[Coco] NitrOS-9 beginner

[Barry Nelson]

There is an issue with DriveWire ver 4.3.3 or later if you have java version 1.6 or earlier that causes a sporadic read error and causes OS-9 boot failures. The solution if you have this issue is to either upgrade java or downgrade DriveWire to 4.3.2. The other thing that could be an issue (and is more likely) is your RS232 pak does not like running at high speed since it was never designed to do that and could be sending bad info back onto the system bus. 

On Jul 9, 2015, at 10:17 PM, coco-request at maltedmedia.com wrote:

> Date: Thu, 09 Jul 2015 14:40:56 -0500
> From: Robert Hermanek <rhermanek at centurytel.net>
> To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts <coco at maltedmedia.com>
> Subject: Re: [Coco] NitrOS-9 beginner
> Message-ID: <559ECE48.2040801 at centurytel.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed
> 
> 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...
> 
> -RobertH