[Coco] Building NitrOS-9 on Mac OS X

[nickma2 at optusnet.com.au]

I definately found installing software to hard disk was easier on my
old MS-DOS system than what I have found in OS-9 and I'm sure there
are many who would agree with me on that.

It doesn't really matter anyway. I don't use OS-9 for anything more
than to boot a sluggish OS-9 game from disk.

(And Kyum-Gai for OS-9 was not really an OS-9 native program)

Nick

----- Original Message -----
From: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" <coco at maltedmedia.com>
To:"CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" <coco at maltedmedia.com>
Cc:
Sent:Thu, 22 Jan 2015 20:00:47 -0600
Subject:Re: [Coco] Building NitrOS-9 on Mac OS X

 > On Jan 22, 2015, at 7:45 PM, nickma2 at optusnet.com.au wrote:
 > 
 > I don't know if it were as bad. I never had to reinstall my MS-DOS
on
 > my Hard Drive. Just adding and editing the Config.Sys and
 > Autoexec.bat. Many programs didn't even need this once a reliable
 > config was setup.

 We had a stack of boot floppies for various games that had different
requirements. That, and all the IRQ/COM jumpers and stuff is one thing
about the DOS days I don't mind leaving behind.

 > It just amazes me that OS-9 software for hard drive use doesn't
 > install easier. 

 Yeah, though I bet it's like how most Mac programs today don't have
installers -- you just drag it wherever you want. Most of the time,
OS-9 stuff was just a COPY or DSAVE command to move the files to your
other disk.

 > I just got sick of stuffing around in OS-9 just to get things
working
 > all the time. I wanted to be creating applications that release the
 > full power of the computer but OS-9 was more a deterrant to
creating
 > applications of the quality I was hoping for. 

 For me, once I moved from RS-DOS to OS-9, I was able to leverage all
the OS stuff and writing software became much easier. My MiniBanners
was written in RS-DOS, then ported to BASIC09, and I ended up writing
in assembly and C under OS-9. I don't think I would have ever learned
C in RS-DOS, though I know at least on C compiler came out for BASIC
in the end years.

 It's why the only assembly game I ever wrote was under OS-9. I
learned the system call to map in the screen and away I went. You may
recall, Kevin Darling said he'd port anything to OS-9 to prove it
could be done and the Kyum-Gai To Be Ninja game somehow was the one
that volunteered.

 So much more could have been done but game developers preferred
writing to the metal so you got guys like me who knew OS-9 but not
games ;-) I think the myth I was glad to learn was a myth was that you
couldn't access video memory directly. However, doing cool scrolling
things and all that would have definitely broken some rules but
there's no reason by a custom video device driver could not have been
written to handle all the basic stuff, then guarantee the device was
"locked" for the app. Many sound players and stuff would live
peacefully but they'd mask interrupts and take over to do their thing.
You could then run them on OS-9, but they didn't multitask :)

 I wrote a sound driver that played digital sound files. I don't know
why no one else did this stuff -- OS-9ers weren't gamers I guess?

 -- Allen

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