[Coco] os-9

[Robert Gault]

Aaron Wolfe wrote:
> Ok, then the procedure would be:
>
> On DW server, turn HDBDOS Mode on, insert source image in drive #4
>
> On coco, insert destination floppy in disk 0 (or 1,2 etc).
> Type:
>
> DRIVE OFF
> BACKUP 4 to 0
>
> wait a while...
>
> That's it, if I am remembering correctly.
>
> -Aaron
>
>

There's a problem with that procedure and it won't work. There is also the 
question of whether the Tandy floppy in question is single sided or dual sided 
as NitrOS-9 is a large package.

HDBDOS uses DRIVE OFF and DRIVE ON to turn on and off floppies for which ever 
hard drive is active. You can select the hard drive that is active with DRIVE#n 
where n is 1 through 4.
That means there is no method in the HDBDOS code to copy directly from one hard 
drive to another under Disk Basic. It also prevents copying, for example, from 
hard drive 0 to floppy 0.

The command BACKUP 4 to 0 would make use of the same hard drive not different 
drives on a server. Since the NitrOS-9 disks are floppies not hard drives, using 
BACKUP in this fashion would fail badly.

This method is one that will work. First create (on the PC) single sided 
NitrOS-9 35-track disks, as many as needed to contain a full package. Then for 
each of these disks, place a fresh disk in drive0 on the Coco and use the 
following procedure:
  For Server Drive #1
DRIVE ON            no floppies
BACKUP 0 TO 4
DRIVE OFF           floppies on
BACKUP 4 TO 0
The result will be a supper large .dsk ('corrupted' for emulator use) on the PC 
and a normal floppy on the Coco.

I can't think of a worse way to run OS-9 than to be forced to constantly change 
disks on a system that is too small to contain all normal system programs on one 
disk. The original poster would be better off running NitrOS-9 over Drivewire. 
So the question really is, does he have a single sided or double sided drive or 
can he get a double sided drive?
If the Coco drive is double sided, then the Drivewire would need to do backups 
under NitrOS-9 to correctly transfer double sided images from the PC to the 
Coco. You would need to boot a DW NitrOS-9 disk, replace it with a 'floppy' 
NitrOS-9 disk, and then backup to the Coco.