[Coco] Glenside IDE booting problems

[gene heskett]

On Friday, December 03, 2010 05:59:08 am Don Johnson did opine:

> On 2010-12-02, at 6:38 PM, Robert Gault wrote:
> > Don Johnson wrote:
> >> Robert
> >> 
> >> Okay, well let me restate my problem and try to fill in some of your
> >> questions.
> >> 
> >> For a first step I copied the drivers available from the Glenside
> >> disk to the module directory on a copy of the OS-9 Boot disk.  I
> >> re-named the cc3hdisk_16_50.dr driver to cc3hdisk.dr because after
> >> many failed attempts the config utility program in the next step
> >> seemed to be looking for that name. I did not re-name the h0_16.dd.
> >> 
> >> I then called the config command from the Boot disk and followed the
> >> instructions as directed on screen, as described in the OS-9 manual,
> >> Chapter 7, on how to create a new system diskette.  During that
> >> process I selected to include the module for printer (P), PIPE,
> >> /d0_35S, /d1_35S, and /h0_16.  I selected the TERM_WIN with all the
> >> available windows.  I put in a newly formatted floppy and let the
> >> work begin in created a new system disk.
> >> 
> >> When I tried to boot into OS-9 with that system disk (floppy),  which
> >> I believe to have been built with a hard drive device, it starts off
> >> normal enough with the 'OS-9 BOOT' message on the screen, and then
> >> shortly after that the word 'FAILED' appears below and the floppy
> >> stops.
> >> 
> >> That is as far as I have gotten.
> > 
> > Don,
> > 
> > OK, it would seem you would like to boot into OS-9 from a floppy and
> > then have access to the hard drive. That would require you to use the
> > normal Boot module for floppies and Init and Sysgo should point to
> > the floppy as the default directories; /D0 and /D0/CMDS. For this to
> > work, all you need to do is add a Glenside driver and descriptor to
> > the OS9Boot file. Not having the Glenside package, I've no idea how
> > easy their documentation is to follow. Gene and Willard can offer
> > advise on that score.
> > 
> > As Gene requested, please post the contents of your new OS9Boot file.
> > That is easily obtained. Once you have created the new boot disk
> > enter ident /d0/os9boot
> 
> Okay, so this is good stuff, and useful as well.  I ran the ident
> command as you suggested and compared it to my other system disks that
> I created that work, but without the hard disk drivers and descriptors.
>  The lists were the same except for the CC3HDisk and H0 modules
> existing in the non-working System Disk, and not there on the working
> System Disks.  From other responses I realized that the DD module was
> not there before because I did not add it during the Config process, so
> I went back and did the same steps over again.  Here is the list of
> modules in the newly created OS9Boot file (that still does not work so
> for sanity sake at least I'm consistent).
> 
> 17	$C0		$47B370	.	OS9p2
> 12	$C1		$FD1FEA	.	IOMan
> 67	$C0		$0B2322	.	Init
>   5	$11		$1006FE	.	CC3Go
>   9	$C1		$D28AFD	.	Clock

This issue clock has an issue.  It doesn't handle the gime correctly on an 
IRQ return, leaving the gime in a state where it no longer transmits the 
floppies IRQ's, a problem we called the bootlist order bug back in the day, 
and which was fixed by the package of clocks called clock-ed9.

It was a major PITA back then, and the solution many of us used was to copy 
the init module 3 more times, padding its length with 1, 2, or 3 extra 
bytes to adjust the clocks position in memory by up to 3 extra bytes, which 
was found empirically by os9gen'ing a disk using first the OEM module, then 
the +1 sized version, wash rinse repeat till it worked.  Because of the way 
os9 scanned the file, the trash bytes had to be added by using ded to adjust 
its SIZE integer, the 'v' to fix the crc and 'w' to actually write the new, 
longer module.

> 28	$D1		$EFBE13	.	RBF

>   5	$E1		$02BF2A	.	CC3HDisk
> 82	$F1		$0C9F6C	.	H0

If these modules are the tandy issued modules, you may as well give up.  
They are hard coded for the very outrageously priced ($129 & local taxes) 
Tandy HD controller which was not a scsi controller, but s SASI controller, 
and the /H0 descriptor AIR there were two) were hard coded for the sizes of 
a couple of hard drives Tandy was trying to sell at about $600, set for 5 
and 15 megabytes IIRC.

