Today we are going to make a new OS-9 boot disk...we can do this several different ways...First type this: OS9:mdir this will show you all the programs and descriptors that are in memory...you should see something like this: OS9 OS9P2 INIT BOOT CCDISK D0 D1 D2 D3 CCIO TERM IOMAN RBF SCF SYSGO CLOCK SHELL RS232 T1 PRINTER P PIPEMAN PIPER PIPE These are all modules that are loaded into memory from the OS9boot file and you can change the OS9boot file so that it will load in more or less of these modules at boot time. For now we will just make a new boot disk that will load in all of the above modules exactly the same way. We can do this one of two ways...First lets format a new disk and we'll put our new OS9boot on it. At the OS-9 prompt type: OS9:load format free take your OS-9 master disk out of drive /d0...and install a blank disk in /d0 now at the OS-9 prompt type: OS9:format /d0 when OS-9 asks if you are ready...type R for ready or Y for yes. When OS-9 asks you for a name to put on the disk give it the name NEW BOOT DISK. When the format is done at the OS-9 prompt type: OS9:free /d0 and you should get 630 sectors on the disk with 620 available for use. This lets you know that the format was good with no bad sectors that needed to be locked out. Take the new disk out of drive /d0 and put your OS-9 master disk back in. Now type: OS9:load cobbler makdir save os9gen build echo You should now have the commands format, free, cobbler, makdir, build, os9gen, save and echo in your memory... Take your master disk out of drive /d0 and put the new disk in. Now at the OS-9 prompt type: OS9:cobbler /d0 This will put the file OS9boot on the disk in drive /d0 and it will contain all the modules that were loaded into memory from the >LAST< boot. To get all the other files/commands/directories over onto this new boot disk you need to be very patient because you will have to go through a lot of typing, copying and swapping. Essentially what you have to do is: Use the makdir command to make all the directories on this new disk that were on the old Master disk. So you will have to do this: OS9:makdir /d0/sys OS9:makdir /d0/cmds OS9:makdir /d0/defs Then you will need to use the copy command to move all the files/commands over from the old Master disk to this NEW Master disk. We are talking about a >LOT< of disk swapping here and you just might not be up to going through all this work. Read on...there are 2 easier ways to do this and I will let you decide which you like better? While cobbler will help us to make a new boot disk there is no flexibility to it and you are stuck with a mirror image of the modules from the last boot you did. To give us total control of what goes in the OS9boot file we will need to use the OS9gen command. Leave the new boot disk in drive /do and format it again...then do the free on it to be sure the total sectors and free sectors works out to 630 and 620. We will now type: OS9:makdir /d0/modules OS9:save /d0/modules/ccdisk ccdisk OS9:save /d0/modules/d0 d0 OS9:save /d0/modules/d1 d1 >>>if you only have a 2 drive system you can leave out the next two lines<<< OS9:save /d0/modules/d2 /d2 OS9:save /d0/modules/d3 /d3 OS9:save /d0/modules/ccio ccio OS9:save /d0/modules/term term OS9:save /d0/modules/ioman ioman OS9:save /d0/modules/rbf rbf OS9:save /d0/modules/scf scf OS9:save /d0/modules/sysgo sysgo OS9:save /d0/modules/clock clock OS9:save /d0/modules/shell shell >>>if you never intend to let an outside user link with your CoCo by an outside phone line then leave out the next 2 lines<<< OS9:save /d0/modules/rs232 rs232 OS9:save /d0/modules/t1 t1 >>>if you don't have a printer you may leave out the next two lines<<< OS9:save /d0/modules/printer printer OS9:save /d0/modules/p p OS9:save /d0/modules/pipeman pipeman OS9:save /d0/modules/piper piper OS9:save /d0/modules/pipe pipe >>>if you don't have the Radio Shack RS232 pak than you can leave out the next two lines<<< OS9:save /d0/modules/acia acia OS9:save /d0/modules/t2 t2 We have moved an image of the modules that are in memory over to the disk in drive /d0. If you did not have a printer or did not have drives /d2 and /d3 then you did not save the listed modules over to the disk. If you did not intend to have an outside user then you did not save rs232, t1, acia, and t2 over to the disk. We are now going to build a data file that is going to tell OS9gen what modules it is to put into the OS9boot file that we are going to put on this disk. It is very important that the spellings you used in the save command are the same as the modules are spelled in memory...The new OS9boot we are going to make might not work if you spell any of the saved modules names wrong!!! OK, now at the OS-9 prompt you type: OS9:build /d0/bootlist You will then see a (?) for the prompt. at each (?) prompt type in the following lines...