[Coco] NitrOS-9 L3 Code and Disk Images

[Tormod Volden]

On Thu, Oct 23, 2014 at 3:38 AM, Kip Koon wrote:
> Hi Tormod!
>
> Are there any plans for reviving the NitrOS-9 Level-3 Code?

Hi Kip!

I believe Gene has such plans :)

I don't know of anyone else. Boisy put this stuff in the repo some
years ago, but I think the original level3 work from Alan DeKok is
decades old.

Other than that the only plans that I know anyone has or had for
NitrOS-9 is here: http://sourceforge.net/p/nitros9/feature-requests/

Personally I would like to see it ported to more systems. There is a
crowd of 6809 lovers outside the CoCo/Dragon scene, which I am sure
you have seen for instance on the N8VEM list. Getting them involved
and using NitrOS-9 as a unifying base would be great. NitrOS-9 offers
the a well defined API to write programs that can run on a CoCo or a
homebrew 6809 system.

Generally I think we need more new software running on NitrOS-9, more
than we need new features in NitrOS-9. But I am not so much into the
use of NitrOS-9 so what do I know. Of course a lot of people think the
operating system itself is more interesting to develop than programs
for it. And I could fit in there, I guess :)

>
> How do I put in my own changes into my local copy of the NitrOS-9 Repository
> without the Build process removing said changes every time I try to assemble
> the source code and make the disks?  I have some ideas I want to play with
> including cleaning up some scripts, adding other scripts that I think are
> needed or at least would be interesting and correcting at least one error in
> a module.

You can make your own local branch. See "hg help branch" for the short
story, but read the mercurial documentation and tutorials for better
explanations. I posted some of these here:
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.hardware.tandy.coco/75439

>
> Another reason why I'm asking is I have a friend named Bas De Jong who is
> running a homebrew 68020 VME system he made using wirewrap methods that runs
> OS-9 68K 2.3 and he wants to add Windowing capabilities to His OS-9
> Operating system.
>
> He asked me some questions about the windowing system in NitrOS-9 and I told
> him as far as I know the default distro disks have no built-in GUI.  Then I
> remembered the Multivue disks.  I tried the Multivue 6309 DW and Multivue
> 6809 DW disks in Drivewire with VCC 1.43Beta and neither of them booted.  I
> also tried to boot the Multivue 6309 and Multivue 6809 disks in VCC Drive 0
> with the Drive off Basic command and neither of these booted.  If I remember
> correctly,  Multivue is the GUI application, but I cannot check it out to
> get copies of the screen for Bas.
>
> Are the Multivue disks broken or did I make a mistake in my configuration in
> Drivewire and/or VCC?

I don't know. Maybe Bill Pierce knows, since he's the most heavy user
of NitrOS-9 GUI systems that I know of.

>
> I tested a version of OS-9 Level 3 once quite a while back and it seemed to
> work fine, but I didn't have a Coco mouse then so I did not pursue it any
> further.  Now that I have VCC 1.43beta I'm going to pull it out again and
> see if it still boots.  Any help would be most appreciated.  Thanks in
> advance.  Take care my friends.

So there was a OS-9 Level 3? Interesting. Maybe someone can pitch in
with some history and background. I have considered it more like
vaporware, from reading the NitrOS-9 FAQ.

Cheers,
Tormod