[Coco] OS-9 on Raspberry Pi

[Allen Huffman]

> On Jun 6, 2019, at 6:22 AM, Francis Swygert <farna at att.net> wrote:
> 
> The main port is for the Pi Zero W right now, which is a single core ARM. It's a very small unit, but is reasonably capable -- should be comparable to running on a CoCo, I suspect a bit faster than that!  Porting to the Pi 3B+ would be more suitable to running a GUI and using it as a modern desktop computer. 

In other words, the single most powerful home computer we ever ran OS-9 on for our hobby, with more memory and storage than anything we imagined in the MM/1 days.

I’ve basically never heard of an OS-9 system anywhere with that much RAM or storage. OS-9 is like “uh, okay, I’m fully loaded, so what do you want to do with the other 99%?”

:)

> Xibase9 can't be that hard to adjust programs to, though there would be some adjusting. OS-9 uses drivers and system calls, so programs that follow the rules should be adaptable from K-windows. Those that write directly to the system and bypass those conventions would take more work. While K-windows compatibility might sound good, it's a dead system. Better to switch to something with more current support, though I haven't seen Xibase9.

I don’t know how much Xibase9 is going to cost — will we get it included, or is it a $500 add-on?

But, I expect these days it would be VERY easy to write a window driver that implements all the K-Windows calls. It could be done easily in C and still be more than fast enough.

> There has to be things like editors for it though, and should be at least some interest in other things written for it. Will take time to build a base, but if some of the older OS-9 and OSK programs can be ported, that would speed the transition up. You can download an evaluation copy of Xibase9 that will run on Linux or Windows. Don't know what the limitations are. Downloads - XiSys Software GmbH

That’s interesting. I can’t see Linux folks using it unless it were free, but it’s neat to know it’s cross platform.

		— A