Below is a list of the commands that you may seldom use and therefore may delete from your EXECUTION directory which is /D0/CMDS... >>> NONE OF THESE COMMANDS SHOULD BE DELETED FROM YOUR ORIGINAL DISK...NEVER DELETE FILES/DIRECTORIES/COMMANDS FROM YOUR ORIGINAL OS-9 MASTER DISK. ALWAYS MAKE THESE DELETIONS/CHANGES TO A BACKUP OF YOUR MASTER DISK<<< To make a backup of your OS-9 Master disk do this: For a single drive system you must at the OS-9 prompt type this: OS9:load format free Take your OS-9 Master disk out of your drive /d0...put a blank disk in drive /d0...now at the OS-9 prompt type: OS9:format /d0 When OS-9 asks if your really want to format the disk in drive /d0 respond Y for yes or R for ready...When the format is done OS-9 will ask you for a name to put on the disk. You may give any name up to 32 chrs. The name at this point does not matter as when we backup the original Master disk to this disk...it will retain the name of the original Master disk. So you can just call the disk NEW. When the format is done and the verify pass is done the OS-9 prompt will return At this point you want to type: OS9:free /d0 If the free does not say...640 sectors total on the disk...and 630 available for use...DO NOT USE THIS DISK TO DO A BACKUP ONTO...IT WILL >>NOT<< WORK!!! Take the newly formatted disk out of drive /d0 and put your original Master disk back in drive /d0. At the OS-9 prompt you will type: OS9:unlink format free This will take the two commands out of memory and give you more memory to work with when you go to do your backup. At the OS-9 prompt you will type: OS9:load backup Take your original Master disk out of drive /d0 and put your newly formatted disk in drive /d0... at the OS-9 prompt you type: OS9:backup s /d0 #32k OS-9 will ask you if you are ready to backup from /d0 to /d0...You type Y for yes. OS-9 will now say ready the destination disk...you already have it in the drive. Hit any key to continue ...OS-9 will list the name that was on the disk and ask if it ok to write over this disk...type Y for yes...OS-9 will then say ready SOURCE disk hit a key... Put your OS-9 Master disk back in drive /d0 and hit any key...When OS-9 says to ready the DESTINATION disk...Take your Master disk out of drive /d0 and put the newly formatted disk in drive /d0...hit any key to continue...OS-9 will repeat this prompting till the whole original disk is copied exactly over to the new disk... >>> Warning...If the disk that you did the format on did not give you the whole 640 sectors on the disk and 630 free for use when you did the free /d0 on it...you may not backup to that disk...backup is a mirror copy of the original disk to the new disk...if there was a bad sector on he new disk the backup will not work...if there was a bad sector on the original disk the backup will not work...BOTH DISK MUST BE FREE OF ERRORS AND HAVE THE SAME NUMBER OF SECTORS ON THE DISK...A DISK WITH 80 TRACKS CAN'T BE BACKED UP TO A DISK WITH 40 TRACKS...A DOUBLE SIDED DISK CAN'T BE BACKED UP TO A SINGLE SIDED DISK...A HARD DISK CAN'T BE BACKED UP TO A FLOPPY DISK...OS-9 WILL CHECK TO SEE WHAT SIZE THE DISK IS THAT YOU ARE BACKING UP FROM AND TO...IT WILL ABORT THE BACKUP IF THEY ARE NOT THE SAME TYPE/SIZE... WHEN THE BACKUP IS DONE DO THIS: Put your original Master disk away. You can leave the new Master disk in drive /d0...but you must let OS-9 know that there is a new disk in the drive... so at the OS-9 prompt you will type: OS9:chd /d0 OS9:chx /d0/cmds OS-9 is now ready to continue...and we can now delete some seldom used commands and gain some disk space back for our own files... To delete these commands you will type: OS9:del /d0/cmds/command.name Where command name is the names of each command you are deleting... binex...exbin...these two commands are for turning a binary file into a text file and vice/versa...I have never used these two commands to date...while they might be useful...I am not sure who they are useful to? cmp...this is for comparing two text files together and listing where (with an offset) the differences are...I find it easier/quicker/more reliable to just list the two files to my screen and look for the differences... ************************ cobbler...this is only used for making a new os9boot file on your master disk. You won't need to use this command till later lessons to make a new boot disk. So you can delete it from the /D0/CMDS directory for now. *************************** dcheck...This command does a total search of the disk it is called to check and will report if any files on the disk have been destroyed