[Coco] OS-9 is not for me

[Nick Marentes]

On 7/11/2014 11:03 AM, Bill Pierce wrote:
> Nick, I think your biggest problem with OS9 is that you're used to 
> just "hacking" the system to make it do what you want. OS9 can't just 
> be "hacked". In RSDOS, once you leave the Basic realm into ML 
> software, the computer is yours. You can do what you like. Even in 
> Basic, if you "hack" the OS to do something the OS doesn't support, it 
> doesn't affect anything else because there is nothing else running. In 
> OS9, there is no "leaving" the system. It is always present and 
> running and other background/foreground tasks are relying on this 
> system to be running while your software is too. anything your 
> software does, affects anything else that's running including OS9 
> itself. It's much like any "modern" OS (windows, linux, OSX etc), if 
> you program things the way RSDOS ML programs are written (or even old 
> MSDOS C compilers and MASM, which is why they are no longer supported) 
> to take over the system... they would all crash as well as crash the 
> machine. It just doesn't work that way in modern OS's or in OS9 
> either. I'm not saying it's wrong to program like that, just wrong to 
> program like that in OS9.

I know all that. I like to "hack" the system to get more out of it. 
That's what is fun about the CoCo.

> As far as anything being "broken"... I think you're being a bit "over 
> zealous" as nothing I know of in NitrOS9 is "broken" and I don't have 
> to fix a thing to write software (and I write a lot). But I do 
> understand the confines of the system and the fact that "most" things 
> you want to do are already done. It's just knowing how to access them 
> which goes back to the books to find it, which I know can be frustrating.
> Take your sidescrolling routines for instance. Let's say you got it 
> implemented in an OS9 program. If I understand this function right, to 
> do this, you must reset things in the GIME to do things that are not 
> originally supported by the system (OS9 or RSDOS). Now, while your 
> program is running, flip to another window to your text editor.... 
> what is it doing whike the GIME is side scrolling? Most likely 
> craashing(if OS9 hasn't crashed already). Yes, there are reasons 
> things like this have not been programmed into OS9 and they're good 
> ones :-)

I agree. A unaltered virgin OS-9 system is largely "unbroken". The 
breakages occur from mods and enhancements added later by users that 
have not been fully tested,documented or scoped to work under every 
possible situation.

As for my "sidescrolling"... you cannot do my sidescrolling in OS-9. And 
to describe it properly, it is "split screen, 1 byte hardware scrolling 
with 2 channel interrupt driven sound and an Amiga'like background 
raster effect".

There is NO WAY you'd get that under OS-9 unless you shut OS-9 down and 
your software takes complete control.

Personally, doing these "unothodox" things and running outside of a 
governing environment such as OS-9 is what makes using and creating 
things on the CoCo fun.  It lets me formulate tricks, push boundaries 
and achieve things that a 1.79Mhz computer is not meant to do and I feel 
a sense of accomplishment. If I want to do wordprocessing, 
spreadsheeting and other "work" related tasks, I'd rather do that on my 
PC or MAC.

It's the "Sock Master Effect" -  If people say it can't be done, then 
that's the incentive to invent a way of doing it.

Nick