[Coco] Progress report my NitrOS-9 Coco 3 System

[Mike Pepe]

Roger Merchberger wrote:
> Rumor has it that John T Chasteen may have mentioned these words:
>> Hello Coco Friends
>> Thanks for helping me to get my COCO3 System operational.
>> The new IDE hard drive (300GB) mounted in a dual 5.25 inch
>> pwr supply case with both floppy drives removed.
>>
>> Equipment operational is a 512k COCO3, MPI with new PROM,
>> 300GB IDE drive, Hardware converter to use a Flat screen Computer
>> Monitor.
>>
>> Super IDE interface will allow me to get the IDE drive connected
>> and operational. I also have to learn more about Cloud-9  DriveWire
>> cable and software.
>>
>> Still haven't heard much on utilizing the 300GB IDE drive and dual
>> boot procedure
> 
> <MODE="WideEyed">
> 
>   *utilizing* a 300G Drive?
> 
> </MODE>
> 
> I seriously doubt there was ever that much software available in the 
> entire history of the CoCo...
> 
> That said, the largest partition OS-9 can handle is 4G. FWIU, you can 
> have multiple partitions of 4G, but how much data do you actually plan 
> on storing on your CoCo system?
> 
> Note: When I say "partition" don't think of it like an MS-DOS or Linux 
> partition which are delineated in a table - think "manual offsets to 
> multiple banks of data." If you later put this drive on a PC, it will 
> for all intents & purposes have "random data" on it, and any PC 
> operating system won't know there's any "partitions" on the drive 
> whatsoever.
> 
> The "Dual Boot" procedure, assuming you're speaking about RS-DOS and 
> [Nitr]OS-9, is detailed in the documentation - it's basically 1) 
> figuring out how many "virtual floppies" you want for RS-DOS (max of 256 
> - that'll take about 81Meg of storage) calculating the storage offset of 
> that, and telling NitrOS-9 to start formatting the drive at that offset.
> 
> Personally, I'm still debating setting up a 2G laptop drive I've saved 
> for my CoCo - for my current needs, a 512Meg CF might be more than 
> enough (with a few extra 128Meg CF cold-swappables in case I need more 
> "virtual floppies" for RS-DOS, but as I've only used 10 so far... ;-)
> 
> Now that you've given us a bit more detail of the hardware you have -- 
> what are your plans for software? How much are you planning on storing, 
> and where will you spend most of your time, RS-DOS or NitrOS-9?
> 

I'd have to agree with Roger, John... using 300GB is pretty implausible :)

I'd go with a 2-4GB CF card or microdrive, and put the 300GB drive in a pc!

-Mike