[Coco] NitrOS-9 L3 Code and Disk Images

[Gene Heskett]

On Monday 27 October 2014 00:37:05 Gene Heskett did opine
And Gene did reply:
> 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
> > http://www.cocopedia.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
> > E-Mail: ooogalapasooo at aol.com
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > -----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

Found it, it is now in the F$srqmem modules, aka in 
level2/modules/kernel/fsrqmen.asm, but I'm puzzled because the conditional 
only allows it to work on a 6309 cpu.  Time to go look at nitro.asm and 
see why it will not work on a 6809. Did, its got 6309 only code in it.  
Some of which may be hard and slower to work around for a 6809.  It really 
was a good plan I thought.

In this present state, 6809 coco3's will crash 100% of the time.  
Guaranteed.


Cheers, Gene Heskett
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene>
US V Castleman, SCOTUS, Mar 2014 is grounds for Impeaching SCOTUS