[Coco] Issues with NitrOS9 build

[Gene Heskett]

On Saturday 25 January 2014 15:06:25 Tormod Volden did opine:

> On Sat, Jan 25, 2014 at 3:24 PM, Robert Gault <robert.gault at att.net> 
wrote:
> > Bob Devries wrote:
> >> Well, I got it to work, but I fail to understand why.
> >> 
> >> I changed offset $10 (DD.FMT) in LSN 0 from $07 to $03, and it boots
> >> correctly.
> >> 
> >> That change makes the disk a 48TPI instead of 96TPI.
> >> 
> >> Why does the TPI setting have *any* effect on the operation
> >> especially in an
> >> emulator. *something's* not right here.
> >> 
> >> Regards, Bob Devries
> >> Dalby, QLD, Australia
> > 
> > Bob,
> > 
> > I think you have an intermediate update of NitrOS-9. Some changes have
> > been made to rb1773 intended to prevent problems writing to disks
> > formatted differently from what a specific floppy drive can handle.
> > Basically a mismatch between disk format and descriptor values.
> > You seem to have created 96tpi disks without having the newest rb1773
> > driver and that is preventing you from reading the disks.
> > 
> > I just tested both MESS and VCC using the newest rb1773 with both
> > DD.FMT 48tpi and 96tpi and the disks boot correctly.
> > 
> > I had thought the repository was updated for the new rb1773, so don't
> > know why you are having problems.
> 
> Robert, if you mean Gene's and your stuff that we are massaging behind
> the scenes, the make-48-TPI-disk-readonly-on-96-TPI-drive patch has
> not been pushed to the repo yet because it hasn't been tested. Some of
> the other (unrelated) changes have been pushed in separate commits. I
> am /not/ just copying a "new rb1773" wholesale. We already found bugs
> and unconfirmed changes.

The original patch we sent, has been tested, I have at least 1 of every 
style of floppy ever used on a coco except the original Texas Peripheral 
junk yard dogs.  Those I bin on sight, maybe using the motors for something 
else.  The "bugs" were old ones that existed for yonks. The miss-matched 
spelling goes back at least to v3.2.6.  The format of the downloads changed 
some, and my copy of 3.2.0 is .dsk's only requiring I get DW to work again 
before I can really check them.  I suspect the coco os9's have either been 
using write precomp permanently disabled or permanently enabled for at 
least 20 years.
 
> Anyway, I believe Bob's disk images were formatted by toolshed and not
> by NitrOS-9 itself so the driver didn't come into play.
> 
> Tormod
> 
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Cheers, Gene
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