OK, glad to see that you are back for

lesson #2.  I'll cover the way the OS-9

has multiple directories and how each

directory can have directories within

that.  What is this good for and how can

you use this on your OS-9 system? Well,

first it makes it very easy to put your

files on your disks in a manner that

will make it easy for you to find those

files again in the future...

Let's take a blank disk and format it.

If you have one drive do this:

OS9:load format dir makdir build free

take your Master Disk out of drive 0

and put in a blank disk. Now at the OS9

prompt you type format /d0.  You will

be asked if you really want to format

the disk in drive 0?  Type Y for yes.

When the format is done you will be

asked for a name to put on the disk.

Each disk you format under OS-9 will

have a NAME on the disk.  For the time

being we'll call this disk JUNK DISK.

OS-9 will check the disk to be sure all

the sectors are good and if not OS-9

will lock out the bad sectors from the

directory.  This means that you could

use a scratched disk that you were not

able to format under RS Dos...But you

should beware of doing this if you

intend to put anything realllllly

important on this disk.

Now that the format is done at

the OS-9 prompt...type:

OS9:free /d0.

This will check the disk you just did

the format on in drive 0 and it will

tell you the name of the disk...how many

total sectors there are on the disk and

how many of those sectors are available

for you to store data in.  OS-9 is set

up for a 35 track system with 18 sectors

per track...This gives you 630 sectors

total on the disk and OS-9 will take 10

of those sectors for its Directory

information.  If you do not see 620

sectors free for use than the disk had

some bad sectors on it and you might

not want to put anything important on

this disk.  But for now we will just

experiment with the disk.

at the OS9 prompt type:

OS9:makdir /d0/LETTERS

OS9:makdir /d0/BILLS

OS9:makdir /d0/LETTERS/FROM.JOE

OS9:makdir /d0/LETTERS/FROM.SUE

OS9:makdir /d0/LETTERS/FROM.TOM

OS9:makdir /d0/BILLS/PHONE

OS9:makdir /d0/BILLS/GAS

OS9:makdir /d0/BILLS/FOOD

OS9:chd /d0

OS9:dir /d0

....You will see that the dir returns

LETTERS    BILLS

as what is on the disk in drive 0

But you made 6 directories...so where

are the other ones?  Try this:

OS9:dir /d0/BILLS

PHONE     GAS     FOOD

is what you will get.  See how you can

cluster important stuff in directories

so that it has a logical flow and you

can work your way down thru the levels

of the directories to get the info you

want????

Try this:

OS9:dir /d0/LETTERS

FROM.JOE   FROM.SUE   FROM.TOM

is what you get...in a real life

situation...say the business world you

could then do this:

OS9:dir   /d0/LETTERS/FROM.TOM

and you would see the letters you stored

from someone called TOM...A very neat,

logical way to store and retrieve data

from your disk.  When you get into

owning double sided disks for storage

or even a Hard Disk drive for storage

you will see how this makes it easier

to get to your information.  Imagine

having a Hard Disk under RS DOS?  A Dir

of that drive might return a directory

listing some 100-500 lines long...It

would be a real pain to read all those

titles and try to find the file you

wanted to del or copy or rename...

>>>If you had a two drive OS-9 system

than you can go thru this exercize too

by just putting the disk you wish to

format in drive /d1 and changing all

the makedir and dir statements I gave

so they say /d1 instead of /d0.

......................................

Now in the prior example I showed you

the command chd...what is this?  Well

OS-9 has two commands built into it and

you can call them to tell OS-9 that you

are changing your DATA directory or your

EXECUTION directory.  Now this is very

important to remember!!!  If you take

the Master Disk out of drive /d0 and

put in a new Master Disk that say has

more commands in its /D0/CMDS directory

you >>must<< tell OS-9 that you did

this...you do this by:

OS9:chx /d0/cmds

OS9:chd /d0

OS-9 will then check this disk so it

will know where the DATA directory is

on the disk and where the EXECUTION

directory is on the disk.  It will >NOT<

always be in the same spot on each disk.

You might be used to RS DOS where the

directory was >>ALWAYS<< on track 17,

but this is not true under OS-9.  OS-9

must always know where these two 

directories are before it will do a

read/write for that disk.

Another benefit of the chd and chx

command are to save you some typing.

So if you are not a quick or accurate

typist these commands are a real boon

to you.  Take the example above where

we had directories within directories.

If you wished to copy files or delete

files or build files in the

/d0/letters/from.joe directory you would

think you would have to type that long

line each time.  You could for your own

piece of mind but there is a shortcut

to all that typing...do this:

OS9:chd /d0/letters/from.joe

If you do a dir now you will see that

there are >NO< files in the directory

you are in...

You could build a file in this new

DATA directory by typing

OS9:build /d0/letters/from.joe/june.1st

or you could just say:

OS9:build june.1st

as you used the chd command earlier OS-9

knows to add that whole string of chrs.

in front of june.1st to make the whole

pathlist to where you wish to build a

file.  You see that there is less chance

of a typing error in this shorthand

method rather than typing out that long

string of chrs. each time....

.......................................

When you go to makdir or build something

on the disk you have to keep in mind

that OS-9 expects titles of directories

and files to obey certain rules.  The

names of these files/directories >MUST<

begin with a letter(upper/lower case)

and may have no spaces in the title.

