[Coco] DriveWire on the Raspberry Pi in five easy steps.

[Allen Huffman]

> On Feb 9, 2015, at 9:24 PM, Bill Pierce via Coco <coco at maltedmedia.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> Allen, there is no form of Wiki for the Nitros9 dw descriptors. Basically, it just a /t1 driver on steroids :-)

Except this one:

http://sourceforge.net/p/drivewireserver/wiki/OS9_Modules/ <http://sourceforge.net/p/drivewireserver/wiki/OS9_Modules/>

"The driver for all virtual serial port functionality, including virtual modems and TCP/IP networking, is scdwn.dr.”

Maybe this is a typo for scdw(v).dr.

It mentions the /N descriptors, but no reference to /V and /Z.

> The error problem is probably that the dw4 server does not return actual Os9 style error numbers, so somewhere along the line of communication, the error number gets assigned and may not be the actual error that was encountered, just what the driver "thought" may have happened (my theory anyway :-)

That would make much more sense than #207 with 352K free.

> To me, the benifits and capabilities of dw4 beyond just the disk access stuff makes it almost a nessecity to have it in the boot... telnet, PC console, Midi, printing, moving files between PC and Coco, ftp access, etc.

Indeed. I have no MIDI on the CoCo and not sure what I would want to print that I couldn’t just copy off the SD card.

I need to find the docs so I can learn about the other features. The only thing I want to do is possibly use the Pi as a development system and move files back and forth. 

> Coco too far from the PC? just use a wifi or bluetooth usb adapter (yes, they work).

Alas, I do not have one, and the computers normally are in the back bedroom while the CoCo is here in the livingroom where the TV is. I have my laptop out here right now, but it won’t stay here - it needs to be plugged up back there to my DROBOS and such.

I also don’t want to have to boot a full computer just to use my CoCo, which is why I am using the Pi It is in a tiny case (half the size of the CoCoSDC) sitting behind my CoCo. Very nice. Sadly, it takes almost a minute to boot and maybe longer for the DW server to be ready, while my CoCo is at the shell prompt in less than 3. I’m going to look in to some of the Linux fastboot stuff and see if that can be improved since most of the OS I don’t need.

> And hopefully with the upcoming version... Coco networking! (Coco to Coco).

True CoCo to CoCo? Or is it CoCo to PC to PC to CoCo?

> And dw4 can live nicely along beside the sdc drivers. Then you don't have to pull the sd card, insert it in the PC, copy images from the PC to the sd, then insert it back in the sdc... just copy them from dw4 "/Xx" to "/SDx" and never leave Nitros9 or the Coco.. much easier.

Thus why I loaded the DW on my CoCoSDC system :) The notes in the docs about when it caches concerns me, but it does state it will write data out. I hope I can at least pull things off an actively mounted .dsk, else doing an eject / copy / mount will have to suffice. Since the CoCo boots in 3 seconds, it’s just blazing fast to power off, move the SD card, type an “os9 copy" command, then swap back.

> But all that aside, it's much easier to show people to use the new Nitros9 dw disks than have them load it every time they want it. Remember, they may not have an sdc... or a floppy... or an HD... dw may be their only form of I/O. It was mine until recently.

Yep. Hopefully someone out there is doing a good job documenting that.

It’s a great thing, but I wouldn’t have room for a PC and monitor and keyboard and mouse on my CoCo desk. I just don’t have the setup. But the Pi seems like it will do everything I need and it was insanely easy to get running.

		— A