[Coco] Starting OS9 games

[Robert Gault]

Vincent Tran wrote:
> Hi Robert - Thanks for the info.
>
>> First, you have not made clear what "the .dsk file" actually is. Is it a
> NitrOS-9 or OS-9 system disk or an OS-9 game disk?
> ​
> I wasn't aware of this and not sure how to check. The .dsk images I'm using
> are from colorcomputerarchive.com and I don't see any info as to what type
> of disk it is.
>

You will either need a PC program to read the disks or boot OS-9 and then try to 
read the disk directories. A bootable OS-9 disk will always contain the file 
OS9Boot.
Disks are not always labeled in archives whether they are for Disk Basic or 
OS-9. In fact I used to create disks formatted for both systems. The only way to 
tell for sure what type of disk you have is to directly read the LSN0 (will 
indicate OS-9) and track34sector3 (will indicate a Disk Basic directory.)

>> This disk will not work with Drivewire and possibly not with an SDC pack
> as the kernel and OS9Boot file is intended for use with a floppy disk.
>
> I can confirm that it doesn't work with the SDC.  I will try a real floppy.
>
>> If you want to run this game from Drivewire, an SDC, or a hard drive, you
> can boot NitrOS-9 from any device. Then do the following:
>
> How do I boot into NitrOS-9 on drive0 and then boot the game from the same
> drive? I tried unmounting nitrOS-9 after it booted and then moutning
> pacman.dsk from DriveWire, but then got an error when doing the 'cd /d0; cx
> /d0/cmds'.  Also, was 'cx' a typo? I also tried replacing it with 'cd', but
> still got the same error.  I am at work now and forgot the error code.
>
> -Vincent
>

Vincent,

You only boot once into OS-9. You either boot from a system disk and then change 
directories to the desired disk or boot directly from a game/program disk. You 
can reboot OS-9, which means returning to Disk Basic and then doing another boot 
process.

NitrOS-9 has changed from the original OS-9 and one of many changes has been 
different command names and syntax. Changing directories originally was chd 
pathlist (current directory) and chx pathlist (command directory). The shortened 
versions became cd and cx.
Looks like the NitrOS-9 version you are using or maybe CocoSDC does not like the 
shortened versions of these commands.

Boot NitrOS-9 and when you insert the PacMan disk, try
chd /d0; chx /d0/cmds

Robert