[Coco] Another Radio Shack Article

[Gene Heskett]

On Monday 06 January 2014 14:59:35 L. Curtis Boyle did opine:

> Wes, Bill and I did the first few versions of NitrOS-9 (including
> initially getting native mode working... still remember that day, when
> Bill managed to get it boot to a shell in native mode for the first
> time) by ourselves. After Wes got too busy with other projects at Gale
> Force (including his excellent Kwikzap, etc.), we started adding other
> people, Alan being the first/main one. And eventually we released it
> the community, of which Boisy, Mark and others have been the main
> drivers ever since.
> 
> L. Curtis Boyle
> curtisboyle at sasktel.net
> 
> On Jan 6, 2014, at 12:35 PM, Boisy Pitre <boisy at tee-boy.com> wrote:
> > On Jan 6, 2014, at 9:57 AM, Gene Heskett <gheskett at wdtv.com> wrote:
> >> I might point out that near the bottom of page 157, you give credit
> >> to the 3 Canadians for doing all the heavy lifting for the
> >> 6309-ization of OS-9.
> >> 
> >> There were more than those 3 involved, because I was the one that did
> >> RBF.mn at the time.  But nobody paid any attention to my comment that
> >> SAS=8 in a dmode report was going to be an ankle biter.  I said at
> >> the time that $10 (doubling the 8) was probably a good idea on
> >> floppies, and I routinely use $20 on my hard drives.
> > 
> > Gene,
> > 
> > Generally, the three people associated with NitrOS-9 are Bill Nobel,
> > Curtis Boyle and Wes Gayle. Those were the names that were in the
> > NitrOS-9 documentation that accompanied the floppy disks sold at
> > fests. There were other contributors, as you pointed out, but the
> > omission was not meant to slight anyone.

Which I didn't get since I was not at those fests.  Back then I was busier 
that that famous cat on the otherwise clean tin roof keeping a TV station 
on the air. :)

Not to mention I am mentally allergic to Illinois.  This country has a 
Constitution and Bill of Rights, which is quite cheerfully ignored in most 
of IL.  Since I retired I have made several trips to the UP, and discovered 
quite by accident that it was a much more pleasant drive to go up 23 in MI 
and across the bridge and turn left, its about 100 miles less to Iron 
Mountain, and several hours shorter.  In 10% of the traffic.
  
> > I thought I had mentioned Alan DeKok’s contributions to the NitrOS-9
> > effort, but I don’t recall. He certainly deserved some credit for the
> > later revisions to the OS.

Alan may have, it would not surprise me at all. But he comes in, and leaves 
again like cinderella, so the three bears aren't aware he has been there 
other than the evidence :)  One of our long list of talented coders who 
probably deserves more thanks than I have seen go by, and I've been here 
since I was dialing up delphi on a 300 baud modem.
 
> >> I'm not yapping because I think I needed an honorable mention, but I
> >> do think some of that praise could have been worded "and others". I
> >> am reasonably sure there were other volunteers besides myself
> >> involved, but at the time we as a group weren't sure we could do it
> >> without repercussions from Des Moines so it wasn't publicly
> >> discussed as to whom was doing what. IMO if there were others, its
> >> long past due they should at least raise a hand and wave to the
> >> crowd. I think its safe now. :)
> >> 
> >> I have to assume a good word from Boisy may have smoothed the way in
> >> that regard, and that we should be giving a bit of credit there for
> >> the freedom we have had in this effort.  I won't say it's unique,
> >> but OTOH, where are the now community supported upgrades for TOS on
> >> my Atari 1040ST-E?  And amigados has been tied up in litigation for
> >> decades now.  Nuff said.
> > 
> > I don’t think I had any appreciable influence in “calling off the
> > dogs” per se while I was at Microware. NitrOS-9 was practically
> > ignored by the company, who was by then focused on major consumer
> > markets like interactive TV, as well as their more traditional
> > commercial markets.

You were there?  I may have seen you, I made a trip past there and asked 
for the 50 cent tour once. In 86 or 87, my wet ram has faded now after 
nearly 30 years.

Interactive tv, to me, started out on bald slippery tires that never got 
any traction despite MW's best efforts which I think were substantial. Sad 
for MW but that was the peg they hung their hat on. One of those things 
that needed a killer ap like doom but never quite clicked with the wallet 
carrying public.  I almost got the sense that they were afraid of a truly 
mass market, because its something they could have had for the asking had 
they not wanted as much for the OS9-68k as it cost for an amiga 500 & a 
hard drive caddy plugin.  Priced so that it was affordable as opposed to 
the $700 they did price it at thru Digby Tarvan, they could have had that 
15 years of fame for the asking because the sales would have financed the 
gui it didn't have.  The amigados we had, several versions of it, could do 
a lot that M$ would not do for another 15 or 20 years, but stability in a 
commercial environment was always a pipedream.  So can linux, but on the 
amiga I have to admit it was helpless, needing 100x the ram that was ever 
installed in an amiga, and further crippled in that it never grew the 
drivers for the PP&S 68040 card and its ilk like I had in mine, which was 
equipt with the then unheard of 64 megs of main ram.

Unforch, its all history now, and while I have shed a few tears for what 
might have been if only..., but not today, that is long past.

I continue to get on a buzz when cabin fever sets in and write something I 
think is useful about once a year, the last one being bootlink, which 
allows one to have a "track 34" at whatever the usual place on a hard drive 
that works for your hardware is, but to rewrite that particular vdisks LSN0 
so that it can use the OS9Boot file from any of the 255 other vdisks you 
can setup on your hard drive.  For me, with my distaste for things rsdos, 
figuring out how to get a clean RSDOS boot, and then remember the syntax to 
make link.bas run.  Now its a matter of keeping a mental list of what the 
various boots can do, and what vdisk they are on, doing a "bootlink 128" or 
whichever one I want to use for the next reboot, and tapping the reset 
button.  It really is that simple for me.

But with a blown salt chip, putting dw out of action, me and my 
"repository" are frozen in time until I can put in a new SALT, perhaps with 
a clipon or glued on heat sink this time and restore my dw access.  That, 
according the the email, will be at least another month down the log.

When dw is running, I do mb's by mounting the .dsk right as it sits in my 
built repo copy.  Almost handier than bottled beer. :)

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>

Your code should be more efficient!
A pen in the hand of this president is far more
dangerous than 200 million guns in the hands of
         law-abiding citizens.