[Color Computer] [coco] Hard drive driver and dd for Nitro9

[George Ramsower]

I think that maybe my previous posts wern't read properly. So I'll try to simplify this a little..

> Keep in mind this is a working Coco. Floppies, HD, Com ports and a few
>other things.

 OS-9 L2 works fine on this computer. The hard drive works, the com ports work, the floppies work, the COMPUTER works!

 Nitros9 doesn't work with the original driver and descriptor designed for the Ken Ton interface.

 The two files merged (which I load after Nitros9 is finished booting) are  HDRIVE and /H0.  I said that in one of my previous posts.

 This method works on this same computer when I boot from an original OS-9L2 disk. I would think that if there was an electrical or mechanical problem, I might have trouble with the original software from Microware.
 However, I don't believe a hardware problem is software sensitive in this case. The problem is isolated to software. 

> Can we assume that the hard drive works correctly with RGBDOS or HDBDOS? 
>That would eliminate many possibilities for error from consideration. 
>Are you confident that the hard drive has a correctly formatted OS-9 
>section? Can you look at LSN0 for the OS-9 section under Disk Basic to 
>confirm that an OS-9 section has been formatted?

Dunno. 
 I only use OS-9 L2. The only thing I do with the built-in firmware is "DOS".

  Of course, on my NORMAL boot disk, OS-9 L2 from Microware, with patches, uses the hard drive as the /DD, but NOT in the driver and descriptor I use for boot disks that don't have the hard drive driver and descriptor in the bootfile, kuz I've been lazy and didn't make a new bootfile on those disks, I just set it up in the STARTUP file. 

 WHEW! 

 This works on OS-9 L2, but NOT on Nitros9. 

 Same computer.

 Working computer.

 Been working for years.

I don't know how to make this more clear.

 It still works now with OS-9 L2, even tonight!!

 It still can't see the hard drive running Nitros9 6809.

..dmode results are identical except for the extra stuff in Nitros9/dmode

 OH!!

 The TOS and T0S is a bug in Nitros9/dmode.

 It displays a Zero between the T and the S. I explained that in a previous post also.
 It did cause me to type it that way which resulted in the change to NOT occur and it didn't report an error message.

 Interesting.

George


  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: George Ramsower 
  To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts 
  Sent: Tuesday, May 10, 2005 9:05 PM
  Subject: Re: [Color Computer] [coco] Hard drive driver and dd for Nitro9


  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Robert Gault

  >You said load the driver. Have you tried putting the driver and
  >descriptor in the boot file? If you are loading them after booting,
  >exactly what is your procedure?

  >Far as I know, there should not be a problem. There have been several
  >versions of the Ken-Ton drivers and you do need to be sure that you are
  >using the correct I/O addresses in both controller (jumpers) and driver
  >because you could have a conflict with your floppy controller. The Disto
  >SCII can conflict with the Ken-Ton so one or the other would need to be
  >changed from the defaults.

  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
  ------------------------------


  Robert,
   Keep in mind this is a working Coco. Floppies, HD, Com ports and a few
  other things.

   Yeah, I did the NoHalt controller with the HD interface and it did
  conflict.
    I figured .. Why bother? Once I'm on the HD, I don't usually need the
  floppy except for saving . Stuff that wasn't already on the HD was usually
  downloaded from a BBS, now from this XP box.
   So the NoHalt controller went into another coco that has only a floppy.

   When the original Nitros9 L2 2005 'fest version finishes loading, I then
  load a SAVED version from my HD, a file with both the driver and DD.
   Then I iniz /h0 to make it work. Then I did the dmode thing to make it
  match what DOES work on the original OS-9 L2 (after patches from many
  years), including the ...
   Uh... the floppy driver that makes it do MS-DOS disks...

   Nitros9 loads and runs fine.

   The only time I got a head movement on the HD was when I used "tee zero
  ess" in dmode. I then got the 246 error. The first 246 error was when I left
  out one of  the descriptor variables, AND the tee zero mistake. Now I don't
  recall what it was I didn't do the first time.
   Suffice it to say, now the dmode reports all the params that does the
  original dmode. The Nitros9 dmode has more stuff in it, though.

   I'm booting from the original dsk image from Nitros9.org, only with the dr
  and dd in the cmds directory, merged as one file. This method always worked
  with OS-9 L2, after I initialized it and made sure the dmode settings were
  correct.

   Once I've set it up, when I do a DIR /H0 .. the machine freezes. Since is
  the original DSK image I'm booting from, I don't have another window to jump
  to, to see what's going on. From another window, I could do a proc. I don't
  know if I even COULD make that jump. So I'm in the dark here.

   I suppose I'm going to have to change STARTUP to run another window for
  backup. Dang!  I love this O/S!


  Yahoo DVDPlayers wrote:

  > Nitros9/6809 works on my main coco, but when I load the ORIGINAL driver
  and
  > device descriptor for the Ken-Ton SCSI interface, it gives an error 247
  when
  > I try to access the hard drive.
  >  Is this a compatibility issue with Nitros9 and the original OS-9 driver?
  If
  > so, is there a Nitros9/6809 driver and DD for this board?
  >
  >  Perhaps there's another issue I've not mentioned, but I haven't a clue
  what
  > it is.
  >
  >  Thanks..
  >
  > George
  >
  >