[Coco] Glenside IDE booting problems

[gene heskett]

On Friday, December 03, 2010 06:48:11 pm Don Johnson did opine:

> On 2010-12-03, at 4:04 AM, gene heskett wrote:
> > 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?
> 
> Well I have pile of Macs and one Linux server here, but none of them
> have a floppy connected to them.  Even the linux box won't support the
> insertion of one of my old 5 1/4" floppy drives that I have lying
> around for my CoCo because it has a different floppy connector on the
> motherboard and an incompatible power connector.

Adaptor cables to fix that power cable diff were purchasable at the shack at 
one time, no idea if they still carry that stuff or not.  If they still do, 
its probably a tee cable, with a mini power connector in the middle, 
another teeny one so you can plug in the 3.5" drive, and the larger 
connector for the older drives on the other end of the tee.

The motherboard connector s/b identical on all 'pc's, but you may have to 
crimp a new drive connector onto the floppy cable, and then enable it in the 
bios as the correct type of drive.  Its also possible that the dual row 
headers such as the 3.5" drives use are available someplace in reverse 
gender to the ones I use to hook up a 3.5" drive to a cable with card edge 
connectors on it.

Its possible a phone call to tiger-direct might obtain that stuff ready 
made.

> > 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.
> 
> Okay this may have potential as I do have a mini232 pack here from
> CoNect that I can use.  Of course I have no experience in this form of
> communication between a Linux box and the CoCo3, but I should have all
> the parts.   I different task than this thread, but do you have any
> instructions on how you set this up?
> 
Set both interfaces to 9600 baud, start a "shell -i /t2 &" w/o the quotes 
on the coco, install minicom on the linux box, run it with "minicom -s", 
find the modem strings section and zero that out, then select the linux port 
(you'll have to be root to access the port).  You will probably want to 
also set minicom to make it use the coco's cr as a lf and vice versa, 
should be in the port config menu's someplace.

If successful after exiting the config stuff (save it when it works) then you 
should see a prompt from the coco that resembles this when the enter key is 
pressed on your keyboard:

{t2|07}/DD/NITROS9/3.2.9:

This does leave one more problem, that of an error correcting file transfer 
utility such as rzsz-3.36 being available on the coco.  Getting it from my 
web page to the coco will probably require the use of a floppy as sneakernet 
medium.

To hopefully facilitate that, I just put copies of the executables for rz 
and sz in that stuff4george directory on my web page, that will reduce your 
immediate need for file decompressor utils such as lha.

> > 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.
> 
> Yeah that is bound to be my end point of this whole experience I'm sure.

;-)
 
-- 
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
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