[net.micro.6809] Help with OS-9

brad@laidbak.UUCP (Bradley Bosch) (09/05/84)

I have recently purchased RS OS-9 for my CoCo and I have a few
questions for Those of you who are becoming experts with this
operating system.

Does anyone have any hints on using the OS-9 chain system call?
I am trying to chain to the dir command (not loaded) I have
set up all the register variables called for in the manual and
moved the stack to the top of the direct page ($f0,u).  I have
Y set to zero, U set to the top of the direct page ($ff,u) and
pointing to a CR.  A is set to $11 and B to 01.  When I
execute the OS-9 call, it always returns with a suicide attempt
error (223).  Must I set the data size to be the same as the
called program?  What am I doing wrong?  Also, can I specify a
full path name instead of a program residing in the current
execution directory?  When I have tried this OS-9 complains
about the format of the file name.

Is it possible to have an SCF device which allows more than
one process to be waiting on i/o to the same device?  I have
been disappointed that I can not put a job in the background
and have the output appear when it is through.  If SCFMAN is
going to enforce exclusive access to its devices, then it
would seem more reasonable to separate the input device from
the output device, since they are usually logically and often
physically separate devices.  Has anyone done this?  Is it
possible to get SCFMAN to allow i/o to a device by more than
one device at a time?  What is the PD.MIN field of the PD.FST
section of the SCFMAN path descriptor for?

I am thinking about purchasing a replacement for the RS disk
driver.  Does anyone know if the one from F. Hog is any larger
than the RS driver?  Is it possible to support both 5.25 and 8
inch drives?  Will the Coco's disk controller handle 8 inch
drives?

I am impressed with the power and flexibility of OS-9 and I
would like to see more discussion on this group about this
system.  I also have Microware's C and I am planning on
bringing up KERMIT on the coco under OS-9.  Has anyone else
worked on this?

Thanks for any help you can give me.

--Brad Bosch  ...!ihnp4!laidbak!brad  Home: (312) 810-1011

emjej@uokvax.UUCP (09/10/84)

#R:laidbak:-21400:uokvax:3500047:000:1156
uokvax!emjej    Sep 10 09:49:00 1984

I fear I don't know enough to help you with chain()--BTW, the semantics
of chain() are such that if you return at all, something is wrong.

Re SCF: it looks like background processes only get a shot at your
terminal while the process that got it first (typically the shell)
isn't queued up for I/O, which, given the way humans work, is most
of the time. Background stuff that I've forked seems to spritz out
a bit at a time, a few lines each time I enter another command. Sigh.

Re CoCo disks, drivers, etc: near as I understand, there's an oscillator
that has to change frequency on the controller cartridge to let the
WD179x switch from using 5" to using 8" drives. Also, I don't know
which of the several alternative device drivers FHL is selling, but
Dale Puckett (I think somewhere in the neighborhood of April/May 1984)
has mentioned in one of his *Rainbow* columns that one such device
driver both is reasonable w.r.t. sides, tracks, etc., and is shorter
than the stock device driver for CoCo.

Re Kermit for OS-9: info-kermit contains mail from a fellow named Bob
Larson (blarson@usc-eclb.arpa) who has mentioned such a project.

						James Jones