>   9	$E1		$759161	.	CC3Disk
> 82	$F1		$FC1918	.	D0
> 82	$F1		$9F46Ca	.	D1
> 82	$F1		$E6B118	.	DD
> 13	$D1		$F946CA	.	SCF
> 12	$E1		$CC3EA4	.	PRINTER
> 83	$F1		$FE3BAE	. 	P
> 16	$E1		$F737C2	.	CC3IO
> 14	$C1		$6E4441	.	GrfInt
> 83	$F1		$EC1C40	.	Term
> 83 	$F1		$75DEBB	.	 W
> 83	$F1		$7CD180	.	W1
> 83 	$F1		$8EE4C6	.	W2
> 83 	$F1		$E42902	.	W3
> 83	$F1		$119408	.	W4
> 83	$F1		$C109F3	.	W5
> 83	$F1		$A3C36E	.	W6
> 83	$F1		$AC6B4B	.	W7
>   4	$D1		$AD6718	.	PipeMan
>   2	$E1		$5B2B56	.	Piper
> 80	$F1		$CC06AF	.	Pipe
> 
> 
> I produced this list with the -s option, but without it all the CRC
> checks showed (Good).
> 
> > and a list of the contents will be printed to the screen. Each module
> > listed should say Good and you should list all the module names. The
> > list should look exactly like any other OS9Boot file you have
> > created, except for the presence of the Glenside driver and
> > descriptor. Can we assume you have been able to create any boot disks
> > that work for a pure floppy system and actually boot you into OS-9?
> > 
> > Make sure that your new boot disk contains a shell and gfrdrv in the
> > CMDS directory.
> 
> I created the system disk with a full copy of the commands from the
> original System disk, and I verified that both the shell and gfrdrv
> commands were there.

You can build a working floppy only system from the stock disks, but its so 
much easier to 'get it right' with nitros9 simply because so many bugs have 
been fixed, and even on a 6809 cpu, it is now about twice as fast as the 
original os9 was.  There are working drivers for many of the hard drive 
controllers we can use in nitros9, but the superdriver from the cloud9 site 
works faster & with all but the LR-Tech kit, it hasn't been tested as no 
one has one.

You said you didn't have a 'pc' to download this stuff with?  How are you 
posting these messages?

If it helps any, my web pages have disk images that IF you have a floppy 
controller, something like the linux 'dd' command can write these to a 3.5" 
or 5.25" 360k floppy disk.  Various operating systems have various tools for 
this.  For my own lashup here, my ASUS motherboards floppy controller does 
not do 256 byte/sector disk formats, so I am forced to run a session of 
minicom on this linux box, to a shell running against my deluxe 232 pack, 
so I am logged into the coco from here, and can then run rz/sz to move this 
stuff back and forth.  I see that a basic09 util I wrote to write these 
images from my 1Gb HD to floppies on the coco isn't available, but I will 
try to make it so at some point today.  The coco isn't on ATM as I haven't 
booted it since we got back from a wedding in FL this past weekend.

See <http://gene.homelinux.net:85/gene/nitros9/level2/coco3/>
and download the "nos96809l2v030209coco3_40d_1.dsk"
and "	nos96809l2v030209coco3_40d_2.dsk" files.  Then get them onto floppies, 
writing them as whole disk images, not as  common files.
The first image s/b directly boot able when placed on a floppy and inserted 
in drive 0 IF your drives are actually double sided drives, which many 
were.  The 40d_2.dsk is all the tools and modules to build your own boot 
disks, which in turn can give you the tools to run some hard drives.

My images are now about 10 months old, and I see that Mark has a link to 
the sourceforge repo, which if you click on the nitros9 disk image will 
take you to where you can either buy it on floppies for a small fee, or 
download the nightly build which are even newer than what is available on 
my pages.  My pages as you can see, have no commercials, they are actually 
living on this machine, a linux box running pclos.
 
And I can recommend both HDB-DOS and the superdriver, plus one of the HD 
controllers Mark sells as the ultimate coco3 hard drive system.

-- 
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
To downgrade the human mind is bad theology.
- C. K. Chesterton