[Coco] "C" HD Was: C Programming

[Gene Heskett]

On Sunday 07 February 2010, Stephen H. Fischer wrote:
>Hi,
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Gene Heskett" <gene.heskett at verizon.net>
>To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" <coco at maltedmedia.com>
>Sent: Saturday, February 06, 2010 9:34 PM
>Subject: Re: [Coco] C Programming
>
>> On Saturday 06 February 2010, Stephen H. Fischer wrote:
>>>Hi,
>>>
>>>There is a version of "make" that is much better.
>>
>> Yes, I have used it a couple of times, but carving a Makefile from
>> scratch was never a strong suite of mine.
>
>I do not remember it being very hard, most of the work is done with wild
>cards or something similar.
>I had a set of batch files that I just started the first one and the other
>ones were called by it.
>
Those 'wild cards' tend to confuse me in my dotage.

>>>The author I forget except that he changed his name. He also wrote other
>>>OS-9 software.

As far as I know, he is still Tim Kientzle.  I may be out of date though.

>>>After I changed a source file all I had to do was start a batch file and
>>> the executable was rebuilt. And perhaps the ram disk changes were copied
>>> to the floppy so that the changes would not be lost.
>>
>> Std for almost all software now I believe, to rebuild and relink the
>> whole thing, but only actually recompile one file, all you have t do is
>> 'touch' the
>> file.
>>
>>>I suggested long ago that a web page listing what you just provided would
>>> be useful.
>>
>> Perhaps I should copy this to my own pages? I haven't changed much there
>> in
>> about a year, although the nitros9 link is now to the beta of 3.2.9, and
>> that
>> is collecting some cruft as I fight with sc6551.dr, it has a hang if flow
>> controls are needed. However, windowing the faster client will keep it
>> under
>> that trigger point if the incoming buffer is big enough, due to the
>> windowing
>> handshaking.
>
>Links to all the parts would be useful.

I'll see if I can't carve something up in a few days.

>>>I wish I had time to build one, but I do not.
>>>
>>>Collecting all the files into a HD image would also be useful.
>
>Are you running any emulators, I get the impression you are using a real
>CoCo.

Yes, no emulators here.

>Surely you can do a ZIP, I have used several programs that handle most
>formats.

I think we have a zip, I know I can unpack them at least.

>In any case, there will be many persons suggesting better tools and ways.

And they should chime in.

>HD's for the CoCo can be any size, the Pascal one is 90 Megs. So lots of
> "C" stuff could be included.

I'm using half of a 1Gbyte drive for os9 here.  The other half is partially 
allocated to 255 std 35 track SS floppy images & we have an /sh descriptor 
now, that you can set the drive0 offset into, and it then uses another of the 
descriptors byte to calculate which HDB-DOS basic disk it accesses when you 
type a dir /sh.  Potentially handier than bottled beer. ;-)

>We just need someone to step up and agree to build the "C" HD and accept
>comments and files from others.
>
>> I might be able to do a tarball I suppose. gzipped optional.
>>
>>>I can provide a dsk image that may be set up ready to go, but I have not
>>>looked at it for decades.
>>>
>>>
>>>I also have many CD's and files that are at the level of K&R. "C". JPL
>>>Library, Numerical Recipes, Graphical Segmentation, and much more.
>>>
>>>SHF
>>
>> Interesting. Have you considered offering it to the nitros9 folks?
>
>I do not understand this.

Nitros9 is what the old os9 has become in the last 20 years, with Microware, 
now Radisys, tacitly looking the other way.  With bug fixes and conversions 
to be assembled in either a 6809 format, or a 6309 format, a noticeable speed 
improvement over the original has been obtained.  Even if your real coco 
still has the 6809 cpu, you really should be running nitros9 now.  The 
project is maintained as a sourceforge project, all you need is a cvs client.  
I actually build the coco executables on this linux box, the whole thing from 
a make clean to a make dsk takes 2 or 3 minutes using the tools in 'toolshed' 
also on sourceforge.  The .dsk's can be written to floppies and will boot the 
coco if your hardware can handle 256 byte sectors (mine on this ASUS mobo 
can't, so I have to fire up a terminal here, run a shell against /t2 on the 
coco, and send the stuff over the wire with sz.

>Numerical Recipes and Graphical Segmentation need copies of the book to
> use. The CD's are standalone and in many cases PC orientated.
>
>I am willing at this point up upload CD iso images to an CoCo website. I
>have quite a number of them. It might have to kept to our selves even
> though it has been so many years and most of the files were collected from
> the Internet.
>
>But I am afraid that the effort may be like my scanning of magazines for
> the OS-9 archive and producing "Urbane". I got no feedback that anyone was
> reading or using them.

That is sad.  Those that have grabbed a few, to fill in missing issues, 
should have what it takes to say thanks.

-- 
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)

The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent.
		-- Sagan