[Coco] Just learning OS-9 - Questions

[Frank Swygert]

Date: Sun, 26 May 2013 20:37:58 -0400
From: Frank Swygert<farna at amc-mag.com>

You might want to download "Mastering OS-9" (ftp://maltedmedia.com/coco/MANUALS%20by%20company/FARNA/Mastering%20OS-9%20CoCo3/). Also look in "Newly Received" for the title -- there was a section missing in the original upload that was corrected in one of the new files. Unfortunately there are three new files, and I don't know the differences in them.
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Oh, another thing -- Rick Ulland wrote a series on getting started with OS-9 for "the world of 68' micros". I don't recall what issues it was in, but it did start out with creating a boot disk from standard OS-9 disks. So you'll have to go through the archive and see for yourself, but I do recall they were well written articles and covered making a boot disk using the stock utilities.

The big "problem" with OS-9 (and it's strength) is it's more like Unix -- modular and configurable for just about any conceivable system it would run on. This means a custom boot for just about everyone.

Since memory is a problem for an 8 bit system most people have more than one boot configured for specific tasks. The boot modules must all be in one contiguous block of memory -- 8K IIRC. So you often can't have every module (commands and drivers) you may want. You don't need the Speech/Sound Pak for general programming, so don't load the modules for it and have space for some other commands you need for programming, but may not need for general computing or gaming, etc.