[Coco] Does anyone have a Level3 disk that actually boots?

[Gene Heskett]

On Saturday 29 November 2014 14:10:13 Bill Nobel did opine
And Gene did reply:
> Well Gene, I don’t know if this will help. but grab Roberts boot file
> from my repo here:
> 
> https://github.com/bnobel/Nitros9-Level-3
> <https://github.com/bnobel/Nitros9-Level-3>
> 
> It boots perfectly in VCC with a â€کemudsk’ VHD, and raw disk rom (no
> DW). I know you are trying to make a bootfile on a real floppy, but I
> myself have not successfully modified the boot. I do boot and use it
> for my disassembly, as I do use a â€کemudsk’ VHD as my main Coco3
> (under VCC, don’t have a real Coco3).  Which of course gives me
> access, of course to all my files in L3.  It works very cool the
> system map has a lot more room.
> 
> Once I figure out exactly what Alan did I am merging that code to
> V3.3.0 source.  Then I can start to play with modifying the boot.
> 
> Bill Nobel

Well, ATM I am burned out as I've put about 6 hours in this today just 
trying to make a boot disk on a 35trk ss floppy.  But the last problem I 
just hit it that even if I write the first sector of the boottrack full of 
E5's so it looks like raw formatted disk, os9gen is steadfastly refusing 
to install a new boottrack.

I thought my os9gen was the latest, but its been a couple years since I 
updated the copy on my hd.  If that doesn't fix the -t=file option so it 
just don't care & writes it regardless of whats there, I don't know what 
to do next.  Everything I try to do to make a boot disk discloses yet 
another failure.

So I am, against my better judgement doing a make dsk in the root of the 
repo, and because I have listings enabled, it will take quite a while as 
it scrolls about 10Gb across my screen here. If, when I have installed the 
latest L2 cmds, os9gen is still broken, I will go kick its tires & see if 
I can add a -f option, to force it to overwrite whatever it finds there.

