clay@sask.UUCP (Clay Cederstrand) (10/06/85)
As a long time FLEX user on a homebrew SS50C system I have always been intrigued by OS9. I would be interested in finding out how to bring up OS9 on homebrew system without having to rob the US mint in order to finance it. I have never seen a "general purpose OS9", as exists with FLEX, with all the necessary documentation to install machine specific device drivers. I would also be interested in knowing if anyone has successfully hacked up the Radio Shack version to run on a SS50 system. It seems to me that it would be a very inexpensive way to get OS9 up and running. The C compiler that Radio Shack markets, which is presumably Microwares version, is also considerably cheaper than the one marketed for OS9 level 1 on a GIMIX. Has this version been altered to run ONLY on a color computer ? Any hints, pointers, or information gratefully accepted. Are there any FLEX users out there, there never seems to be any contributions from anyone to the news group. Not that I am complaining mind you, its great to see OS9 postings after months of no activity in the news group. In the words of the immortal Linus......."Sidney or the bush"
dibble@rochester.UUCP (Peter C. Dibble) (10/07/85)
> I would also be interested in knowing if anyone has successfully hacked > up the Radio Shack version to run on a SS50 system. It seems to me that > it would be a very inexpensive way to get OS9 up and running. The C compiler > that Radio Shack markets, which is presumably Microwares version, is also > considerably cheaper than the one marketed for OS9 level 1 on a GIMIX. > Has this version been altered to run ONLY on a color computer ? I saw an ad in 68 Micro Journal a few months ago for a system with the modules to fit Radio Shack OS-9 to it. The modules (I/O support and clock driver probably) plus OS-9 from Radio Shack cost less than any normal OS-9 price I've seen. The problem is getting started. Without an OS-9 system it is hard to write and debug drivers, but you don't have a working system until you are done. Radio Shack uses a different physical disk format from standard OS-9. As far as I know that and device drivers/descriptors (which almost always differ between systems) are the only special things about the CoCo's OS-9. Peter Dibble
jimomura@lsuc.UUCP (Jim Omura) (10/07/85)
I don't know of a re-port of the CoCo OS-9 to an SS-50 system
but Sardis Technologies, 2261 E. 11th Ave. Vancouver, B.C.,
Canada, V5N 1Z7 (604) 255-4485 (whew!) has a "conversion package"
to use the CoCo OS-9 on their small 6809 (2 Eurocard -- non-VME)
system. The Conversion package is $49.00 (package deals with
the boards). You still have to buy the Shack's OS-9 (it was on
sale a month or 2 ago for $70.00 Cdn).
You can do your own port if you feel like it. There have
been postings on the Portapack if you need it. It's mainly a
question of writing the drives (or matching the harware?--possible).
There're also some people who have ported it to the Dragon computer
(much easier since it's mainly the same chipset except for a
serial chip based RS-232).
Cheers! -- Jim O.
(Forgot to say: Nothing special about CoCo version except 32 column
output orientation for most of the modules.)
--
James Omura, Barrister & Solicitor, Toronto
ihnp4!utzoo!lsuc!jimomura
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MTS at WU: GKL6steve@wlbr.UUCP (Steve Childress) (10/08/85)
In article <288@sask.UUCP>, clay@sask.UUCP (Clay Cederstrand) writes: > As a long time FLEX user on a homebrew SS50C system I have always been > intrigued by OS9. I would be interested in finding out how to bring up > OS9 on homebrew system without having to rob the US mint in order to > finance it. I have never seen a "general purpose OS9", as exists with > FLEX, with all the necessary documentation to install machine specific > device drivers. > > Any hints, pointers, or information gratefully accepted. > 1. You can (but not legally) run the CoCo OS9 application progs on an SS50 machine. The price differences seem to be a marketing issue. 2. I ran FLEX-9 in 1979-81 but abandoned it for OS9. When I run FLEX now, it reminds me of CP/M-80 circa 1977. 3. On getting OS9 up on your homebrew: I did this, sort of. Microware supplied an OS9 version which expected the floppy disk controller to be the ancient SWTPC DC-3 which is merely a WD-1771 chip hung on a particular SS-30 card slot. That version also expected a MC6850 UART in SS-30 slot 0. The boot code is in EPROM which took up precious memory space. With this synergy, I was able to boot the standard OS9. From there, I was able to reconfigure it for my machine's real-time-clock interrupt, non-standard printer port, etc. If your machine is vastly different than any standard configuration offered by Microware, you should be able to use a CoCo to write disk and console drivers, build a boot disk, and write your own disk boot. That's similar to what I did to achieve an APPLE II OS9, except the development machine was an SS50 machine. Regards, Steve Childress Eaton IMS R&D Group MS 43 31717 La Tienda Drive Westlake Village, CA 91360 (818) 889-2211 X2148 {trwrb, scgvaxd, ihnp4, voder, vortex} !wlbr!steve or ...wlbr!wlbreng1!steve