[Coco] any interest in an 8MB ram card for COCO3?

Sat Apr 17 00:42:44 EDT 2010

On Friday 16 April 2010, Boisy G. Pitre wrote:
>Gene,
>
>I looked in the NitrOS-9 Project and I believe your ram disk driver is in
> there: ram.asm in nitros9/level2/modules.  The comment in the source
> shows:

That doesn't sound like what I named it, Boisy, so that may be the other kit 
that requires a hand formating to be usable.  OTOH, I just looked at it and 
that is my code.  But on my machine that directory looks like this:
{t2|07}/DD/MAXTOR/ASM.SRC/MYRAM:dir -e

 Directory of .  2010/04/15 22:03

Owner  Last modified   Attributes Sector Bytecount Name
----- ---------------- ---------- ------ --------- ----
   0  1995/06/12 22:52  ----r-wr    A374       650 Asim3.0_msg
   0  1995/06/14 08:53  ----r-wr    A37C      2986 errors
   0  1995/06/10 21:49  ----r-wr    A3A8      1F45 mail06.10.95
   0  1995/06/14 08:40  ----r-wr    A3CC      11B3 more_mail06.12.95
   0  1995/06/02 21:28  ----r-wr    A3E0       40A msg2alan
   0  1995/06/08 22:25  ----r-wr    A3E8       918 msg32Alan
   0  1995/06/08 23:01  ----r-wr    A3F4       2B3 msg42alan
   0  1995/06/10 22:48  ----r-wr    A3F8       1C0 msg52alan
   0  1995/06/10 23:52  ----r-wr    A3FC       692 msg62alan
   0  1995/06/13 00:36  ----r-wr    A404       E4E msg72aland
   0  1995/06/14 09:27  ----r-wr    A414      2CCB msg82alan
   0  1995/06/12 22:54  ----r-wr    A444       906 msgfrAlan06.12.95
   0  1995/06/10 20:01  ----r-wr    A450      2B6B myram.doc
   0  1994/11/04 22:42  ------wr    A480      1B2D myram3_files.lzh
   0  1995/06/03 16:51  ----r-wr    A4A0      9172 myram8.list
   0  1994/11/09 22:51  ----r-wr    A588      2137 myram8.uue
   0  1995/06/11 23:50  ------wr    A5AC      1B6E myramV2.lzh
   0  1994/11/19 22:26  ------wr    A5CC      5B9C myram_all.lzh
   0  1994/11/19 22:25  ----r-wr    A62C      7E5D myram_all.uue
   0  1994/11/04 02:31  ----rewr    A6AC       2FC ram3.dr
   0  1994/11/07 20:13  ----r-wr    A6B0      78EB ram3.lst
   0  1995/06/11 23:44  ----rewr    A72C       2E0 ram3v2.dr
   0  1995/06/11 23:44  ----r-wr    A750      9260 ram3v2.list
   0  1994/11/09 17:41  ----r-wr    A7E4       313 ram8.dr
   0  1994/11/09 17:41  ----r-wr    A7EC      91B1 ram8.lst
   0  1995/06/11 23:45  ----rewr    A880       2F7 ram8v2.dr
   0  1995/06/11 23:44  ----r-wr    A884      933C ram8v2.list
   0  1995/06/11 23:56  ----r-wr    A91C        2B test.install
   0  1996/03/30 09:22  ----r-wr    A920      5083 statram.src
   0  1998/01/25 19:44  ------wr    A974       2A8 myram3.lzh
   0  1998/10/11 00:10  ------wr    A978      18FE myram_src.lzh
   0  2003/04/26 16:10  ----r-wr     834      B4D6 core

>*   4      1998/10/10  Boisy G. Pitre
>* Given to me by Gene Heskett.

And because of the date you have, it almost has to be from myram3.lzh.

I just tried to do an lzh -x on the src file.lzh, and got garbage output, 
probably because I have forgotten how to run lzh, or unlzh since I have both 
on that coco3.

As far as a device descriptor goes, with my vfy utility, you can probably 
make it from a copy of most any other rbf descriptor, its only reason to 
exist is the cyl byte in it.

I just found the descriptor I used, and here is the dmode -R0 from it
{t2|07}/DD/MAXTOR/NITRO122F/GH:dmode -R0

 nam=R0 mgr=RBF ddr=RAM
 hpn=00 hpa=0000 drv=00 stp=00 typ=00 dns=00 cyl=0000 sid=01
 vfy=00 sct=1000 t0s=0000 ilv=00 sas=04 wpc= ofs= rwc=

You should also have a doc file, somewhat dated.  Humm, maybe, (its been 15 
years darnit) I used the sct as the size variable since I see cyl=-0000

>Is this your latest?  If you have made any bug fixes or enhancements beyond
> what is in the repository, it would be nice if you could merge them into
> this driver.  It appears that this driver isn't built or made available
> with the NitrOS-9 Project, and there also doesn't appear to be a
> descriptor file for it.

Other than creating a descriptor that matches that, and fixing any foibles 
caused by switching to mamou to build it (I was using B&B's xsm about that 
time frame), it should build by moving it someplace where the makefile can 
find it and adding it to the list in the makefile.

Frankly Boisy, I was a little disappointed when the response rolled in from 
my release of it.  I used it for several years, it was bulletproof.  But I 
got the impression, not from you as I recall, that I had expelled a yellow 
liquid in the Cherios.  So I didn't push the issue.  IIRC Paul Jerkatis was 
one who took a dim view, but his opinion and a buck seventy five will get you 
a cuppa in the average greasy spoon too.  After trying to tell him what to 
use to build rzsz-3.36, and he refused to follow directions, so of course it 
crashed.  I finally got him to send me the scr files and built a working 
version on the 2nd  pass.  Then I plugged in some of my speedup stuff that I 
had been using since  3.16 or so and added 200 cps to its speed.  That is the 
rzsz you are probably running today.

Chucks license on rzsz is a bit iffy, so I'm not 100% sure it should be in 
the repo.

If you'd like, I can probably get the last version I made to this machine, 
its in a src.lzh file, and mail it personally & let you be the judge.  It 
will NOT build with the std Microware compiler, it absolutely requires 
cprep19.  Or I can put it in a location my web page could serve up.  That is 
a more exposed location however so I wouldn't leave it there very long, 
couple of days maybe. Its there in

<http://gene.homelinux.net:85/gene/Genes-os9-stf>

 And for some reason I cannot now access any of that stuff from firefox.

I am not running as root, but I have all the permissions set wide open.

No index.html in that dir, or no perms.  httpd isn't overly verbose.  But 
I'll find it and fix it & post when I have.

[...]

-- 
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow they may make it illegal.