[Coco] DriveWire - test results using the now free code

[Robert Gault]

Boisy Pitre wrote:
> Robert,
> 
> The NitrOS-9/6809 Level 2 image is up and available for download.
> 
> Regards,
> Boisy G. Pitre

I had intended to wait until the 6309 version and perhaps the LevelI 
versions were posted before reporting, however ....

Just tried the 6809 version which worked using my current arraignment of 
starting the Coco DriveWire from disk rather than an EPROM. There are 
several things to be aware of as a user running NitrOS-9 in this manner.

The default NitrOS-9 DriveWire version must be mounted in Winserver slot 
#0 to boot. If you enter DRIVE#1:DOS with the boot disk mounted in 
Winserver slot#1 you will see the kernel and os9boot files load, but the 
boot process will fail. That would be of concern only if you wanted a 
.vhd image in Winserver slot#0. It looks like the driver may be 
defaulting to the equivalent of a scsi channel 0. Perhaps that is 
adjustable in the /DD descriptor.

There are four new descriptors in the OS-9 version of DriveWire, /DD and 
/X1-/X3. Each of these descriptors is set for a 32,768 sector, $400 
track, 1 side, $20 sector per track .os9 image as reported by dmode and 
free. That is very different from the standard .vhd image of $5A000 
sectors with $5A tracks, $40 sides, and $40 sectors per track.
I was able to mount my .vhd image in Winserver as drive #1 and read the 
OS-9 section correctly without changing the /X1 descriptor. However, if 
I were going to use the .vhd image via DriveWire it would be much safer 
to change the descriptor to match the .vhd image.

I have not yet tried to create my own DriveWire NitrOS-9 boot disk 
residing on a .vhd image in the Basic partition.