[Coco] DECB development under OS9

[L. Curtis Boyle]

I think the RSDOS utility will do this already, so you could set that up in a script to copy to/from a DECB disk image directly.

L. Curtis Boyle
curtisboyle at sasktel.net



> On May 11, 2018, at 4:02 PM, Dave Philipsen <dave at davebiz.com> wrote:
> 
> I have a possible project that I'd like to get a little input on.  I would like to use NitrOS9 as my development platform for programs that will run under DECB.  The reason for this is that NitrOS9 is well suited in that it has plenty of disk space and several assembler options available.  It would be easy to include the headers inside of the source code for compatibility with the DECB LOADM format as I've already done this with a cross assembler under DOS/Windows.  I'm not really keen on the idea of having to develop on a PC, transfer the output file via drivewire to the CoCo, and test.
> 
> I have a CoCo3 with 512K and I have CoCoSDC that has disk images for booting NitrOS9 as well as images for DECB.  What I was thinking is that I could write a utility program that runs under NitrOS9 that would allow me to copy files back and forth to one of the DECB disk images on the CoCoSDC.  Maybe it has already been done.  Has anyone ever attempted this?  If not, is there anyone who would want to give me a little advice on how, theoretically, it might be done?
> 
> I see there is a low level driver for the cocosdc and I'm wondering how difficult it would be to mount a DECB disk image and access the image as another drive under NitrOS9.  I realize that because of the difference in disk format the drive would not be natively read/writeable from NitrOS9 but as long as all of the virtual sectors were accessible then I could write a program to access the data/programs in the DECB file system.  So I guess I'm asking whether it would be feasible to mount one or more DECB disk images on the CoCoSDC as virtual drives; /SD1, /SD2, etc.
> 
> This would allow me to write a program under NitrOS9, assemble it, copy the DECB format binary to the correct DECB image on the CoCoSDC, then reboot the computer and test the program out in DECB. Another idea I have which would be an add-on to this would be a way to actually compile a NitrOS9 C program and either trap or replace the system calls and have the program usable under DECB.  I know this is a bit of a stretch but it might be possible if only certain limited system calls were used from the C program.
> 
> 
> 
> Dave
> 
> 
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