in some manner. You will only need to use this command on a disk that is used a lot and is almost full...if you ever try to use a command or file and get an error..try the ATTR command on the file/command to see if you have permission to use the file or command...if the ATTR says you do and you still can't get to the file/command then I would use the dcheck on the disk to see if the disk was damaged in some manner. Dcheck is very powerful but it will usually be the case that when you need to use it is when the sh*t has already hit the fan and some of the files on your disk have been damaged in some manner. For this reason you may want to feel safe and keep this command in your /D0/CMDS directory. **************************** display...If you don't have a printer hooked up to your OS-9 system than you probably won't need the display command. It is meant for sending some series of hex codes to a device...if you do this: OS9:display 0c the screen will clear...this is sending a control-l to the screen...if you did this: OS9:display 0c >/p it will send a control-l to your printer which in most cases will do a form feed on your printer. If you have a decent printer you may use the display command with the (>)redirect sign to send hex codes to your printer for setting it for double strike, emphasized, underline, and any other special features your printer might support...As far as being able to send all the codes from 0 to 255 to your screen? I haven't found much use for this...I have only used the display oc to clear the screen so far. ********************************** kill...this command is only used to kill off some multi-process command that you may have started up to run in the background...if you did this: OS9:dir e /d0/cmds >/p& OS-9 will do a dir e of your EXECUTION directory and send it to the printer. The OS-9 prompt will return and the list will continue in the background. If you did a procs e command at this point you will see that there is a process 3 or 4 or 5 running in the background and it is called list. To stop the list from continuing..you would have to type: OS9:kill 3 or OS9:kill 4 or whatever the process # is that you wish to stop...You won't be doing a lot of multi-processing while you learn OS-9 so you should not need this command in your /D0/CMDS right now... **************************** link...this one is hard to explain right now...let's just say that when you do a load command...the computer does a link for you...so this command should not be really necessary for now. If you do a mdir e and see that a commands link count is say 3 or 4...then you would have to unlink the command 3 or 4 times to get it >out< of memory!!! ******************************** login...This is only needed if you are going to hook up your OS-9 system so that outside people can link into your CoCo and use the computer at the same time you are using it...When you delete this command you may also delete the 2 files in the /d0/sys directory called /d0/sys/motd and /d0/sys/password... ********************************* merge...this is used for putting two data files into a single data file with a new name...this can also be done with the list command like this: OS9:list data1 data2 >/data3 so the merge command is not needed right now... ******************************** os9gen...This command is used for making a new boot disk...the new boot disk might have more/less commands that it will load into memory when it starts up. For the time being you won't need this command until the next lesson where I will try to teach you how to make a new and better boot disk... ***************************** printerr...when you are first learning OS-9 you will find this command most useful...when you start to learn the error numbers by heart you will be able to delete this command. You can also delete the /d0/sys/errmsg file also. ***************************** procs...you will only need this command if you do multi-processing...it will show you what is running in the computer and who is running it and how much of a priority it has...for now you will not use this command often. ********************************* setpr...this is for resetting the priority of a multi-process that you have running in the background...you won't need this command until you get into multi-process running. ***************************** sleep...this is for making a process stop doing what it was doing for a set period of time...I have never used this command...if used wrong it will seem like you locked up your computer as it counts down its sleep