[Coco] DriveWire 4 - NitrOS-9 Floppy *BOOTSTRAP!*

[Aaron Wolfe]

Yes, its probably all in the makefiles... I am no expert with make or
terribly familiar with how NitrOS9 builds but I think if you figure
out how the becker series are generated that would provide an example,
since these are also just substituting the stock dwio for another
variant.

Due to the large installed base of users with standard DW3 ROMs, I
don't think there will come a time when we can just build the turbo
version.  Already we have "standard" and becker building several disks
in the nightly process.. there are also some other dwio variants
besides "dw4" around that do not get built.  Maybe someone can come up
with a better system so we don't have to generate so many disks, not
sure though since each boot track for each respective IO mechanism is
different.   ?



On Sun, Sep 29, 2013 at 9:38 PM, Bill Pierce <ooogalapasooo at aol.com> wrote:
>
> Aaron, in looking at the sources, the only conditional in the dw4 sources is "IF NITROS9-1"
> Which I assume is where level 1 & 2 part ways. Now the question is to look through the makefiles and rules.mak and see if that conditional is still being used (many have changed with the lwtools change).
> There's tons of conditionals in the standard models as they are built for all machines, but no NITORS9. So I probably need to do just a "Coco 2" and "Coco 3" build so I don't forget and try to use some of the other stuff that would get built on a "make all" as it would most likely fail.
>
> Ultimately, what would be needed is to add the turbo code into the current sources with a IFEQ TURBO conditional or something similar to make it build those only with the Coco 2 L1 and Coco 3 L2 builds.
>
> My knowledge of those makefiles is very little. Though I could probably do it with a little experimentaion. TURBO would have to be set only in the builds for those machines/systems.
>
> Bill Pierce
> My Music from the Tandy/Radio Shack Color Computer 2 & 3
> https://sites.google.com/site/dabarnstudio/
> Co-Webmaster of The TRS-80 Color Computer Archive
> http://www.colorcomputerarchive.com/
> Co-Contributor, Co-Editor for CocoPedia
> http://www.cocopedia.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
> E-Mail: ooogalapasooo at aol.com
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Aaron Wolfe <aawolfe at gmail.com>
> To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts <coco at maltedmedia.com>
> Sent: Sun, Sep 29, 2013 9:16 pm
> Subject: Re: [Coco] DriveWire 4 - NitrOS-9 Floppy *BOOTSTRAP!*
>
>
> I think that would work.  AFAIK the dwio (former dwsub) portion can be
> swapped to any of the supported mechanisms without changing anything
> else.
>
> You could also look at how the becker series builds and clone that to
> build a dw4 series... I don't know if that is simple or a lot of work.
>
> When I was working with Darren in testing the turbo stuff (it was
> quite a while ago) I believe the actual increase in speed is about
> 40%, not 100% as you might expect, due to some overhead that just
> cannot be avoided.  That may have changed since then, I am not sure.
> Until this last week I didn't even realize the drivers were "in the
> wild"... or maybe I did know that and forgot?  Too many things going
> on lately.
>
>
> On Sun, Sep 29, 2013 at 9:10 PM, Bill Pierce <ooogalapasooo at aol.com> wrote:
>>
>> I'm probably going to have it a shot at the turbo mode this week. All one
> would have to do is rename dwread.asm and dwwrite.asm to dwread.old and
> dwwrite.old, then rename the dw4read.asm and dw4write.asm to dwread.asm and
> dwwrite.asm. The do a "make all"
>> That should do it if the conditionals are present in the dw4 sources to set
> the Coco 2 and 3 builds... right?
>> I'll have to compare the conditionals to the current ones in case they were
> renamed (a lot was) and haven't been updated yet since they are not being built.
>>
>> The double speed throughput on my 3 would really make some of my projects
> "sing".
>>
>> Bill Pierce
>> My Music from the Tandy/Radio Shack Color Computer 2 & 3
>> https://sites.google.com/site/dabarnstudio/
>> Co-Webmaster of The TRS-80 Color Computer Archive
>> http://www.colorcomputerarchive.com/
>> Co-Contributor, Co-Editor for CocoPedia
>> http://www.cocopedia.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
>> E-Mail: ooogalapasooo at aol.com
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Aaron Wolfe <aawolfe at gmail.com>
>> To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts <coco at maltedmedia.com>
>> Sent: Sun, Sep 29, 2013 8:58 pm
>> Subject: Re: [Coco] DriveWire 4 - NitrOS-9 Floppy *BOOTSTRAP!*
>>
>>
>> I suspect because 38400 x 2 = 76800, which is a pretty weird serial port
> speed.
>> It may also be that the same hardware issues which prevent 57600 also
>> simply do not allow any "turbo" operation.
>>
>> Please remember that the so called "DW4" or Turbo roms and drivers are
>> experimental and unsupported at this time.  As you noted, they are not
>> automatically built in the standard boot disks.  It is expected that
>> if you want to experiment with these things that you will have a
>> NitrOS9 build system and the experience to create these modules from
>> what is provided.. if this doesn't sound like something you (and I
>> don't mean you specifically, Bill :) are able or want to do, please
>> wait until the Turbo stuff is made mainstream.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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