[Coco] Just learning OS-9 - Questions

Tue May 28 00:49:58 EDT 2013

Hi,

<nickma-sFbbPxZDHXw0n/F98K4Iww at public.gmane.org> wrote in message
news:03df11a56d01c9abdc3fce82d425b4230539cea0 at webmail.optuszoo.com.au...
> Basically, if a "newbie" wants to learn about OS-9 and decides to
> generate a custom disk, he needs an easy "newbie" way to select the
> modules and hit "GO" and out comes a fully configure and bootable OS-9
> disk.
>
> He should not have to go hunting for drives, editing bootlists etc
>

Hear, Hear!!!

> Some disk/s that contain all the OS-9 modules/driver/commands known to
> mortal man, together in the one place and he picks and chooses via a
> menu.
>

You quickly run into trouble, not all "OS-9 modules/driver/commands known to 
mortal man" are known by one person, or even a large group of persons. 
That's part of the beauty of the OS-9 design, you can add to it, load some 
descriptors and drivers into memory without building a new boot disk. 
Commands can just be copied to the CMDS folder or loaded from a floppy. It 
was designed first to be burned into ROM, but only a few of us have ever 
done that. New versions of descriptors / drivers can be loaded into memory 
and used instead of the ROM versions. That is problematic with NitrOS-9 as 
free system memory has been reduced from OS-9.

The NitrOS-9 creators were for the most part, Linux people.

They do not, like I as a Windows user, expect OS-9 / NitrOS-9 to just work
and configure it self by looking at the available hardware.

Users are expected to be "Masters of NitrOS-9 right from the beginning and
be able to build disks for their system after reading all the documentation
that is hard to understand by beginners. That is the Linux way, they do not
understand that a better way is possible. I see this every place I look for
help and find a Linux CD is offered or read the instructions offered on this
list.

I asked a question a year or so ago that was responded by two pages of
instructions, all of which I knew by heart with minor additions. I did not
want to spend the time which was a very great effort. I put off doing so.
Instructions from Linux users on any subject are just as unfriendly, they
know no different way. They will tell you how to do it, but not do anything
to help others not have to expend the same effort.

Then I remembered how to do it and the result was a 4-5 line shellplus 2.1A
script that I run after booting NitrOS-9 on VCC. Lost now as my motherboard
replacement came back from the factory with the HDD in the original factory
condition and I had not saved the .vhd file. No problem, I created it once,
I can do it again. (Note: Shellplus 2.2 is broken in all versions of
NitrOS-9, it would be a huge effort to get it back to what we had on OS-9.)

I was just as guilty:

> And not to sound stupid, but half a page of instructions to mount a drive?
> I can follow instructions as well as the next guy, but My God! Do those
> instructions apply if using VCC with the NitrOS9 Image?

http://www.tandycoco.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=633#p633

It took me Five (5) burning of Linux CDs to get one that worked just to run
GPARTED so I can change my disk partitions. I think that it was ~ five years
and even the last one that works on all my current computers floods the
screen with so much information during the boot process that my brown pants
get even more brown if I watch it.

Microsoft changed the way they installed by creating an image that loads and
runs on all systems. Then they have the full power of the OS to look at the
users hardware.

All hardware is identified, here is the description for my W7 "NVIDIA
GeForce 310M" Graphics card.

PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0A75&SUBSYS_907A104D&REV_A2
PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0A75&SUBSYS_907A104D
PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0A75&CC_030000
PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0A75&CC_0300

The Properties / Details tab of the device manager has numerous other
information that is involved.

OS-9 was created so long ago that hardware does not identify itself, it is
up to the human to understand what devices they have and how to install the
necessary drivers.

I had no problem with OS-9 as I was a Super Computer, programmer and knew
more about OS-9 before I first saw the letters OS-9 having installed a much
simpler OS for the 6809, TSC FLEX.

Tandy, attempting to solve this problem placed a "Config" program on the
OS-9 Level II second disk. Using that program even was a hard task for most
beginners.

To run that Config program, the first OS-9 Level II disk was bootable as was
the OS-9 Level I boot disk.

That program has been forgotten because it did not work as the detailed
information still was needed to make the selections, and not all hardware
was included.

> We can't assume everyone who tries OS-9 is going to be a "rocket
> scientist" or "engineer".

Only if someone, or a team, looks at the problem in a different way, from
the viewpoint of a beginner that perhaps only has used DECB, a basic
interpreter with some OS commands, not an OS that some people call
incorrectly "RSDOS".

>
> It's the difference between fixing an OS and *USING* an OS and however
> "powerful" that OS is, it means nothing if most people can't use it
> and produce software for it
>
> (climbing down from soapbox)
>
> That felt good! :)
>
> Nick
>

Replying to your message also felt very good.

It can be done, a better Config program can be created, but this time with
input from beginners like you.

Beginners that plow forward quickly forget how hard it is and feel every
beginner must suffer the same pain.

> -----Original Message----- 
> From: Brett Gordon
> To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts
> Sent: Mon, May 27, 2013 7:27 pm
> Subject: Re: [Coco] Just learning OS-9 - Questions
>
> I'm not sure about installation, but my CoCoBoot project is moving
> along,
> and will soon add the ability to install certain modules dynamically
> at
> bootup ( via config file or keyboard )... and soon cobbled blobs of
> OS9
> modules will be a thing of the past. I plan on making a menu/gui
> driven
> wrapper for creating boot disks for os9. Maybe this could be extended
> toward installing os9 too.
>
> Brett
> -------------------------

SHF