time. ******************************** tsmon...this command is used to make OS-9 scan the built in rs232 port for a carrier ready signal...it is used to set the computer up for another caller usually calling over a phone line...it is the basics of setting your OS-9 system up as a bbs... ********************************** Read over the commands in your red OS-9 book and decide for yourself how often you might use the commands listed above. If you think you will not need the commands often then delete them on your backup master disk...this will give you more space to store your own files on that disk...and if you are working with as single drive system than this is >>VERY<< important... You may also delete the asm command from your /d0/cmds directory if you >NEVER< intend to do any m/l work...If you do delete the /d0/cmds/asm command then you can also get rid of the data files in the os9defs directory that the asm command works with...do this by typing: OS9:deldir /d0/os9defs OS-9 will than say deleting a directory and offer you a list, delete or quit option...if you choose to list...it will show you what is in the directory that you wish to delete...if you choose to delete the directory...you will not be prompted again unless there is another directory found in the directory... This command will take a bit of time to get rid of the dirctory /d0/os9defs... but it will clear up a LOTTTTTTT of space for your own use.... ************************************** OK, I saved you a bit of disk space now let me save you a bit of a headache!!! Radio Shack now has two versions of the OS-9 operating system. These are the 1.00.00 and the 1.01.00 versions. The 1.01.00 has some new stuff added to it but it is basicly the same as 1.00.00 It is not exactly the same...close but not exact. For this reason if you see any articles in say Rainbow mag that say you can change your OS-9 to have 6 ms. step rates on your drives or 40 tracks on your disk...you should be >VERY< cafeful that the instructions refer to your version of OS-9. Some of the early articles in Rainbow refer to making changes to OS-9 1.00.00...The most recent articles in Rainbow will usually say that these patches are for 1.00.00 or 1.01.00...With Radio Shack getting ready to come out with OS-9 2.00.00 it is very important you know what OS-9 you have when you read any articles that say how to change your OS-9 to add some new features to it. ************************************ If you have the original OS-9 1.00.00 then you can get the OS-9 upgrade from Radio Shack to 1.01.00 for about $15. The upgrade to OS-9 2.00.00 will cost about $25. These upgrades are only available to original owners of OS-9 1.00.00 or 1.01.00................ ************************************ Lets talk about the devices that are available for you to use under OS-9. /p...this is for your serial printer /t1..this is for the built in RS232 port /t2..this is for the RS232 cartridge /d0..this is drive 0 /d1..this is drive 1 /d2..this is drive 2 /d3..this is drive 3 /term...this is for your keyboard and video screen On my system I have a /H0 and /R0 which tell the OS-9 that I have a hard disk drive and a ram disk drive. If you are good at m/l you can write your own code to add your own hardware onto your OS-9 system. I understand that OS-9 2.00.00 has a device called /ssp and it is for the Radio Shack Speech Sound Pak and will let you send a text file thru it and it will speak the file out... So you could do this... OS9:dir /d0 >/ssp and you would hear your directory. This could be very useful for anyone with impaired sight. While I have been talking about how you can add devices to your OS-9 system I also need to say that you can delete devices from your system also. This will free up ram for other programs you might wish to run. In OS-9 2.00.00 you can usually get rid of /d2, /d3 and the /t2 drivers...Most people don't have the drive 2 and 3 and don't have the Radio Shack RS232 pak so why keep these modules in memory...wasting space? Se can delete them and save some space that is badly need in the 64K CoCo. How do you do this??? We'll cover that in our next lesson...Making a new boot disk. ************************************* Bob Montowski 215-277-6951 >>>>LET ME CORRECT AN ERROR IN THE BEGINNING OF THIS LESSON....ON A NEWLY FORMATTED OS-9 COCO DISK THERE ARE 630 SECTORS!!! AND 10 OF THOSE WILL BE TAKEN FOR THE ROOT DIRECTORY SO YOU WILL SEE 620 FREE FOR USE<<<< AND IF YOU DECIDE TO GET RID OF THE ASM COMMAND YOU MAY ALSO DEDIR THE /D0/DEFS DIRECTORY...I WAS IN ERROR WHEN I SAID IT WAS THE /D0/OS9DEFS DIRECTORY...