't seem to like this. Nitros9 without DW (for most) would be devistating. Also, ioman, clock and os9p1 (krnp1) were modified for Level 3. When those mods were made, NitrOS9 was at version 1.22. Now at 3.29, someone would have to diasseble those old 1.22 files and compare them to the current sources and alter them accordingly. Clock for one has since been split into 2 modules and would have to be examined to see what changes would be needed. According to the level 3 docs, ioman was patched to redirect the startup code to the "nitros9" module so it could move all files to the seperate areas before anything was initiated. Os9p1 suffers the same fate.
I messed with disassembling them a bit and they are not overly large files it's just that they are in 6309 code and the disassemblers I have for 6309 are iffy (meaning I didn't read the docs)
I would love to work with this system if we could get the modules up to date. According to Alan's notes, it was 101% backwards compatable and would run all OS-9 software without modification.
NitrOS9 level 2 version 1.22m that was used for Level 3 is still available (with sources), there's just no sources for the modules that were changed. Now this should be a bottable system, but DW would probably not run at all without modification. There have been TONS of bug fixes since then and Nitros9 is definately more stable than it was at 1.22.

Bill Pierce
My Music from the Tandy/Radio Shack Color Computer 2 & 3
https://sites.google.com/site/dabarnstudio/
Co-Webmaster of The TRS-80 Color Computer Archive
http://www.colorcomputerarchive.com/
Co-Contributor, Co-Editor for CocoPedia
http://www.cocopedia.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
E-Mail: ooogalapasooo at aol.com




-----Original Message-----
From: Wayne Campbell <asa.rand at gmail.com>
To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts <coco at maltedmedia.com>
Sent: Sun, Jun 2, 2013 9:37 am
Subject: Re: [Coco] ack!


I got it. I'm interested in knowing if any of this is under current development, 
or if it's just being held onto. I think a level 3 is due... given how long it's 
been since level 2 was introduced.

Wayne


Bill Pierce <ooogalapasooo at aol.com> wrote:

>
>Wayne, I just sent a private email with the link
>
>Bill Pierce
>My Music from the Tandy/Radio Shack Color Computer 2 & 3
>https://sites.google.com/site/dabarnstudio/
>Co-Webmaster of The TRS-80 Color Computer Archive
>http://www.colorcomputerarchive.com/
>Co-Contributor, Co-Editor for CocoPedia
>http://www.cocopedia.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
>E-Mail: ooogalapasooo at aol.com
>
>
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Wayne Campbell <asa.rand at gmail.com>
>To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts <coco at maltedmedia.com>
>Sent: Fri, May 31, 2013 10:25 pm
>Subject: Re: [Coco] ack!
>
>
>I had heard of Alan Dekok and Level 3 back in 88-93 when I was still using my 
>Coco3. I had heard of his work with overcoming the bootfile size limit and the 
>system page issues. I was never sure what had become of Level 3 until now.
>
>It would be cool if those things that were previously considered as worthy of 
>inclusion in a level upgrade to OS-9 could be made to work in NOS-9. Especially 

>if 6309 enhancements make them faster.
>
>Other than that, I don't know enough to comment.
>
>Wayne
>
>Bill Pierce <ooogalapasooo at aol.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>Wayne, The Level 3 that Curtis is referring to is a complete rewrite of RBF & 
>SCF by Alan Dekok that lock's their modules into their own address space 
>allowing more contegious memory for the whole boot file. It was never used in 
>NitrOS9 as it was never stable. Through the years it was forgotten by most as 
it 
>was known by even fewer. Alan had a website which (I think) is on the wayback 
>machine or one of those website archives, explaining the whole process, but the 

>file links are long gone. The main module sources (only 2) are in the nitros9 
>repo but all the supporting patches to the other modules were (seemingly) lost. 

>Gene has worked with this recently but ran into problems trying to include 
>drivewire as the dw drivers/descriptors reside both in rbf and scf which is a 
>no-no in the Level 3 setup. I don't know if he got it to boot without dw... 
>Gene?
>>
>>Bill Pierce
>>My Music from the Tandy/Radio Shack Color Computer 2 & 3
>>https://sites.google.com/site/dabarnstudio/
>>Co-Webmaster of The TRS-80 Color Computer Archive
>>http://www.colorcomputerarchive.com/
>>Co-Contributor, Co-Editor for CocoPedia
>>http://www.cocopedia.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
>>E-Mail: ooogalapasooo at aol.com
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: Wayne Campbell <asa.rand at gmail.com>
>>To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts <coco at maltedmedia.com>
>>Sent: Fri, May 31, 2013 9:41 pm
>>Subject: Re: [Coco] ack!
>>
>>
>>I thought NOS-9 contains the Level 3 upgrades? Maybe not all? Any plans to 
take 
>
>>NOS-9 in that direction?
>>
>>Wayne
>>
>>"L. Curtis Boyle" <curtisboyle at sasktel.net> wrote:
>>
>>>Heh... "too big" of boot files was the precise reason that Alan Dekok did 
OS-9 
>
>>Level 3.
>>>
>>>L. Curtis Boyle
>>>curtisboyle at sasktel.net
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>> 
>>
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