[Coco] 248 errors in NitrOS-9 repository

[Robert Gault]

From: Lothan <lothan at newsguy.com>
To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts <coco at maltedmedia.com> 
Sent: Sunday, July 21, 2013 5:11 PM
Subject: Re: [Coco] 248 errors in NitrOS-9 repository

Well as my Internet connection is down and I'm at a library, I can't check the versions of mingw and msys I'm using but compiling Toolshed is not a problem.

Here is another problem with os9.exe which seems to be in os9format and os9gen. If you tell os9.exe to use a custom value for DD.BIT ( -c# ) the disk won't format correctly for values -c3 or greater. The format process does not place the root directory in the correct location as it does not start at the beginning of a sector. The os9gen process ignores the value of DD.BIT so that the FAT does not have the bits for the kernel allocated in the correct location if even allocated.

It's not difficult to fix the os9gen.asm routines to allocate the correct bits for the kernel when DD.BIT >1. Finding the source of the problem in os9format.asm is proving difficult. The routine that determines the location of the root directory seems reasonable and I don't see why it should not start at the beginning of a sector.
A routine in os9format, correctly assigns the size of the bit map for DD.BIT>1 even though I can't find where it checks DD.BIT.

Robert