[Coco] CoCo TALK #18 an introduction to OS9

Sun Jul 23 23:38:20 EDT 2017

Hi Steve and Everyone,
Thank you for the kind complements.  I really appreciate it.  By all means ask away any question you like.  If I can answer it, I will or find someone who can.  The disks in the repo can be put on the CocoSDC and booted immediately.  Some boot from Drivewire only and many without Drivewire at all.  I have found that for the Coco3 the CocoSDC cartridge is by far one of the best accessories I have ever found for storing many bootable disk image files all in one place.  Many, many thanks go to Everyone involved on that project!  If memory serves, you can either boot from a floppy image and access a large hard drive image as a second drive or create one large bootable hard drive image on the CocoSDC up to 4GB in size per image I beleive.  The CocoSDC can access large SD Cards 8GBs and larger!  Both SD and SDHC cards can be used!  That's more room than all the Coco software in the world I think.  Oh, and by the way, DECB disk images work equally well running on the CocoSDC!  The best of both worlds at your service.  The CocoSDC recognizes sub-directories/folders as well up to 8 character directory names AND 3 character extensions per depth level.  I don't know the maximum nesting depth yet, but I bet it would make for an interesting demo on CocoTalk!  :)  Steve, you up for it?  
When the CocoSDCs initially made their debut, I ordered three units for my Coco 1, 2 & 3 and have booted NitrOS-9 on all of them.  I have explored using various methods of storage as well.  I started with floppy drives of course then progressed on to more interesting ways for having online storage.  My first big step was when I used the SuperIDE cartridge.  I used the CF card interface with a CF card of course and the IDE interface connected to a 4GB hard drive I had left over.  Later on, I disconnected the hard drive and used a CF Card adapter with a 4GB CF card.  I have also used the Glenside IDE Controller.  I designed and built a rom card for the Glenside IDE Controller since it had no Eprom/flash rom socket on it so the hard drive attached to the IDE interface would boot.  I have used CF Card to IDE adapters as well as SD Card to IDE adapters on the Glenside IDE Controller with resounding success.  I currently use primarily the CocoSDC as my online storage device of choice!  Unless you need sound or floppy drives, you can use it in the Coco Expansion slot by itself and save room not having to use a MultiPak Interface.  With just the Coco and the CocoSDC, you can do all the DECB, Gaming and NitrOS-9 development you care to do.  I can't say enough about NitrOS-9!  The more I find out about the Coco, its accessories as well as NitrOS-9 and the various supported/ported software for it, the more I like it.  
Way back in my twenties, my first printer was an ASR-33 Teletype.  A friend of mine designed a 20ma current loop to RS-232 interface for me and I built one.  Now I could connect my "new" printer up to my Coco 1 F Board with 64KB of ram.  I tried to list a basic program and it all was printed on one line.  It wasn't until I tried OS-9 v-01.00.00, the very first version of OS-9, that I was able to add the needed linefeed character using the "p" printer descriptor so I could get proper listings for my programs.  From then on, I was a believer in OS-9 and never turned back.  I delved into the C language a short time later.  At some point in the '80s, I put away my Coco equipment in favor of the more popular Intel based PCs that were making their debut on the market.  I had no idea that there was a Coco Community as this decision was made well before the Internet was a gleam in the DOD's eye.  Since I found the Coco Community back in 2010 and discovered that OS-9 had been disassembled and reformed into NitrOS-9 after Hitachi's secrets laying inside the 6309 were discovered, I pulled out my old coco equipment, bought newer accessories and continued on with NitrOS-9 Levels 1 and 2.  I never had the GUI windows version of OS-9 to play with.  I never knew about it when it came out as I was not using my Coco at that point.  Man!  I wish I had known that the Coco was going strong even after Radio Shack had discontinued it.  I had no idea there was a Coco Community until the 2010 time frame when I came back to the Coco world.  
Whew!  Well, if you read this far, thank you for "listening" to me go on and on about my interest in the Coco and NitrOS-9.  I am FULLY CONVENCED that OS-9 and NitrOS-9 are so versatile that they can be interfaced to anything with the right software and hardware bar none.  It's the best 8-bit software around.  Heck, even Disk Extended Color Basic was modified to run on OS-9 by Burke & Burke way back in the day.  It's called simply "rsb" if memory serves.  The filename and directory structure is of course vastly different than DECB's so some modifications to DECB BASIC software has to take that into account.  I wonder what the differences between DECB 2.1 and NitrOS-9's/OS-9's rsb are.  That could be another subject of a future CocoTalk.  How about Steve?  
I wish I could have participated in Saturday's CocoTalk, but I had responsibilities at church that day.  I hope to participate again soon.  Steve, if you are still awake at this point, that you for reading all of this.  :)  
You contribute a LOT to the Coco Community.  Someone has to advertise all the great software, hardware and teach people how to use it all.  Keep up the great work.  Thank you to all those who have helped me over the years when I was getting back into the Coco world of computers.  I have so much wonderful stuff and not enough space to put it all.  I have to decide what I want to play with, ur, work with.  :)  As you might have guessed by now, I like knowing HOW things work and NitrOS-9 is no exception.  I've built custom boot disks for various hardware add-ons for every version of OS-9 there was I think.  That all continued when I found out about NitrOS-9 v2.8 back in 2010.  NitrOS-9 certainly has had some growing pains and difficulties, but anything worthwhile desires the time to learn it so can be used to its fullest.  Hmm, I had no intent to make an email this long so I will close for now.  Everyone, keep up to great work expanding the horizons of the Wide Wonderful World of the Great and Mighty OZ, ur Coco!  :)  I love it!  Take care my friends.  

