[Coco] Disk sizes was make case sensitive?

[Gene Heskett]

On Sunday 14 July 2013 19:58:06 Bill Pierce did opine:

> 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 capab le 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

I'm fur it Bill, but ATM trying to get a 12.04.2 LTS install up with 
working email.

Cheers, Gene
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