[Coco] Vcc - Drivewire4 How to??

[Bill Pierce]

First, read the "HDBDOS" manual found on Cloud9's site (or in my Starter Kits). That explains how HDBDOS/RGBDOS works.
As Robert explained, the DriveWire slots are interpreted as harddrive images, UNLESS the "HDBDOS Translation" mode is checked in DriveWire "Tools". This lets DriveWire (and HDBDOS) know you are using the slots as disk drives.

FYI,
DRIVE x - change default disk drive (HD/256 in default DW slot)
DRIVE #x - change default DW slot

DRIVEOFF = VCC Drives 0-3 ON, DW Drives 0-3 OFF, DW Drives 4-255 ON
DRIVEON = VCC Drives 0-3 OFF, DW Drives 0-3 ON, DW Drives 4-255 ON
DRIVEOFF x = VCC Drives -x ON, DW Drives -x OFF, DW Drives x+1-255 ON
DRIVEON  x= VCC Drives -x OFF, DW Drives -x ON, DW Drives x+1-255 ON

Normally, HDBDOS sees the DriveWire slots as mounted hard drives with an OS9 partition, followed by an RSDOS partition which is divided into 256, 35 trk, single sided drives. The location of the RSDOS drive (i.e. the size of the OS9 drive) is determined by the values stored in a location in HDBDOS (see the manual) which is the offset to where the RSDOS drive begins. All "DRIVE" commands affect these drives, NOT the DriveWire slots unless HBDDOS Translation is used.
Also keep in mind, once you have OS9 booted, the "/Xx" descriptors are set for HDs, so formatting a floppy disk image in a DW slot would require you to manually set the proper disk type and size in the format command line.

Yes, I know it's all confusing but in the end, it's a very powerful set of tools and much can be done with them. I know when I first started using HDBDOS, it took me several months to get my head around all it's features and how they relate to disks Vs HDs.

BTW, the only real difference between VCC v1.43b and VCC v2.01 is where the "Becker Port" module is located. In 1.43b, it's built into the Coco's serial port and accessed in the "Config/Bitbanger" menu. In 2.01 it's a separate DLL that has to be mounted in the MPI and accessed in the "Cartridge" menu. Other than that, settings for either are the same.

All that being said, using my Starter Kit AND following the directions in the included text file, VCC will be configured to boot up into NitrOS9 straight out of the box. After the install, only 2 user actions are required, which is to mount the 2 included HD images as I couldn't figure out how to do this in the installer.

After the Starter Kit installation, the NitrOS9 configuration is:

VCC 6809 version:
2 Meg Memory
3 Floppy Drives (VCC Native Floppies)
1 90 Meg HD (VCC Native HD)
4 90 Meg /Xx HDs (DriveWire Slots

VCC 6309 version:

2 Meg Memory
3 2x 720k 1x 158k (/D0-/D2)Floppy Drives (VCC Native Floppies)
1 90 Meg /H0 HD (VCC Native HD)
8 128 Meg /Xx HDs (DriveWire Slots)

I just recently installed both installations on a fresh Win 7 install and they're working flawlessly. They have also been tested on WinXP, Win Vista, Win 7, Win 8, AND Win 10.

Please keep in mind, and VCC v2.x installation on Win 7 and above need to be run in "Administrator Mode". This will be fixed in a future version. This is due to VCC keeping it's config file in the program folder and Win 7 & up doesn't like to allow writing to these folders. "Administrator Mode" allows this.
If you do not run in Administrator Mode, you will have to reconfigure VCC each time it's run as the configuration can't be saved.

 

 

Bill Pierce
"Charlie stole the handle, and the train it won't stop going, no way to slow down!" - Ian Anderson - Jethro Tull

My Music from the Tandy/Radio Shack Color Computer 2 & 3
https://sites.google.com/site/dabarnstudio/
Co-Contributor, Co-Editor for CocoPedia
http://www.cocopedia.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

E-Mail: ooogalapasooo at aol.com

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Robert Gault <robert.gault at att.net>
To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts <coco at maltedmedia.com>
Sent: Thu, Jul 5, 2018 2:37 am
Subject: Re: [Coco] Vcc - Drivewire4 How to??

You are missing the point of how the ROM installed to use Drivewire works. It assumes that a hard drive is mounted on Drivewire and it contains both a NitrOS-9 partition and a Disk Basic partition. The Disk Basic partition has 256 "drives".So, if you want the Drivewire drives to all be Disk Basic disks, you need to tell Drivewire that using its Tools function on the menu. Click on "HDBDOS translation" making sure that a check mark shows.Now from Basic when you DSKINI4, you should act on Drivewire drive #4.Robertcoco at jechar.ca wrote:>>   Ok It is sort of working but Totaly useless.>>   It does not see the drives I mount.>>   When I select disk in memory for drive 4 and then do a DSKINI 4>   It formats drive 0 rather then drive 4 like it's supposed to F* UP!>>-- Coco mailing listCoco at maltedmedia.comhttps://pairlist5.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/coco