[Coco] Nitros9 v3.3.0

Fri May 9 01:25:29 EDT 2014

Bill,
I just tried the NitrOS9 3.3.0 L2 6309 80trk disk image from the repo in Mess under Windows Vista. It booted with no problems. If that disk will not boot for you in Mess, then there's a problem with your version of Mess.
The 80trk disk contains everything you need to create a new boot (almost) and should boot fine from Mess.

A lot of this you probably already know, since you were part of the start of this thing :-), but I'll go through it as I know all too well how time can play with the memory.

First, if you're going to build a new boot, do NOT use any "old" modules. The system modules have changed enough to make a difference, even just from last year. Use only the modules found on the disk you are booting from. These modules are (of course) in the "NITROS9/6309L2" directory on the disk.

2nd, use the model bootlist in the "nitros9/6309l2/bootlists/standard.bl". Just select the things you need, comment out ("*") the things you don't.

3rd, use the "mb.floppy" script from the "nitros9/6309l2/scripts" dir to make your boot. It will call the "standard.bl" bootlist.

4th, there is nothing really in that directory that's not already in the boot from that disk that Mess can use. Unless your Mess is DriveWire enabled with the Becker Port, the DW stuff is useless to you, the only RBF drivers usable in Mess are the "rb1773.dr", "ddd0.dd", "d0.dd", "d1.dd", "d2.dd" & "d3.dd". The stock "term" and the window descriptors are pretty much standard. To be honest, I'd just cobbler a new disk, and use EZGen to remove anything I didn't want from the new boot. You can get ezgen from RTSI, or The Color Computer Archive, or I can send you a copy.

5th, if you want to use the Mess HD emulation, you'll need the EmuDsk driver and descriptors... which are not currently on any disk in the repository. The files ARE being built with the rest when you build your own local copy, but not installed on a disk. These files are in the "./3rdparty/drivers/emudsk" folder in the repo. If you are not building your own local copy and need these files, I can send you a link to it in my dropbox. These files are easily inserted using ezgen on the new boot. I modify my boots on the fly constantly with ezgen. I switched my complete Coco 3, and 3 different Vcc emulator boots from 3.2.9 to 3.3.0 in less than 15 minutes using ezgen :-)  Here's a link to a disk with the emudsk files and ezgen:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/23059963/Stuff/EmuDsk%20Drivers.os9

Always remember, disk images for OS9 must have the ".os9" extension when using Mess.

The best way to boot OS9 from mess is to use RSBDOS and set it all up to boot from the VHD automatically with Robert Gault's RSBDOS menu he set up for VCC. If you would like to set up this way, contact me off list and I'll give you a step-by-step installation. I say offlist as this could be a long set of instructions and I don't want to bog the list down with it.

Bill Pierce
"Today is a good day... I woke up" - Ritchie Havens

My Music from the Tandy/Radio Shack Color Computer 2 & 3
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