[Coco] NitrOS-9 beginner

[Gene Heskett]

On Thursday 09 July 2015 15:40:56 Robert Hermanek wrote:
> So... maybe my coco is getting flaky.  Using latest and greatest DW4
> server, and the proper DW image, I try booting NitrOS and it hangs, or
> sometimes I get the "FAILED" message.  And I do this five or six
> times. And finally, it succeeds, and I make it to the prompt and all
> is well.
>
> It put me in mind of something I noticed ages ago:  One of my kids
> typed this program in, from the coco3 extended basic book:
>
> 10 PCLEAR 8
> 20 FOR P=1 TO 8
> 30 PMODE 0,P
> 40 PCLS
> 50 LINE (128,0)-(138,10+(P-1)*15),PSET
> 60 CIRCLE (128,P*15),15
> 70 NEXT P
> 80 FOR P=1 TO 8:GOSUB 110:NEXT P
> 90 FOR P=7 TO 1 STEP -2:GOSUB 110:NEXT P
> 100 GOTO 80
> 110 PMODE 0,P
> 120 SCREEN 1,0
> 130 FOR T=1 TO 10:NEXT T
> 140 RETURN
>
> And it animates a crude yo-yo using page switching.  My coco3 does
> this for a while.  Then I see flickers, sometimes a little garbage
> from 32-col text screen in between page switches, and then eventually
> the system hangs.
>
> So, which part of my coco3 is failing?  It is stock 6809 + cloud 9
> 512K upgrade (simm version), and I have HDB-DOS loaded in a rs-232
> pak, so it is running on the high-speed poke.  I'm thinking my OS-9
> booting issues are not OS-9 issues at all...

This has memory problems written all over it, probably caused by the high 
speed poke.

If running with the high speed poke, That steals the time normally used 
for d-ram refresh.  Basically the only d-ram being refreshed is the 
d-ram containing that active code.  That memory containing the page 
data, is not being refreshed when that page is switched out.

This might be, check with Mark M., a good place to switch to static ram, 
which should not have that problem. IOW try one of Marks latest 512k 
memory upgrades, that is I believe static memory, and does not need a 
refresh mechanism, so should work well with the high speed poke.
> -RobertH
>
> On 7/3/2015 5:48 PM, K. Pruitt wrote:
> > Bypassing the floppy and booting straight in to NitrOS-9 via
> > drivewire is going to be the easiest most direct method.
> >
> > I'd save the boot floppy as a last option.
> >
> > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Robert Hermanek"
> > Sent: Friday, July 03, 2015 3:14 PM
> > Subject: Re: [Coco] NitrOS-9 beginner
> >
> >> Cool, thanks everybody.  If tackling DW config + NitrOS is too
> >> much, I may begin with the (possibly simpler) 35T disk image below.
> >>
> >> On 7/3/2015 4:44 PM, K. Pruitt wrote:
> >>> Yes, you got it.
> >>>
> >>> The image to use would be
> >>>
> >>> nos96809l2v030300coco3_dw.dsk
> >>>
> >>> I do believe you will have to issue a drive command or select
> >>> HDBDOS Translation under the Tools menu of Drivewire. Someone
> >>> knowledgeable on HDB-DOS will have to comment on that. Or since
> >>> you already use HDB-DOS you probably already know how to do that.
> >>>
> >>> After you boot in to NitrOS-9 you can easily create boot disks in
> >>> your floppy.
> >>>
> >>> But I've tossed a 35-track boot disk for you on drop box in case
> >>> you need it.
> >>>
> >>> https://www.dropbox.com/s/ew57u2pmj6cpnua/BOOT35T.DSK?dl=0

Cheers, Gene Heskett
-- 
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