[Coco] Booting OS9 on my CoCo 3

Dave Philipsen dave at davebiz.com
Tue Aug 8 11:47:27 EDT 2017


In fact, that may be the solution to all of my problems.  The only 
reason I'm trying to boot from a floppy is to take a look at all of my 
old disks to see if there's anything I want from way back.  I'm 
especially interested in seeing if I still have the original source code 
for SuperComm.  The source that's floating around now was Randy Wilson's 
disassembly and is missing a lot of good comments.  There are also some 
other projects that I had worked on that would be fun to resurrect...

Dave


On 8/8/2017 10:42 AM, Dave Philipsen wrote:
> Yeah, that might be a good idea. The only problem is that I'm not 
> exactly sure what I'll need in the CoCo3, software-wise, to accomplish 
> that.  Is it best to boot from an alternate disk system with dw 
> support built in?  I can easily burn a new ROM if you can direct me to 
> an image.
>
> Dave
>
>
> On 8/8/2017 10:37 AM, Bill Pierce via Coco wrote:
>> Dave, I agree with Robert. It could be that you have 128k and the 
>> boot is requiring 512k due to the ramdisk.
>>
>> Why not make a drivewire cable, boot from drivewire, then you can 
>> explore/modify your real disks and see what the problem is.
>>
>>
>>
>> Bill Pierce
>> "Charlie stole the handle, and the train it won't stop going, no way 
>> to slow down!" - Ian Anderson - Jethro Tull
>>
>> My Music from the Tandy/Radio Shack Color Computer 2 & 3
>> https://sites.google.com/site/dabarnstudio/
>> Co-Contributor, Co-Editor for CocoPedia
>> http://www.cocopedia.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
>>
>> E-Mail: ooogalapasooo at aol.com
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Dave Philipsen <dave at davebiz.com>
>> To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts <coco at maltedmedia.com>
>> Sent: Tue, Aug 8, 2017 3:12 am
>> Subject: [Coco] Booting OS9 on my CoCo 3
>>
>> Ok, so it's been a REAL long time since I booted OS9 on my real CoCo 
>> 3 from a floppy disk.  Like almost thirty years.  So I picked up a 
>> used FD501 controller from eBay awhile back and I just now hooked up 
>> a 3.5" floppy to it.  I can format a floppy and I can save/load 
>> programs from it.  But when I try to boot an old disk (probably 30 
>> yrs old) I get the familiar "OS9 BOOT" screen and then the floppy 
>> does a seek at what sounds like a faster step rate and then it does 
>> nothing.  Frozen with "OS9 BOOT" on the screen and the floppy is 
>> still selected with the motor running.This is a very old boot disk 
>> that I labeled "OS9 Level II System Master with ramdisk".  My old 
>> setup was a CoCo 3 with 512K and a multipak and one of the old 
>> full-size floppy controllers and an RS232 Pak.  My new setup is a 
>> CoCo 3 with 128K, no MPI,  the FD501, and a 63C09.I've got some 5.25" 
>> OS9 disks too but I don't currently have a 5.25" drive so I'm hoping 
>> to get things worked out with the 3.5" drive. It may be that the 
>> floppy is just so old it's lost some of its retentivity but I just 
>> thought I'd put it out there to see if anyone has an idea. Maybe I'm 
>> missing something obvious.  The FD501 does not seem to work at 
>> hi-speed. Could that be the problem?Dave-- Coco mailing 
>> listCoco at maltedmedia.comhttps://pairlist5.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/coco
>>
>
>
>



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