[Coco] VCC DriveWire4 Starter Kits Updated

[Bill Pierce]

 Since I've noticed a few people have been downloading my outdated "VCC Starter Kits" lately, I felt it was time I got them updated to the current versions of VCC and NitrOS9.

For those who don't know what my "VCC Starter Kits" are, the kits are a single install of VCC, HDBDOS, NitrOS9, and DriveWire4, completely set up and ready to run. A complete "Turnkey" system. These kits come with VHDs already configured with NitrOS9 (link below).

In this revision on my kits, I've featured my 6309 "Super Coco 3 NitrOS9". No, it's nothing really different, it's just that NitrOS9 is setup for massive amounts of storage with 8x 128meg DW4 VHD drives (yes 8!), 1x 90meg VCC native system drive (faster than dw drives), 3 virtual floppy drives (2x 720k, 1x 158k), and a 96k ramdisk featuring Gene Heskett's "MyRam" ramdisk (my ramdisk of choice). Also, the VCC emultors setup for both the 6809 & 6309 CPU versions are pre-configured to use 2meg of memory!
Of course, the user can change these setting to anything they want, but the idea was a maxed out Coco3/NitrOS9/Drivewire4 system ready to use (all needed ROMs included).

The VCC NitrOS9 setups are as follows:
Cpu - 6809 or 6309 (separate packages for each) @ 1.78mhz
Memory - 2 meg of memory available for NitrOS9
Keyboard - PC Natural keyboard layout (change to suit your preference)
/DD (& /H0) - VCC Native HD 0 as "System disk" @ 90 meg (faster than DW4 drives)
/X0-/X7 - DW4 HD Drives @ 128meg each (the 6809 package only includes /X0-/X3)
/D0-/D1 - 3.5" 80trk 720k DSDD floppy dives
/D2 - 5.25" 35trk 158k SSDD floppy drive (for backwards compatibility)
/R0 - 96k MyRam ramdisk (can be expanded or downsized or even eliminated at any time)
/Term-/W1-/W7 - All windows set for hardware 80col text (can be changed with wmode at any time)
/V1-/V2 - VDG Windows (6309 package only) (for backwards compatibility)
/N1-/N13 - DW4 Virtual serial ports (/N5-/N13 6809 package only)
/MIDI - For using DW4 MIDI with Ultimuse3 (included)
/Z1-/Z2 - DW4 Virtual Terminal ports (6309 package only)
/P - DW4 Virtual Printer driver
/Pipe - Pipe system (used by virtually all my projects)

Of course any of this can be changed to suit your needs.

Also included is the latest version of my MShell project (already installed). The CMDS directory is filled with over 250 commands (some unique and hard to find). This includes "MV Canvas" (OS9's CocoMax3), EZGen, KwikGen, Ed 3.1 (graphic text editor), Vim (8col patched TSEdit), wmode (like tmode & dmode, but for windows), VDrive (for accessing your OS9Boot on HDBDOS Drive255), Gene's Vfy, SuperComm, RG's DirSort, Ultimuse3, UBox3, Sleuth3, C Compiler system (including c.comp), KUtil (kernel utility) and many others, not to mention the standard OS9 commands.

I have tried to include "doc" files (when I could find them) for some of the programs. These are located in the /DOCS directory.

Why separate installs for 6809 & 6309? Well, because NitrOS9 6309 will not run on a 6809 machine, so I made one for each CPU configuration.

As I said, these packages are preconfigured in one install system and are ready to run after installing. The only thing that has to be done after installation is to mount the 2 VHD images as my installer script cannot do this (yet). First start Drivewire4, then start VCC. The VHDs are installed to "Documents/VHD Images" (by default, but changable). The VHD beginning with "DW" has to be mounted in DrveWire4 Slot 0, and the VHD beginning with VCC has to be mounted in VCC's HD Drive 0. These VHDs must be mounted as such or the system will not boot!! Then hit "F9" twice to cold start and you're ready to go.
If you already have DriveWire4 installed on your system, then it can be unchecked in the installation process, but will have to configured by the user for VCC & TCP. The version in the packages is preconfigured.

For RSDOS users, HDBDOS is preconfigured for a 256 virtual disk HD. I did not populate these disks as I am not an RSDOS user, so I leave that to you RSDOS guys... you know what you want.

If you have never run DriveWire4 on your PC and do not have "Java" installed, when you run DriveWire4 for the first time, it will automatically take you to the Java download site.

There is a text file that displays during the installation (please read) that explains the process.

So, where do you find the VCC Starter Kits? Well... Right here:

https://sites.google.com/site/dabarnstudio/the-color-computer-drivewire4-hdbdos-nitros9-starter-kit

The downloads are near the bottom of the page.
As of yet, I have not updated the XRoar Starter Kits, but will do so as soon as I get a chance.

Oh... Mac & Linux "Wine" users, please let me know if these packages run under Wine :-)

Please send questions or complaints to me offlist as to not clog up the list.

Enjoy!!

 


Bill Pierce
"Charlie stole the handle, and the train it won't stop going, no way to slow down!" - Ian Anderson - Jethro Tull

 

My Music from the Tandy/Radio Shack Color Computer 2 & 3
https://sites.google.com/site/dabarnstudio/
Co-Contributor, Co-Editor for CocoPedia
http://www.cocopedia.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
Global Moderator for TRS-80/Tandy Color Computer Forums
http://www.tandycoco.com/forum/

E-Mail: ooogalapasooo at aol.com