[Coco] Disk sizes was make case sensitive?

Sun Jul 14 16:16:57 EDT 2013

You see Gene... That's exactly what I'm getting at. A newbie to OS9 would look at those 3 paragraphs of instructions and say "WHAT?"
It's been said more than once that the OS9 manuals were written by programmers for programmers and I agree. And that's how most newbie questions are answered... as most of the people here are programmers/engineers and they answer as if talking to another equalliy experienced programmer/engineer and not giving step by step instructions as needed. It's not that we don't care, we are just so far ahead of most non-OS9 users that we don't stopt to think that if they can't get an OS9 disk to boot, how are they gonna know how to use "dsave" or "config" in the first place. They've never seen them... never used them... I recently had this same problem trying to get info on how to use CYGWIN. It took me about 6 times asking more questions before my initial question was answered in detail.

There's 2 commands in OS9 that RSDOS people immediately recognize... DIR & BACKUP. They assume they function as their RSDOS counterparts and (for the most part) they do.
Their largest problem with DIR is not understanding a directory structure as rsdos has none and not understanding chd & chx.
Then there's backup. New users most likely start out with a 35trk SSDD setup until they learn it's capable of more and they try to backup a repo dsk to make a new boot.....bang, bang, bang... ERROR 249

When I started on OS-9 L2, I started from an OS-9 game disk from a box of disks I inherited from a friend who was getting out the Coco world. I started with that simple boot and with PD utils, patches, and PD 3rd party modules, I built a fully functional OS-9 L2 Midi system that I used for 2 years until I recieved another box from another friend and he had all the original Tandy L2 packages (Sys, Dev Pak, C, MV, etc). For those 2 years before, I built many boots and saw the "OS-9 Boot Failed" many, many times. I only had 1 bootleg file and that was "windint" that I got from another friend so I could use multiple windows. I built all my descriptors from scratch. When I started back up on the Coco 3 years ago after not being active since the old "usenet" list, I was amazed at how simple it had become. I had kept up with things I just wasn't actively using the Coco or emulators. Drivewire blew me away. That's why I got so involved in programming for it. I saw things it was capable of that were not being done. There's still a lot more to explore there.

Most of all, I'd like to see more and more people come back to the Coco and especially to OS9. The only way this will happen is if we make it as simple as possible for them to start up. Plug and Play if you will :-)
Let's get some beginner's documentation together and create some online faqs for those who want to get into this. Then we don't have to keep explaining it... just give them the link.

Bill Pierce
My Music from the Tandy/Radio Shack Color Computer 2 & 3
https://sites.google.com/site/dabarnstudio/
Co-Webmaster of The TRS-80 Color Computer Archive
http://www.colorcomputerarchive.com/
Co-Contributor, Co-Editor for CocoPedia
http://www.cocopedia.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
E-Mail: ooogalapasooo at aol.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Gene Heskett <gheskett at wdtv.com>
To: coco <coco at maltedmedia.com>
Sent: Sun, Jul 14, 2013 3:11 pm
Subject: Re: [Coco] Disk sizes was make case sensitive?

You started to type it, then miss-spelled it, its victim, and correct.  But 
after reading above, I can see why.  If you have the drivewire server 
running on your PC, and the cable properly setup from the bit-banger port 
to a seriel port on the PC, _OR_ the bit-banger cable plugged into an FDTI 
seriel to usb adaptor, and if the distance is more than 5 feet or so, this 
IS the preferred method, I have a 3 foot bit-banger cable plugged into an 
adaptor, the adaptor is plugged into a USB2.0 7 port hub, and that hub is 
connected to a 10 meter USB-2.0 extension cable, which in turn is plugged 
into a USB-2.0 port on this motherboard after running across the basement 
ceiling to a hole in the floor behind the PC tower.  Drivewire, the server 
is configured to use /dev/ttyUSB0 (different on winders) and it all just 
works.

That is the preliminary, next is the disc menu in the drivewire GUI, where 
you can choose to open a *.dsk image for every /x# descriptor in your boot 
file.  If there are no errors in doing that, then from the coco's keyboard, 
do a "dir /x#" and you should see the contents of that dsk.

If you have a hard drive, then installing from the .dsk to a subdir on the 
hard drive make it super easy to install, and you can then do your boot 
floppy building directly from your own hard drive.  Or, since the .dsk, 
once mounted to one of the /x# descriptors, is 100% read and write, you can 
the mb and bootlist files to build a floppy directly from the mounted dsk.

There are other ways of course, but for a relative newbie that's probably 
the best way to 'get your feet wet'.

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)
My web page: <http://coyoteden.dyndns-free.com:85/gene> is up!
My views 
<http://www.armchairpatriot.com/What%20Has%20America%20Become.shtml>
"The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who, in times of moral
crisis, preserved their neutrality."
		-- Dante
A pen in the hand of this president is far more
dangerous than 200 million guns in the hands of
         law-abiding citizens.

--
Coco mailing list
Coco at maltedmedia.com
http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco