[Coco] Newbie questions

Tue Jan 21 13:19:25 EST 2014

Sean, RGBDOS is essentially the same as HDBDOS but older and without support for DW or Becker port. The version in VCC was used before the Becker port was developed and accessed VCC's native HD "Cartidge/Hard Drive 0".
With HDBDOS active, you use the drivewire slots for VHD images.
Turning of the becker port "Configuration/Config"BitBanger", "Becker Port Enabled" unchecked and RGBDOS selected in "Cartidge/FD-502 Config", you use the native drive above for the VHD images

Bill Pierce
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-----Original Message-----
From: Sean Margules <s_man501 at yahoo.com>
To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts <coco at maltedmedia.com>
Sent: Tue, Jan 21, 2014 1:07 pm
Subject: Re: [Coco] Newbie questions

    Brian, I'm sure what I'm saying is confusing because I don't have any idea 
what I'm doing yet.  I was starting to get the impression that Nitros9 wasn't 
built to handle old games, so that makes sense. I've got a whole bunch of games 
that I've been playing with (I don't actually play them, its just when I see 
them load I know I did something right). Exec and execute are apparently 
different commands, because my bin games are working with exec now, but 
'execute' still freezes the emulator. So that's a nice little discovery already 
thanks to you! Vcc gives the option of using two different DOS images (disk 
basic and RGB dos) as well as the option to use an 'external' image that isn't a 
part of the emulator. For the life of me I'm not sure what RGB dos is good for, 
because it doesn't seem to recognize anything in the disk drives. When I type 
"dir" The screen comes back with "drive = 0             free=68". It does 
apparently read the hard drive
 though ("dir 255" shows OS-9 hard drive boot and it works). I'd like to 
eventually get a good working knowledge of the coco3. Seems like it could keep 
me busy doing all kinds of nifty stuff, but the little things I don't know (i.e. 
exec vs. execute) are making me pull my hair out. Thanks for the quick response 
by the way!

On Tuesday, January 21, 2014 11:42 AM, Brian Blake <random.rodder at gmail.com> 
wrote:

Welcome Sean!!!

Just from the info provided (which is a little confusing), IF you are 
actually booting NitrOS-9 in VCC then trying to run games, you need to 
let us know what games. There are games that are NitrOS-9/OS-9 
compatible and will run in those environments. However, the vast 
majority of games are RS-DOS based games that will run in VCC from a 
disk image inserted into the Drive 0 of the emulator.

Some quick basics:

To machine language program or game load a game in RS-DOS type:

LOADM "gamename" (enter)
EXEC (enter)

To load a BASIC program or game:

LOAD "name" (enter)
RUN (enter)

or simply RUN "NAME" (enter)

Try using these commands in RS-DOS, with disk images
 inserted into the 
drives in VCC and see if that helps.

On 1/21/2014 11:18 AM, Sean Margules wrote:
> Hi everybody. I'm new here, and completely new to the coco3, so please excuse 
my ignorance. My Dad had a black and white TRS-80 (way different machine I know) 
in the library when I was a kid. No games or even a disk drive, but I used to 
mess around with basic on there after school. I looked it up online on a whim 
and found the Vcc emulator. I've been playing with it in my free time for a 
couple weeks now, and it kinda sucked me in. I'm using the 1.43 beta with 
drivewire support.
>
> Everything I know about this I've learned from google, websites, and a LOT of 
trial and error.
>
> Ok.... here's some of the issues I'm having
>
> I CAN load a
 Sierra disk image like kingsquest1_40d.dsk when I mount it in the FD-502 Drive 
0 slot, boot the system in 'disk basic', and type "dos" to boot into Nitros9 
when I have a Nitros9 VHD in the hard drive slot.
>
> I CAN use an external HDBDOS ROM image to access drivewire and then type "DOS" 
to boot a drivewire compatible Nitros9 boot disk in the 0 disk slot of the 
drivewire server.
>
> I CAN'T figure out how to run any games or programs from the FD-502 drive or 
the drivewire drives when I'm already inside Nitros9. I can "dir /d0" to see 
whats there. I even figured out how to "chx /d0/cmds" but the system freezes 
when I try to use what one would think would be the boot command (Sierra, 
AutoEx, etc.)
>
> I CAN'T get RGB dos to recognize any FD-502 drives, although I can get it to 
boot into nitros9 with "DOS 255"
>
> I CAN'T run any .BIN files at all, from any DOS or OS. I try "loadm 
programname" and it will wait and say ok, but when I type "execute" the system 
will freeze on the screen with that little s on it.
>
> I DON'T know how to access a hard drive directory or load data on to it.
>
>   And uh... I don't know a lotta other stuff. I've found resources online, but 
they're a little scarce on the basics, so I figured I'd try you guys. Thanks in 
advance for any tips. : )
>
> --
> Coco mailing list
> Coco at maltedmedia.com
> http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco

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