[Coco] NitrOS-9 L3 Code and Disk Images

[Gene Heskett]

On Thursday 23 October 2014 17:01:04 Bill Pierce via Coco did opine
And Gene did reply:
> Tormod, I sent you a private email concerning Nitros9 level 3
> yesterday. I think it got screwed in the process so I'll send it
> again. And yes, there was a working Level 3 at one point, but Alan
> took it with him when he left us. Unless Kip had a copy from Alan's
> old website, I don't see how he could've run it. It was only available
> for Nitros9 L2 v1.2.2. The level 3 that Alan was working on was based
> on code from Nitros9 L2 v1.22 (yes, that old), which was still being
> sold by Northern Exposure at the time. They at one point announced
> they "may" provide the Level 3 upgrade if enough people showed
> interest. I don't think they ever actually released it. Alan did have
> it available on his website later.
> 
> 
> The Level 3 code in the repo is missing 4 important files and WILL NOT
> run without them. These files are "IOMan.L3", "OS9P1.L3" (now named
> Krn), "OS9p2.L3" (now named KrnP2), and "Clock.L3" (now split into 2
> modules). These files have gone through many changes since Nitros9 l2
> v1.22 and the original L3 files will have to be disassembled and the
> newer modules reworked to do what these modules intended for L3.
> Again... Level 3 WILL NOT WORK without these modules, and I'm NOT
> referring to the current build of these modules as Alan did special
> versions of each one. They were not the same modules as in Nitros9 l2
> v1.2.2.
> 
> 
> I think Kip may have been running a release of Nitros9 L2 v3.0.0 as
> I've seen it in several archives labeled as "L3" which is incorrect.
> It's just L2 v3.0.0,
> 
> 
> Bill Pierce
> "Today is a good day... I woke up" - Ritchie Havens
> 
> 
> 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
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> 
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tormod Volden <lists.tormod at gmail.com>
> To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts <coco at maltedmedia.com>
> Sent: Thu, Oct 23, 2014 4:32 pm
> Subject: Re: [Coco] NitrOS-9 L3 Code and Disk Images
> 
> On Thu, Oct 23, 2014 at 3:38 AM, Kip Koon wrote:
> > Hi Tormod!
> > 
> > Are there any plans for reviving the NitrOS-9 Level-3 Code?
> 
> Hi Kip!
> 
> I believe Gene has such plans :)
> 
> I don't know of anyone else. Boisy put this stuff in the repo some
> years ago, but I think the original level3 work from Alan DeKok is
> decades old.
> 
> Other than that the only plans that I know anyone has or had for
> NitrOS-9 is here: http://sourceforge.net/p/nitros9/feature-requests/
> 
> Personally I would like to see it ported to more systems. There is a
> crowd of 6809 lovers outside the CoCo/Dragon scene, which I am sure
> you have seen for instance on the N8VEM list. Getting them involved
> and using NitrOS-9 as a unifying base would be great. NitrOS-9 offers
> the a well defined API to write programs that can run on a CoCo or a
> homebrew 6809 system.
> 
> Generally I think we need more new software running on NitrOS-9, more
> than we need new features in NitrOS-9. But I am not so much into the
> use of NitrOS-9 so what do I know. Of course a lot of people think the
> operating system itself is more interesting to develop than programs
> for it. And I could fit in there, I guess :)
> 
> > How do I put in my own changes into my local copy of the NitrOS-9
> > Repository without the Build process removing said changes every
> > time I try to assemble the source code and make the disks?  I have
> > some ideas I want to play with including cleaning up some scripts,
> > adding other scripts that I think are needed or at least would be
> > interesting and correcting at least one error in a module.
> 
> You can make your own local branch. See "hg help branch" for the short
> story, but read the mercurial documentation and tutorials for better
> explanations. I posted some of these here:
> http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.hardware.tandy.coco/75439
> 
> > Another reason why I'm asking is I have a friend named Bas De Jong
> > who is running a homebrew 68020 VME system he made using wirewrap
> > methods that runs OS-9 68K 2.3 and he wants to add Windowing
> > capabilities to His OS-9 Operating system.
> > 
> > He asked me some questions about the windowing system in NitrOS-9 and
> > I told him as far as I know the default distro disks have no
> > built-in GUI.  Then I remembered the Multivue disks.  I tried the
> > Multivue 6309 DW and Multivue 6809 DW disks in Drivewire with VCC
> > 1.43Beta and neither of them booted.  I also tried to boot the
> > Multivue 6309 and Multivue 6809 disks in VCC Drive 0 with the Drive
> > off Basic command and neither of these booted.  If I remember
> > correctly,  Multivue is the GUI application, but I cannot check it
> > out to get copies of the screen for Bas.
> > 
> > Are the Multivue disks broken or did I make a mistake in my
> > configuration in Drivewire and/or VCC?
> 
> I don't know. Maybe Bill Pierce knows, since he's the most heavy user
> of NitrOS-9 GUI systems that I know of.
> 
> > I tested a version of OS-9 Level 3 once quite a while back and it
> > seemed to work fine, but I didn't have a Coco mouse then so I did
> > not pursue it any further.  Now that I have VCC 1.43beta I'm going
> > to pull it out again and see if it still boots.  Any help would be
> > most appreciated.  Thanks in advance.  Take care my friends.
> 
> So there was a OS-9 Level 3? Interesting. Maybe someone can pitch in
> with some history and background. I have considered it more like
> vaporware, from reading the NitrOS-9 FAQ.
> 
> Cheers,
> Tormod

You're correct, the krn.asm in the current level2/modules/kernel directory 
is not conditionalized for level 3.

However, digging back in my many copies of the repo's, I did find an 
os9p1.asm in and old cvs copy from before the repo was renamed to nitros9.

That one contains a very simple check for a module name starting with 
"Ni", and if it finds it, gets that modules exec address and then does a 
jump d,x, presumably handing program flow over to whatever module whose 
name MIGHT start with "Ni".

Looks like this, so its not much more code to add to krn.L3.asm

* added for IOMan system memory extentions
         ldd   M$Name,x   grab the name offset
         ldd   d,x        find the first 2 bytes of the first module
         cmpd  #$4E69     'Ni' ? (NitrOS9 module?)
         bne   not.ext    no, not system memory extensions
         ldd   M$Exec,x   grab the execution ptr
         jmp   d,x        and go execute the system memory extension 
module

not.ext  ldd   <D.BtSz

So what I need to do is back up and find the call immediately before this.

That is in the F$Link module, which is not a separate file, so I'll see if 
I can sort this basket of rattlesnakes tomorrow, after I haul a box to the 
local ups agent.

Cheers, Gene Heskett
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
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US V Castleman, SCOTUS, Mar 2014 is grounds for Impeaching SCOTUS