> > On Nov 29, 2014, at 12:31 PM, Gene Heskett <gheskett at wdtv.com> wrote:
> > 
> > On Saturday 29 November 2014 07:31:27 Bill Pierce via Coco did opine
> > 
> > And Gene did reply:
> >> Aaron, I've yet to try any experiments, but I was thinking of trying
> >> to put the dw sub in the system area, then rbdw in RBF, and scdwn
> >> in SCF. But until Bill Nobel gets the code up to 3.3.0 standards
> >> (if he can), I doubt it will work at all since the Level 3 code is
> >> based on Nitros9 1.2.1 or 1.2.2. A while back, I tried dw4
> >> installed in a very early nitros9 release (pre 2.0.0 I think) as
> >> well as vanilla OS9 and neither would boot. It's probably a small
> >> problem with a call to something that has been added or moved since
> >> then and could probably be fixed to work on vanilla. One of the few
> >> "system" modules I've seen that will work on all versions of
> >> OS9/NitrOS9 is EmuDsk, so I know it can be done.
> >> 
> >> 
> >> Bill Pierce
> >> "Today is a good day... I woke up" - Ritchie Havens
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 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: Aaron Wolfe <aawolfe at gmail.com>
> >> To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts <coco at maltedmedia.com>
> >> Sent: Sat, Nov 29, 2014 1:59 am
> >> Subject: Re: [Coco] Does anyone have a Level3 disk that actually
> >> boots?
> >> 
> >> 
> >> On Nov 28, 2014 10:22 AM, "Bill Pierce via Coco"
> >> <coco at maltedmedia.com>
> >> 
> >> wrote:
> >>> So far, there is one MAJOR disadvantage to Level 3..... The
> >>> drivewire4
> >> 
> >> drivers will not function. The reason being the drivewire sits on
> >> the "line" as it is an RBF driver with SCF functions. and cannot be
> >> seperated.
> >> 
> >>> <y question is.. could create another RBF module, renamed to "DW4"
> >>> or
> >> 
> >> something (same for SCF), then move ALL the dw drivers out to
> >> another space. How much is DW tied to RBF? I know it's tied heavily
> >> to SCF.
> >> 
> >> The SCF, RBF, and clock functionality of Drivewire is already split
> >> into separate modules that do not communicate with each other.
> >> However, all three of these share a dependency on the common "DW
> >> sub" module that provides the low level serial communication.  This
> >> common module will need to be available to both the rbf and SCF
> >> address space (and the clock if that's made into a separate area). 
> >> So long as that is done, there should not be a problem.
> > 
> > I will repeat a question I've asked before, has anyone actually
> > gotten a disk made from os9L3.os9 to boot?
> > 
> > My /d0 is a 40 track ds drive but is normally set for a 35 track ss
> > configuration.
> > 
> > The .os9 image is of a 2880 sector drive, but doesn't have enough
> > stuff in the image to even fill a 35trkss disk. I cannot with my
> > present default boot, format a disk, so my std mb scripts are hand
> > crafted to delete everything on the disk including the boottrack,
> > leaving a disk with an empty root dir that reports as 630 sectors
> > capacity, with 620 sectors free.
> > 
> > Now, dsave has an option to  handle the boottrack and os9boot files
> > if invoked with the -b -v options, so a supposedly bootable disk is
> > created.
> > 
> > So I created, from a copy of a working mb script, one that uses dsave
> > to create a 35 trk ss copy of this 2880 sector .os9 file.
> > 
> > But dsave -b is buggier than a 10 day old road kill in late July!!!
> > 
> > It installed a boottrack and an os9boot file but GOT THEM FROM MY
> > DEFAULT vdisk boot disk!  So when I rebooted to the floppy, it
> > instantly reverted to my default level 2 boot because the boottrack
> > contained boot_tc3!
> > 
> > And returning to the os9gen method , I have been about 5 hours making
> > boot disks that jump to the hard drive the instant it loads the
> > boottrack, apparently because while the mb script gives os9gen a
> > good boottrack file in bttemp, os9gen will not write the new
> > boottrack if it finds a boottrack already installed!  It makes a
> > good OS9Boot file, then reports an error 216 file not found unless I
> > run a basic09 utility that creates a KERNAL directory entry that
> > hooks up to the boottrack, making a deletable file out of it,  But
> > thats not all, I then have to use dEd to write the first line of the
> > file with a string of 5e5e5e5e5e5 etc so os9gen thinks it is working
> > with a pristine freshly formatted disk.  That is because I cannot
> > format a disk here using the default bootup, only 3 pages of sysram
> > left.
> > 
> > To Bill:
> > I also used mshell to copy several bits, like a copy of boot_1773_6ms
> > into a local directory so I could replace the boot I got when if did
> > a "vfy -sk /x1/KERNAL after running the basic09 utility and creating
> > a file for the boottrack in the /x1 mounted OS9L3.os9 file.
> > 
> > But everything I copied with mshell was bad.  Looked like it was
> > grabbing the /dd LSN0 but wasn't an exact match.  I have to run
> > mshell without a mouse as it doesn't even know I have one. So
> > hitting a c for copy, which brings up the menu, and another c to
> > confirm, is not working here.  I get a file, but not the contents.
> > 
> > Then, without some things like /H0 and its /DD copy and scsisys, and
> > made a genes-DD out of a copy of Alan's /D0, I am now crashing
> > someplace after the rel screen is opened, but the screen is slid 4"
> > to the right preventing me from seeing how far the boot's module
> > listing got but I am not getting a FAILED, it either hangs or goes
> > to out to pasture with a big shower of confetti on the screen.  So
> > next I saved a copy of my rel_80 and rebuilt the bttemp file, but
> > that I believe looks for krn so I'd expect I'll have to use ded to
> > change its internal name to krn while leaving it as OS9p1 in the
> > local directory.
> > 
> > Or I could say screw it and walk away for the rest of the day, or
> > maybe forever.  And it looks like I need to write a delfmt utility
> > that will first overwrite the files contents, making it look as if
> > its freshly formatted disk, before deleting it.
> > 
> > Unless by chance there is some switch we can set on the os9gen
> > command line that will force it to blindly overwrite an existing
> > boottrack.
> > 
> > Is there such a -f beast?  A help os9gen does not show it.
> > 
> > Cheers, Gene Heskett


Cheers, Gene Heskett
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