[Coco] NitrOS-9 L3 Code and Disk Images

Mon Oct 27 07:11:41 EDT 2014

hahaha Murphy's law strikes again:  A few days ago, I created a
private, parallel branch of nitros for making changes to krn, fsrqmem,
fnproc to improve booting in OS9.  I judged by the comments and coding
mess that nobody's touched that source in 20 years.  I guessed it
would be an easy merge.  Oh well!

Cheers, Brett

On Mon, Oct 27, 2014 at 1:33 AM, Gene Heskett <gheskett at wdtv.com> wrote:
> 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
>
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-- 
Brett M. Gordon,
beretta42 at gmail.com