[Coco] partial OS9 boot from hard drive (back on topic)

[Stephen H. Fischer]

Hi,

I am sorry, but I must consider this response to be unhelpful for us all.

You are implying that all projects must be done by individuals working alone
with out the help that can be provided by many people from their memory.

Gene I assume was typing his OS-9 Boot post from knowledge that he had
obtained long ago. He took the time to type the message in answering a
previous post and I again assume did not spend 6 hours looking over the
Source code. That would not be expected from anyone by me although in the
past I have spent many hours researching an response. That was mainly for my
own education and the requester would not expect me to do that.

Do you understand the concept of a "Thought Exercise"?

I am not at this point looking at code, manuals and so on. I did look
at the CoCo 3 Service manual trying to find any way of doing a RTC with the
existing CoCo 3. I could not find any way. Tandy apparently never designed
anything into the CoCo 3 that might work. That is why DECB disks are the
*only* disks that I have that do not have a time stamp for files. That makes
all of us to not be happy campers.

The solution of course is to add a RTC. If a Real Time Clock that meets the
following requirements is being made then it would be possible to add on to
the CoCo 3 easily.

1. Serial output. The date and time are constantly being output on a serial
line.

2. The date and time can be set by pushbuttons connected between pins.

These would allow the real time clock to be installed as a bulge in the CoCo
3 RGB monitor cable using the already unused monitor sense connection to a
PIA pin. The CoCo 3 schematic shows four more unused PIA pins along side the
one that is connected.

Should such a RTC not exist or be too expensive to construct then a fall
back possibility is to place a ripple counter and shift register into the
RGB cable with the ripple counter being fed by VSYNC which is of course on
the RGB cable. A source of power will be required of course. In worse case,
steal some from another connector, perhaps the Joysticks.

As this is an external modification, for those not able to construct such a
cable they could send their cables for modification by those who could or
get a new RGB cable with the ripple counter already installed. This will
even work for those persons who are not using a RGB monitor.

As to the "complexity or likelihood of success", those are some of what I am 
trying to discover.
I am not bothered by a blank sheet of paper or the complexity of operating 
systems, the CoCo and OS-9 being so very tiny compared to those I have 
worked on in the past. As to trying to warn me about failure, don't bother. 
I have not failed a lot before, I do not expect to with this, and the 
failures have proved to be very valuable. You and others may be assuming a 
goal that I am not currently looking toward. Success has already been 
declared in this investigation.
Stephen H. Fischer

Robert Gault wrote:
> You would be well advised to study the NitrOS-9 source code and the
> Basic Unravelled series before asking questions about how your
> requests could be accomplished. I don't believe you understand the
> complexity or likelihood of success required by your requests.
>
> Stephen H. Fischer wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> You are answering my questions before they are asked. Great work!
>>
>> I hope you will have the time to read and respond to my posts. At
>> this point
>> really deep details are not needed, but comments on what to look at
>> for solutions and problems are very useful.
>>
>> Thanks for the detailed look at the boot process, something I was
>> just about
>> to research or ask questions about.
>>
>> --
>>
>> Stephen H. Fischer
>>
>> <snip>