[Coco] NitrOS-9 L3 Code and Disk Images

Mon Oct 27 20:52:27 EDT 2014

Hi Guys!
Sorry for being offline.  I've been a bit under the weather.  Here is a link
to the OS-9 L3 disk image I downloaded from Alan Dekok's web site.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/izktotl4934qut9/OS9L3.os9?dl=0
Could you tell me what else would be needed to run this or to update the
NitrOS-9 Repo?

Kip Koon
computerdoc at sc.rr.com
http://www.cocopedia.com/wiki/index.php/Kip_Koon

-----Original Message-----
From: Coco [mailto:coco-bounces at maltedmedia.com] On Behalf Of Bill Pierce
via Coco
Sent: Thursday, October 23, 2014 5:01 PM
To: coco at maltedmedia.com
Subject: Re: [Coco] NitrOS-9 L3 Code and Disk Images

Tormod, I sent you a private email concerning Nitros9 level 3 yesterday. I
think it got screwed in the process so I'll send it again.
And yes, there was a working Level 3 at one point, but Alan took it with him
when he left us. Unless Kip had a copy from Alan's old website, I don't see
how he could've run it. It was only available for Nitros9 L2 v1.2.2.
The level 3 that Alan was working on was based on code from Nitros9 L2 v1.22
(yes, that old), which was still being sold by Northern Exposure at the
time. They at one point announced they "may" provide the Level 3 upgrade if
enough people showed interest. I don't think they ever actually released it.
Alan did have it available on his website later.

The Level 3 code in the repo is missing 4 important files and WILL NOT run
without them.
These files are "IOMan.L3", "OS9P1.L3" (now named Krn), "OS9p2.L3" (now
named KrnP2), and "Clock.L3" (now split into 2 modules).
These files have gone through many changes since Nitros9 l2 v1.22 and the
original L3 files will have to be disassembled and the newer modules
reworked to do what these modules intended for L3.
Again... Level 3 WILL NOT WORK without these modules, and I'm NOT referring
to the current build of these modules as Alan did special versions of each
one. They were not the same modules as in Nitros9 l2 v1.2.2.

I think Kip may have been running a release of Nitros9 L2 v3.0.0 as I've
seen it in several archives labeled as "L3" which is incorrect. It's just L2
v3.0.0,

Bill Pierce
"Today is a good day... I woke up" - Ritchie Havens

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: Tormod Volden <lists.tormod at gmail.com>
To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts <coco at maltedmedia.com>
Sent: Thu, Oct 23, 2014 4:32 pm
Subject: Re: [Coco] NitrOS-9 L3 Code and Disk Images

On Thu, Oct 23, 2014 at 3:38 AM, Kip Koon wrote:
> Hi Tormod!
>
> Are there any plans for reviving the NitrOS-9 Level-3 Code?

Hi Kip!

I believe Gene has such plans :)

I don't know of anyone else. Boisy put this stuff in the repo some years
ago, but I think the original level3 work from Alan DeKok is decades old.

Other than that the only plans that I know anyone has or had for
NitrOS-9 is here: http://sourceforge.net/p/nitros9/feature-requests/

Personally I would like to see it ported to more systems. There is a crowd
of 6809 lovers outside the CoCo/Dragon scene, which I am sure you have seen
for instance on the N8VEM list. Getting them involved and using NitrOS-9 as
a unifying base would be great. NitrOS-9 offers the a well defined API to
write programs that can run on a CoCo or a homebrew 6809 system.

Generally I think we need more new software running on NitrOS-9, more than
we need new features in NitrOS-9. But I am not so much into the use of
NitrOS-9 so what do I know. Of course a lot of people think the operating
system itself is more interesting to develop than programs for it. And I
could fit in there, I guess :)

>
> How do I put in my own changes into my local copy of the NitrOS-9 
> Repository without the Build process removing said changes every time 
> I try to assemble the source code and make the disks?  I have some 
> ideas I want to play with including cleaning up some scripts, adding 
> other scripts that I think are needed or at least would be interesting 
> and correcting at least one error in a module.

You can make your own local branch. See "hg help branch" for the short
story, but read the mercurial documentation and tutorials for better
explanations. I posted some of these here:
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.hardware.tandy.coco/75439

>
> Another reason why I'm asking is I have a friend named Bas De Jong who 
> is running a homebrew 68020 VME system he made using wirewrap methods 
> that runs
> OS-9 68K 2.3 and he wants to add Windowing capabilities to His OS-9 
> Operating system.
>
> He asked me some questions about the windowing system in NitrOS-9 and 
> I told him as far as I know the default distro disks have no built-in 
> GUI.  Then I remembered the Multivue disks.  I tried the Multivue 6309 
> DW and Multivue
> 6809 DW disks in Drivewire with VCC 1.43Beta and neither of them 
> booted.  I also tried to boot the Multivue 6309 and Multivue 6809 
> disks in VCC Drive 0 with the Drive off Basic command and neither of 
> these booted.  If I remember correctly,  Multivue is the GUI 
> application, but I cannot check it out to get copies of the screen for
Bas.
>
> Are the Multivue disks broken or did I make a mistake in my 
> configuration in Drivewire and/or VCC?

I don't know. Maybe Bill Pierce knows, since he's the most heavy user of
NitrOS-9 GUI systems that I know of.

>
> I tested a version of OS-9 Level 3 once quite a while back and it 
> seemed to work fine, but I didn't have a Coco mouse then so I did not 
> pursue it any further.  Now that I have VCC 1.43beta I'm going to pull 
> it out again and see if it still boots.  Any help would be most 
> appreciated.  Thanks in advance.  Take care my friends.

So there was a OS-9 Level 3? Interesting. Maybe someone can pitch in with
some history and background. I have considered it more like vaporware, from
reading the NitrOS-9 FAQ.

Cheers,
Tormod

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