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

-----Original Message-----
From: Coco [mailto:coco-bounces at maltedmedia.com] On Behalf Of Steve Strowbridge
Sent: Sunday, July 23, 2017 10:35 AM
To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts
Subject: Re: [Coco] CoCo TALK #18 an introduction to OS9

Kip, thanks for your info and for sharing, you have kind of shed some light on what some of the "complexities" to owning and operating NitrOS9 are.
I've only been in the CoCo community for coming on 2 years, and I've been all too aware of the great "Divide" or "Debate" of Disk Extended Color BASIC (I won't call it a DOS) and OS-9 I've heard the term "serious" CoCo user/worker/developer vs. casual, gaming, etc.

So I'm going to throw out some thoughts and ideas, and I'll start with this disclaimer...

WARNING:  The thoughts and ideas expressed herein are those of myself, and myself alone.  They are not intended to shyte on any individual, group,
project, or product.   They reflect my own opinions, and are not endorsed
by Tandy, Radio Shack, The Color Computer mailing list, or the color computer community in genera, viewer discretion advised

So, let's look at the fact we're talking about people who have chosen to continue to work on, or with a 30+ year old 8-bit computer that runs with typically less than 2MB of RAM and 2 MHz in speed, and was considered an underdog machine, even in it's prime.

The fact that "we" (the CoCo community) chose to work with this machine, or an emulated or replicated version of it, to anyone outside of the retro community would be viewed of as absurd by any "sane" or "normal" person.
The fact we're working on this machine, literally means that it is a hobby, and a hobby, by definition is something we do in our spare time to _entertain_ ourselves, so even the "serious" CoCo user is using it for their own enjoyment, and that's not a crime, criticism, or judgment, but, from my perspective, a fact.

I have heard, that this list (the CoCo mailing list) is for more "serious"
type CoCo people, and, judging from the topics, I'd tend to agree, we certainly enjoy tacking on to topics such as the legality of ROMs and Assembly vs Machine code for example.

But, let's focus on NitrOS9... the serious, loyal, die hard CoCo folks love it, but, it also reminds me of a small, local, independent band, everybody has that underground band they love, but they want to keep it to themselves, so it's their little secret, and they know something nobody else does.  That mentality doesn't factor into the fact of that band possibly wanting to be able to earn a living playing music full time, or even worse, chasing the dream of becoming rich and famous, but, for some, the fact they can hold onto a well kept secret, it's good enough for them.

