[Coco] Booting Nitros9 from the VCCemudisk.vhd on a Real CoCo III

[Robert Gault]

Walter,

You are missing some of the points that were made. :(

If you re-flash with the Drivewire HDBDOS and $5A000 offset, you will automatically run AUTOEXEC.BAS 
in the Basic partition of a .vhd mounted in the first DW4 drive. That Basic program can be a menu 
and at a keystroke switch your offset to $000000 if you want that. It could boot NitrOS-9 from a 
boot disk on the .vhd and start NitrOS-9 from /X0 or any other /X# on DW4 with a proper boot disk. 
That is your maximum flexibility given your hardware.

Even if you don't re-flash your ROM, you can still automatically run an AUTOEXEC.BAS menu on DW4 
with a .dsk image in DW4 drive0. That could automatically change the offset value, switch to a 
different DW4 drive and boot NitrOS-9 from that DW4 drive via a boot disk on the .vhd image or from 
a .dsk image. Once in NitrOS-9, you will have access to any of the DW4 drives via the /X# descriptors.

Robert

Walter wrote:
> I don't have a boot floppy.
>
> I have the miniFLASH (ROM) from Cloud-9.  I could re-flash it!
>
> But more flexible would be a built in HDB-DOS command like "BASE $05A000" to do the poking.  This way it becomes flexible instead of having to flash a rom or make another floppy for every different hard disk size.
>
> Not that I'm going to change hard disk sizes every day but who's going to want a hard disk that isn't 92Mbytes in size!
>
> Just wishful thinking!
>
> Walter
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Coco [mailto:coco-bounces at maltedmedia.com] On Behalf Of Arthur Flexser
> Sent: Thursday, 17 January 2019 12:55 PM
> To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts
> Subject: Re: [Coco] Booting Nitros9 from the VCCemudisk.vhd on a Real CoCo III
>
> Well, as far as getting rid of the necessity to poke those values in....
>
> You could always modify your HDBDOS boot floppy to embed the 3 values you
> want within the relevant binary file, so they are there from the outset, if
> those are values you want to be using each time you boot up.  I imagine
> somebody here could tell you how to do that, if it isn't obvious.
>
> Art
>
> On Wed, Jan 16, 2019 at 11:37 PM Walter Zambotti <zambotti at iinet.net.au>
> wrote:
>
>> Thought I'd note the process of how I got my CoCo III to boot Nitros9 on a
>> real CoCo III
>>
>>
>>
>> Equipment:
>>
>>
>>
>> CoCo III (512K)
>>
>> 1 x FD Controller & drive (not required)
>>
>> 1 x MPI (not required)
>>
>> 1 x HDB-DOS (mine is in a miniFLASH) (OS9 Offset $000000)
>>
>> 1 x DriveWire 4 server (+ serial cable)
>>
>> 1 x VCCemudisk.vhd
>>
>> 1 x 630 sector virtual floppy on DW server (NOS9_BOOT.OS9) cleanly
>> formatted
>> for OS9
>>
>> 1 x Nitros9 DW boot floppy (
>> <https://nitros9.sourceforge.io/snapshot/NOS9_6809_L2_v030300_coco3_dw.dsk
>>>
>> NOS9_6809_L2_v030300_coco3_dw.dsk)
>>
>>
>>
>> Procedure
>>
>>
>>
>> Mount NOS9_6809_L2_v030300_coco3_dw.dsk in DW device 0
>>
>> Mount VCCemudisk.vhd in DW device 1
>>
>> Mount VCCemudisk.vhd (with offset 529290, size 630) in DW device 2 (HDBDOS
>> boot floppy)
>>
>> Mount NOS9_BOOT.OS9 in DW device 3
>>
>>
>>
>> Boot CoCo III to Nitros9. (DOS)
>>
>> If the NOS9_BOOT.OS9 is not formatted then format it:
>>
>> format /x3 "NOS9 Boot" '35'
>>
>> OS9GEN the new boot floppy:
>>
>> os9gen /x3
>>
>> /dd/OS9Boot
>>
>>
>>
>> Copy the contents of the HDBDOS boot floppy to the new boot floppy:
>>
>> Chd /x3
>>
>> Dsave /x2 | shell (this will skip the OS9Boot file)
>>
>>
>>
>> Backup the new floppy to the HDBDOS floppy:
>>
>> Chd /dd
>>
>> Backup /x3 /x2 #32k
>>
>>
>>
>> Restart the CoCo
>>
>> Dismount all the devices in the DriveWire server
>>
>> Remount VCCemudisk.vhd in DW device 0
>>
>>
>>
>> Point HDB-DOS at floppy 0 of VCCemudisk.vhd:
>>
>> Poke &HD938,&H05
>>
>> Poke &HD939,&HA0
>>
>> Poke &hD93A,0 ! shouldn't be necessary
>>
>>
>>
>> Dir should now see the autoexec/bas on the first HDBDOS floppy
>>
>>
>>
>> Boot away:
>>
>>
>>
>> DOS
>>
>>
>>
>> The EMUdisk quick select menu should popup and from there you can select
>> the
>> option to boot to OS9.
>>
>>
>>
>> It was really nice after all these years to see my CoCo III boot up to the
>> same software that I have been
>> using for years on VCC!
>>
>>
>>
>> It would be nice if HDBDOS had a set offset command so I didn't need to
>> poke!
>>
>>
>>
>> Walter
>>
>>
>> --
>> Coco mailing list
>> Coco at maltedmedia.com
>> https://pairlist5.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/coco
>>
>