[Coco] A little help with OS9

[Robert Gault]

Dave Philipsen wrote:
> It's been more than 20 years since I booted my CoCo 3 into OS9 and now I've
> pulled out of storage two NOS CoCo3s that have been collecting dust.  Both of
> them run just fine and I've already implanted a 63C09 into one of them.  All of
> my old CoCo stuff is long gone including the Magnavox monitor, my B&B hard drive
> interface, ACIA Pak, floppy controller, and MPI.  I'm using a 19" arcade game
> style frame monitor that I also pulled out of storage.
>
> What I would like to do is get OS9 and/or NitrOS9 up and running as easily as
> possible and without a lot of extra cost. I have no problem with hacking the
> main board, burning new ROMs, etc.  I've got all the equipment to do that.  But
> what is the easiest and quickest way to get booted and actually have the ability
> to load/save files given the fact that I don't have any peripherals anymore?
>
> Ultimately, I want to create at least a partial CoCo 3 functionality on my
> Multicomp board and eventually write device drivers to support an SD card, PS/2
> keyboard, etc. so that I can boot OS9 on it eventually running at 25 MHz.  And,
> at some time in the future, I'd like to figure out a way to read and archive all
> of my old OS9 floppies (if they're even readable at all any more).  Any
> comments/help/guidance would be appreciated.
>
> Dave Philipsen
>
>
>

Reads like you no longer have any disk drives. If that is true, then your best 
approach would be to run Drivewire4 on your PC connected to your Coco through 
the serial port. That will require you to have at a minimum a PAK with the 
Drivewire HDBDOS ROM and make the serial cable.
Unless you are a hardware tinkerer, making the required cable, burning an EPROM, 
making a ROM PAK or obtaining a disk controller is not trivial. Good luck! :)

Now you can also go the emulator route which really is very simple.

Robert