[Coco] NitrOS-9 instant boot CoCo

[Robert Gault]

Roger Taylor wrote:
> I'm trying to gather the setups some of you OS-9/NitrOS-9 users have in 
> place that allows you to hit the power button on your CoCo then have the 
> OS-9 prompt within a few seconds, with no moving hard drives or MPI, or 
> DriveWire cable (although that's a very nice idea).
> 
> Can the SuperIDE interface do this, and if so, what add-ons are needed?  
> What about a NItrOS-9 ROM that completely boots up from the ROM?  If so, 
> can this ROM be put on a 32 kByte EPROM and replace the CoCo 3 ROM.  
> What about piggybacking an EPROM on the CoCo motherboard and clipping 
> some pins on the old ROM?  Anyone done this kind of hack to avoid the 
> infamous killer desolder job?
> 
> 
> 

  The "problem" with booting from a ROM as Roger asks rather than a hard 
drive, is that you are locked into at least a specific kernel. That 
means cobbler and os9gen have lost some of their usefulness. It is 
important to be able to make changes to the core OS-9/NitrOS-9 modules 
at will as needed without needing to burn a new EPROM.
  Using a CF card more easily reloaded with new code should be just as 
good as booting from hard drive directly.

  At the moment the size of a typical NitrOS-9 OS9Boot file plus kernel 
is about 12.5K. It would certainly fit into a ROM. However, if you plan 
to include the CMDS directory as well, forget it!
  It is not enough to load just the OS9Boot file to run OS-9. You also 
need all of the commands and software. Where would they be without some 
type of drive system unless you use a very large CF card?