[Coco] NitrOS9 boot

[Robert Gault]

Bill wrote:
> When I boot into NitrOS9, I get a screen on my little TV that is green with
> black letters, and it VERY HARD to see. I know how to change the screen
> after boot, but how can I change the bootup to come up with the screen I
> want? Bold black letters on a white background work fine for me. (Old 13"
> TV)

You change this screen the same way you change the /term screen, select 
an appropriate entry in the scripts used to create the new disk. In this 
case, edit either mb.dw3 or mb.floppy to change
merge ../MODULES/BOOTTRACK/rel_80
to
merge ../MODULES/BOOTTRACK/rel_32

You won't have any easy way to change the colors of the boot screen 
unless you want to try editing the Rel module. However, if you don't 
like the default (black on green I think) let me know by private e-mail 
and I'll send you a modified Rel.

> 
> Plus, has anyone written a NitrOS9/DriveWire Syntax tutorial?

There is a .pdf file on the Cloud-9 site.

> I'm not sure
> how to address DriveWire from OS9. I know that the DriveWire disks are /x0,
> /x1, /x2, and /x3. But how about the floppies? When I type 'dir /dd' I get
> the directory of the DriveWire 'floppy', and typing something like 'dir /d1'
> or 'format /d1' just puts the Coco into la-la land and it just kinda
> freezes. I have to reboot to do anything.
> 

If you booted from the DW3 disk mounted in Winserver, then /DD is 
defined as equivalent to /X0. Regards /D1 through /D3, you need to 
indicate what you expect to happen.
These descriptors are for floppies and as such will be drives attached 
to your Coco. If you don't have any Coco floppy drives or they are 
turned off, the above booted system should not hang but time out with an 
error 246 - Not Ready. If you have changed the contents of the OS9Boot 
file by altering one of the scripts, you may have changed the meanings 
of /D0 - /D3. In that case, there is no way to predict what might happen.
If you are not trying to access Coco floppy drives and don't even have a 
floppy disk controller on the Coco let us know what you are attempting 
to do and what changes if any were made to dw3.bl