If you wanted to build a file called:

a letter from my buddy

You would need to type it in as:

a.letter.from.my.buddy

for OS-9 to accept it...you could have

even typed it in as:

aletterfrommybuddy

But this is a bit harder to read...

Another chr. you can use to separate

words for easier reading is the left

arrow sign...this can be made by typing

the clear key/minus sign together...

depending on the type screen you are

reading OS-9 on you will see a left

arrow or an underline.  They are both

the same ascii chr.  But the chr. rom

on the CoCo was setup for the left

arrow sign.  This clear key/minus key

is a bit hard to remember and harder

yet to type so I use the period(.) to

separate my words in my titles and

directories.

File names and directories can be up to

29 chrs. long...You can have numbers

mixed into this but the first chrs. of

each file/directory >MUST< be a letter!

so these names are perfectly legal:

   number11111111    jan281985

   q1234567890       a2gggg8888cccc9999

NO SPECIAL CHRS. MAY BE USED IN A FILE

NAME OR A DIRECTORY NAME!!!  This means

no !@#$%^&*+="'- are allowed in any

title.  Some of these chrs. are used by

OS-9 to perform other useful functions

that will be covered in a future lesson.

.......................................

OS-9 has the ability to take information

and pass it thru a pipe into a filter to

change the info in some manner before

showing it on your screen or your

printer.  The command for a pipe is the

exclamation point(!).  A filter can be

thought of as a program that will take

data in and do something with it before

passing some data out.  The ONLY filter

that you have with your original OS-9

is the filter called TEE.  If you were

to do this:

OS9:list startup ! tee /d0/f1 /d0/f2

it would list the data in the file

called startup thru the pipe (!) into

the filter TEE...this program would then

send the data out to two files that

are called /d0/f1 /d0/f2 and you would

have two perfect copies of the file

startup called f1 and f2...You could

have done this same thing by typing:

OS9:copy /d0/startup /d0/f1

OS9:copy /d0/startup /d0/f2

TEE will take any data that is piped 

into it and send it to the list of

devices or files that are printed after

the tee command and separated by spaces.

so a line like this:

OS9:dir /d0 ! TEE /d0/stuff /p /d0/s2

will send a directory of /d0 to your

screen, a file called /d0/stuff, to the

printer, and to a file called /d0/s2.

This is a way to get some data to a lot

of different places all at about the

same time.  There are other filters you

can buy that will do the following:

OS9:list startup ! upper

this will take any data in a file

called startup and send it thru the

filter called upper...upper will take

ALL lower case letters and change them

to upper case before passing that info

on...

OS9:list startup ! wc

This command will list the file startup

thru the pipe into the filter wc which

will count the # of line, chrs, and

words in the file which wc will then

printed out to your screen...imagine

doing that by hand?

There are a LOT OF FILTERS that you can

buy...check the Official OS-9 Tour

Guide out for a list of the filters you

can buy and who sells them.

.......................................

A piece of advice now...If you think you

are going to get into OS-9 you should

consider getting a 2nd disk drive if

you now only have 1 drive...OS-9 can be

run on a single drive CoCo but it is a

real PAIN IN THE BUTT!!!  On a 2 drive

system you can keep all your commands on

drive /d0 and all your data on drive /d1

and should speed along just fine and not

worry about space being tight on your

drives when you go to build files in

the future.

......................................

Until you bcome familiar with OS-9 and

the way it gives error #'s instead of

letter codes for the errors you make

then do this:

OS9:printerr

this will then print the error # of any

error you have and give you a short

english(???) sentence of what was wrong.

As you use OS-9 more you will find that

you will likely get 4-6 error codes that

tend to repeat a lot.  Most errors on

OS-9 are caused by typing errors when

entering directory names or file names.

......................................

I hope I don't appear to be jumping

about two much with these lessons but

I am trying to tackle the problems of

OS-9 in the same manner that I ran into

them and am sure other new users are

finding them.  So I give this final bit

of advice...OS-9 comes with 3 books.

a red(purple) one, a blue one and a

yellow(orange)one.  Don't even look at

the blue book yet.  It has m/l info in

it that you >MAY NEVER< use unless you

get into m/l programming under OS-9.

The red book will tell you all the

commands available under OS-9 and a bit

on how they work.  READ THIS BOOK OVER

AND OVER AT LEAST 4 TIMES!!!  The yellow

book has info on the text editor that

comes with OS-9.  This is covered in

the 1st half of the book...READ THIS

VERRRRRY CLOSELY...IT GETS COMPLICATED

but there  are a lot of examples...

The 2nd half of the yellow manual also

has some m/l info in it for doing

assembly of m/l programs...If you are

not going to get into m/l ever than you

don't need to read this info.  Even

tho' you have these 3 fine manuals...run

to the nearest RS store and buy the

Officail OS-9 Tour Guide...It has more

info than these 3 manuals and it is 

written in a lot friendlier manner than

these 3 manuals...It also gives better

examples on how to use the commands

available to you under OS-9 and give

a history of OS-9 and why it is such a

fine Operating System to run on your

CoCo....

.......................................

Next lesson?  I will tell you the

commands that you might neve use and

how to delete them to make more space

on your Master Disk.

Bob Montowski   277-6951