[Coco] Mastering OS-9 on the Tandy Color Computer

[Stephen H. Fischer]

Hi,

Checking http://www.os9projects.com/Tutorials/OS9Books/MasteringOS9.html

It appears that nothing is missing, that during a rewrite "10" was
eliminated. Note the Third Edition.

Page 147 is followed by page 148  Page 147 ends cleanly and 148 starts
cleanly.

Or maybe it is a day of rest, see the end of this post for more details from 
a file not online (I have a complete copy on my NAS)

SHF


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bill Pierce" <ooogalapasooo at aol.com>
To: <coco at maltedmedia.com>
Sent: Friday, March 22, 2013 2:00 PM
Subject: Re: [Coco] Mastering OS-9 on the Tandy Color Computer


>
> I'll check and see if I have a complete one and replace it
>
> Bill P

---------------------------------------------------------------
MASTERING OS-9
On the Color Computer 3

This book was first published by Paul K. Ward. Paul wanted to make it as 
easy as possible for people to start using OS-9. The main reason was that he 
and a group of other OS-9 enthusiasts were working on a 68000 based computer 
that would be running OS-9. This was intended to be a low cost machine that 
woud be a natural upgrade for CoCo OS-9 users. It was called the "MM/1" for 
Multi-Media (model) 1. It was built around a 68000 based controller chip 
rahter than a straight CPU as the controller had some built in functions 
that reduced circuit board size and cost. The drawback was that you couldn't 
upgrade the machine later with a CPU change as is common in the PC world 
now. The macine was designed "by committee" -- to many cooks led to a lot of 
compromises and a long development time, both of which hurt the machines 
sales. Only a few hundred of the machines were built. Frank Hogg Labs built 
a more robust machine, the TC1 (Tom Cat 1), but it was a bit more expensive 
and probably sold fewer copies than the MM/1. There just wasn't a lot of 
high quality, inexpensive software for OS-9/68000. What was out there was 
for the industrial community and rather costly. OS-9's main claim to fame 
was in industrial control applications, such as robotics and automated 
machinery.

I approached Paul about reprinting the book about six years after his two 
printing runs had been sold. He didn't mind at all as long as it was updated 
and he was given proper credit. I was only a very light user of OS-9, no 
programming at all, so I enlisted the help of Rick Ulland, and avid OS-9 
enthusiast and columnist for "the world of 68' micros". I updated the 
Appendices while Rick went over all the commands. When Rick finished, I read 
them and gave them a try. If I couldn't understand something, he and I went 
over it until I did. If I could understand it, the average CoCo user should 
be able to! This seems to have worked well, as it was a great seller at 
CoCoFests for a couple years plus there were quite a few mail order sales. I 
think I sold just over 200 copies over a three year period. Rick received a 
master copy for his efforts and sold another 75-100 copies.

If you're still using OS-9 on a CoCo 3, or want to learn,  this is probably 
the best text on the subject ever written. It goes along in an easy lesson 
by lesson (day by day) format and was written with the novice OS-9 user in 
mind. It's also indexed enough to be a big help even to experienced users, 
especially with those rarely used commands.

Francis (Frank) Swygert
---------------------------------------------------------------