Is NitrOS9 the well kept secret only known to those who can assemble, make, cross compile, use multi platform development and imaging tools, and deal with the complexity of different drivers, modules and what not?  What makes the OS so great if you need to go through that much effort just to be able to boot it?

We can continue to keep OS-9 the special thing we want to hold on to, and be one of a few dozen people who listen to the song, or perhaps, we could find a way to let the world hear the music, and it may be an even greater good.

As much as I agree, knowing how to do the lower level, much more technical things about building and assembling that operating system are, in fact very cool things, and make it even more Linux like even today, I think they are alienating the OS from other people who may like to try it.  Our recent CoCo TALK was meant to help some of those people even look at it, for perhaps the first time.

One of the goals I'd like to see happen from this, is one or more plug and play hard drive images available for anyone to download that they can hit the ground running with on both the CoCoSDC and an emulator.
Barry Nelson has mentioned he's got a few, and hopefully a few others exist.

>From what I've seen and heard in my brief time with using NitrOS9, it seems that the current repository has different versions of modules and command line utilities that are almost "backwards" from the versions that Curtis and Bill worked on.  In my preparation for demoing the OS, I discovered that the G-Shell was an older version, the Play command was an older version, and the DIR command didn't support wild cards, and this was my first experience with the OS.

It seems there are some fragmentation and inconsistencies with what's on the repo and what people are using out in the wild, and for the most part, it seems up to the individual to make the version that's best for them.  On the one hand, that level of flexibility is quite amazing, but on the other... What a pain in the ass :)

For all the serious developers who are using it, other than Bill Pierce who actually tells us what he does with it, what are y'all doing? This is not meant to be a snarky, condescending question, but one of legitimate interest.
In the almost 2 years I've been watching this list, I don't recall seeing too many emails with people saying "hey, here is my new utility, and it does the following", or "hey, here's an update to module _X_ or command _Y_ that address/adds the following"  (These may be on the Wiki, or forum, or repo, haven't visited those yet, but... in the past 2 years I've heard of and seen a _TON_ of CoCo RS "DOS" projects, like the CoCoSDC Explorer, Ed Snider's medial player for the CoCo SDC, a half dozen games, and more.

Where are the OS9 applications, games, utilities? how does the average person learn about them and get them?

I'm a person who never used OS9 and have only looked at it like 3 times in the past 10 days, but I'm intrigued by it, and want to know more, but I know there is probably a vast percentage of our community who would also probably give it a chance if we could make getting it up and running more user friendly to start.

My proposal is to make publicly available a handful of VHD images, I'll be happy to put links to them on my site, and have images that can boot and play sierra games off the bat, as well as run BASIC09, compile, and you name it, the ability to boot into modes that support the various games also seems inconsistent, so again, a way to "user friednlyfy" the OS would go a long way towards adoption.

When I got into the CoCo as a kid, I was mainly attracted to just playing the games, but then I learned to program in BASIC and continued to program for nearly 20 years on the CoCo and for MS-DOS.  So my simple and non-serious fascination got me wanting to do more, dig deeper, and become a more technical person.

I'd hope that getting a NitrOS9 bootable hard drive into more hands may also spark some fascination with others, who once they played around with it, may end up programming or doing something with it, that could further help our community, and enhance the "enjoyment" of this "serious" operating system.

End Rant, end tyraide, now I'm back to playing some RS-DOS games on my CoCo for fun :)

Steve Strowbridge, aka
The Original Gamer Stevie Strow
Website/Merchandise/CoCo links page:
http://ogsteviestrow.com
Email:  ogsteviestrow at gmail.com
Get your "Game Play Goodnes" fix of CoCo and retro videos at:
http://youtube.com/ogsteviestrow

On Sun, Jul 23, 2017 at 8:05 AM, Kip Koon <computerdoc at sc.rr.com> wrote:

