[Coco] Have no idea what to call it, but, it WAS New tool: WIRED

[Gene Heskett]

On Wednesday 05 December 2012 11:10:54 Luis Antoniosi did opine:

> Brian, I am on very same position as you: family, kids, house, car,
> dog, cat and bird. When I got the SuperIDE my first move was: to copy
> DECB disks into it and I found out it was nearly impossible.
> 
> First the Aaron's tool Sidewalk was broken. For this reason I made a
> small command line tool to put and get disk from the CF card using the
> PC. After a month, Aaron fixed his tool. The Sidewalk is great because
> it has the GUI to browse all image but it still gets a lot of time to
> read all the disks so I still use my command line tool which take a
> second to write or get a disk on it.
> 
> The stock NitroOS-9 on superIDE does not access the RS-DOS drive (the
> IH).

If it can't, it is miss-configured.

> Nor it has support for any of the sierra or VDG games. So I had
> to learn a lot until I got a working copy of the nitros and manage to
> solve the problem with the rbsuper descriptors. That was a lot of
> learning curve. I do not have much time available on real hardware so
> it took a lot of time for me. Even when I got the /IH working I found
> out the pain it was copying from DW to it. Again I need to make a
> BASIC09 tool for it. Also I had to figure out how to install a fresh
> nitrOS-9 on a superIDE without a MPI.

Now that IS a problem.
 
> This what motivated me to make the WIRED tool. The Sidekick I did
> because I was sick of typing commands and the coco basic doesn't like
> typos, you made one you're screwed. Other BASIC like C-64 or even MSX
> they have a free screen cursor, you can just return the cursor there
> and fix it. But no my Coco. (hmmmm this gives me an idea!)
> 
> But then I realized: why nobody else did it before ? Maybe nobody
> plays DECB games anymore ? Does everybody else use nitrOS-9 only ?
> 
> I just love DECB and all its games. I also love the 32 column screen.
> I don't like using the 80 column display doesn't look like a coco for
> me :P
> 
> Felipe.
> 
> On Wed, Dec 5, 2012 at 9:51 AM, Brian Blake <random.rodder at gmail.com> 
wrote:
> > On 12/4/2012 4:43 PM, Robert Gault wrote:
> >> Luis Antoniosi has demonstrated one approach which can handle
> >> Drivewire plus one type of HDBDOS; one ROM loaded to RAM, the second
> >> the current ROM. Extend it to a 16K ROM with the main package in the
> >> first half and hardware specific routines in the second half, and
> >> there just might be room to support all flavors of drives.
> >> 
> >> Aside from the difficulties and work needed to attempt this, the
> >> requirement of a 16K ROM may make the concept Coco3 only. That would
> >> not be desirable.
> > 
> > I'd fully agree that you'd want to support all CoCo models - however,
> > WHY would the move to a 16k ROM be CoCo3 only? Roger claimed CoCoNet
> > would work an any CoCo and I believe it's on a 16k ROM. I've only
> > used it on a CoCo 3 so I don't know.
> > 
> > Not trying to be difficult, just want to understand...
> > 
> >> As things stand right now, the point is moot for NitrOS-9 as you can
> >> have driver packages for any type hard drive and Drivewire
> >> co-existing in OS9Boot. I have this currently going for my SCSI
> >> drives and Drivewire.
> > 
> > Not everybody works in or wants to work in NitrOS-9. And really,
> > there's quite a few people who have no clue how to set this stuff up
> > under NitrOS-9 - myself included.
> > 
> >> So this Super HDBDOS really is needed only for Disk Basic. Far as
> >> that goes, it is only needed to transfer files back and forth as
> >> Luis' Wired does right now.
> >> 
> >> Robert
> > 
> > Maybe I'm the only person who sees the utility in having your DOS be
> > able to see and access all the storage devices on the CoCo system, I
> > don't know. For those who like to play their RS-DOS based games, I'd
> > think being able to copy files from your PC to help set up your
> > SuperIDE in the easiest way possible would be a benefit. I know
> > NitrOS-9 is powerful and can do lots of things RS-DOS cannot.
> > 
> > However, with three kids and a grand-daughter, working full time, and
> > a house and cars to maintain, I personally do not have the time to
> > learn how to set up a NitrOS-9 boot disk, decide what modules to add
> > to it, learn all the methods of scripting and customization, etc...
> > Yes, I'd LOVE to learn these things, as well as learn to write BASIC
> > programs better and learn Assembly language as well. Right now, Disk
> > Basic suits my needs.
> > 
> > Now, I'm not saying one person's needs outweighs the needs of the many
> > - if I'm indeed the only person to see a need or the usefulness of
> > these changes, then I probably should shut up. But, I'd imagine for
> > people coming back to the CoCo, or those who have a new-found
> > interest for whatever reason, the first thing they are likely to see
> > is a Disk Basic based OS like HDB-DOS or CoCoNet if they dive in and
> > get a SuperIDE for a storage solution or the DrivePak if the new
> > 'owner' follows through with his promises. These changes would
> > probably be greatly beneficial to these people - especially if Disk
> > Basic is what they've used in the past.
> > 
> > 
> > Brian
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > --
> > Coco mailing list
> > Coco at maltedmedia.com
> > http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco


Cheers, Gene
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