[Coco] FLEX+ runs on a COCO3

[Jim Cox]

John:

Thanks!  I remember looking into Flex a long time ago, but forgot all about 
it.  It might be something to look in to once I get going agian.

Jim

At 11:21 PM 12/8/2003 -0500, you wrote:
>jimcox wrote:
>>Having never used Flex, I'm curious what the big deal seems to be about 
>>it.  Could you enlighten me?  How is it better or different than OS-9?
>
>Flex-09 was the first commercial alternative operating system for the COCO.
>
>It is a single user operating system with some background tasks.
>
>Very lightweight, the entire OS, + editor, + assembler would fit on a 
>single 35 track double density floppy.
>
>Unlike OS-9, it supported double sided drives on all of the COCO floppy 
>controllers.
>
>I would consider it the equivalent of CP/M for the 6809 series computers.
>
>I could not say it was superior to OS-9 though.  OS-9 may be more memory 
>hungry than Flex and fit better on a COCO-3 than a COCO.
>
>The sources to Flex are supposed to be publically available now, but I 
>have not found a working download site.
>
>I wrote a program that allowed me to run COCO DECB under FLEX out of ROM 
>with FLEX doing the screen and keyboard I/O.
>
>This gave me ROM basic with the 51 * 20? HIRES screen, and scriptable 
>under FLEX09 control.
>
>For text based BASIC programs, that was my preferred environment.
>
>I could use the Flex text editor to write a BASIC program, and then script 
>it into the interpreter and save it to a DECB formatted disk.
>
>That program only works with DISK BASIC 1.0, After I find a way to 
>transfer the Flex disks to another O.S., I plan to modify the program to 
>work with DISK BASIC 1.1 and post it.
>
>-John
>wb8tyw at qsl.net
>Personal Opinion Only
>
>
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