> Hi Rick,
> I think we might share a similar passion.  I like exploring how the 
> system software works especially when it comes to NitrOS-9.
> On the yahoo group Coco3FPGA there is a file called "NitrOS-9 Setup 
> for Coco3FPGA.zip".  This is a link to my dropbox of the same file.
> < https://www.dropbox.com/s/xq67el8adcapij4/NitrOS-9%
> 20Setup%20for%20Coco3FPGA.zip?dl=0>
> This file has everything you need to take a TERASIC DE-1 from nothing 
> to self-booting into NitrOS-9 with plenty of instructions.
> I know you have a Coco 3 and this document is for the DE-1, but I 
> thought you might glean some information you need from it.  The 
> Coco3FPGA specific drivers would of course not apply.  Use the latest 
> disk image files in the
> NitrOS-9 build zip file link below.
> If you need me to create a Coco 3 version of this document, just let 
> me know.  If you would like to have a local NitrOS-9 Repository of 
> your own, just let me know and I would be happy to let you know how I 
> did it.  You can download a copy of the source code for NitrOS-9 at the following url.
> < https://sourceforge.net/projects/nitros9/>
> You have to have a Linux setup to build it.  I am currently using 
> Cygwin64 running on Windows 7 to build my NitrOS-9 Repository into the 
> latest disk image files suitable for putting on the CocoSDC, Floppies, etcetera.
> There is a web page of prebuilt NitrOS-9 disk images, but I can't seem 
> to find where it is located so I will build you a brand new set.
> I have a local NitrOS-9 Repository pulled from the master NitrOS-9 
> repository so I can build disks with the latest source code.
> I started the NitrOS-9 build last night before going to bed.  I left 
> the build running all night.  I know 'cause I checked on it several 
> times before finally falling to sleep.
> (The next morning after running the build all night.)  My build 
> finally finished sometime during the night.  After inspecting the new 
> disk image files, I noticed that some of the file names have changed 
> so there are
> NitrOS-9 build files dated 5-25-2017 in among the NitrOS-9 build files 
> dated 7-22-2017.  Obviously the later dated .dsk files are the ones to 
> use.  Here is the link to my dropbox for the "nitros9 2017-07-22.zip" file.
> < 
> https://www.dropbox.com/s/1z9kq9yv9187iz5/nitros9%202017-07-22.zip?dl=
> 0> As to creating custom builds, I have definitely done that too.  
> Many times ever since the very first version of OS-9 v01.00.00.  Wow!  
> That was a long time ago.  :)  Feel free to call on my help any time.  
> I'm on Skype if you would like to talk sometime.  Send me a private 
> email for my details to connect up.  Have a lot of FUN exploring the 
> Wide Wonderful World of
> NitrOS-9 on the Mighty Coco 3.  Take care my friend.
>
> Kip Koon
> computerdoc at sc.rr.com
> http://www.cocopedia.com/wiki/index.php/User:Computerdoc
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Coco [mailto:coco-bounces at maltedmedia.com] On Behalf Of 
> titan1a at juno.com
> Sent: Saturday, July 22, 2017 9:47 PM
> To: coco at maltedmedia.com
> Subject: Re: [Coco] CoCo TALK #18 an introduction to OS9
>
> I saw part of the presentation and was impressed. I'm a "somewhat new"
> Coco III user with an FD-502 controller, mouse, joystick, analog 
> monitor and dual 3.5" floppy unit. The computer was different from any 
> other computer I've run and I've run a few. Having a Cocosdc, 
> Drivewire 4 system and using one of my "tweener" PC's would make 
> really getting into the system much, much easier. I still can't figure 
> out how to create a NitrOS 9 boot disk. I don't want a game machine: I 
> want a business/programmer/utility computer. With some help and time, 
> it will take the place of some of my biggest computers. Is there 
> anything this thing can't do?
>
> Rick (sparks) Ethridge
> VCF
> Computers, vintage radio, coins and SWL.
> ____________________________________________________________
> Police Urge Americans to Carry This With Them at All Times The 
> Observer 
> http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/5974001860192182ddbst04vuc
>
> --
> Coco mailing list
> Coco at maltedmedia.com
> https://pairlist5.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/coco
>
>
> --
> Coco mailing list
> Coco at maltedmedia.com
> https://pairlist5.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/coco
>

--
Coco mailing list
Coco at maltedmedia.com
https://pairlist5.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/coco