>>>without the (?) marks!!!<<< ? ccdisk ? d0 ? d1 >>>if you did not save d2 and d3 in the save operation leave the next two lines out!!! ? d2 ? d3 ? ccio ? term ? ioman ? rbf ? scf ? sysgo ? clock ? shell >>>if you did not save rs232 and t1 in the save operation leave the next two lines out!!! ? rs232 ? t1 >>>if you don't have a printer and left printer and p out of the save operation then leave the next two lines out!!!<<< ? printer ? p ? pipeman ? piper ? pipe >>>if you did not save acia and t2 in the save operation leave the next two lines out!!! ? acia ? t2 ? (enter) We now have everything we need on the disk in drive /d0 to make os9gen put an os9boot file on that disk... At the OS-9 prompt type: OS9:chd /d0/modules OS9:os9gen /d0 MUST< have an unbroken number of sectors on track 34 to put this bootfile. If you go to cobbler or os9gen on a disk that is pretty full the cobbler or os9gen might fail. >IF< you use os9gen to make a new os9boot file and it has >LESS< modules in it then before the 2nd method will work just fine. >BUT< if the new os9boot file will have >MORE< modules in it then this 2nd method will not work 100% of the time. It is for this reason that I suggest you os9gen on a disk that only had the /d0/bootlist file on it and the /d0/modules directory on it. You can then copy over to this new disk the few commands you think you will need and after you boot with this disk take it out of /d0 and put in the disk you intend to work with...A disk that has >>ALL<< the commands you know you will need!!! You might also want to add some commands to the os9boot file so that they will be in memroy at bootup time. Some very useful commands to have in memory all the time are dir, build, del, mfree and free. The only disadvantage of having these modules in the os9boot file is that once you boot and these modules are in memory all the unlink-ing in the world will >NOT< get them out of memory. So you have to decide if you want them in memroy that bad. It should not cause too much of a memory problem if you have left out the d2, d3, rs232, t1, acia, t2, printer, and p modules. One of the advantages to making a tailored os9boot file is that it gets rid of modules that you were never going to use and cleans up some ram for you to use also. Not a lot of ram but enough to make all this worthwile. The most important thing to remember though when using the os9gen command is that you must move the modules from memory out to a directory where you will put all the modules you wish in the new os9boot file...Then you must build a data file with the names of all the modules you saved...change your data directory to the directory that has all the modules in it...then invoke the os9gen command telling it where to put the os9boot file and where it is to get the list of the modules it is to put in the os9boot file. ************************************** You may have noticed way back in the beginning that there were some modules in memroy that were called: os9 os9p2 init boot and we did not save them out to the /d0/modules directory and we did not put them in our bootlist??? You don't need to...OS-9 knows to put those 4 modules in each new os9boot file it makes. It is something you >>SHOULD NOT TRY TO DO<<< ************************************** Right about this time you may be saying to yourself that it sure is a pain to go about making a new boot disk? Well on a single disk drive system it >IS<. There is no getting around this. If you had two disk drives you could have formatted the disk in drive /d1. Then used the cobbler or os9gen command to put os9boot on that disk. You could have then used the dsave command to move all the directories/files from /d0 over to /d1 and you would have saved a lot of time and typing. So I now repeat that OS-9 will run on a 1 drive system but it sure runs a lot better on a 2 drive system!!! ************************************** You probably read this whole tutorial and said to yourself that you are >NEVER< going to use cobbler or os9gen to make a new boot disk...Sounds like too much work. Well after reading this all over I tend to agree with you. I had OS-9 for about 1 year before I got around to using os9gen to make a tailored os9boot file. Why did I use it??? I saw some fine articles in Rainbow mag. telling how to make my disk drives run at 6ms. under OS-9 and how to make OS-9 use the full 40 tracks that my drives were capable of. It was then I decided how great a command os9gen was and learned how to use it. Next lesson will be how to change the drive step rates on your OS-9 CoCo system and how to make that change permanent. We will also cover how to make the drives work with the full 40 tracks and make that permanent!!! ************************************* Bob Montowski 215-277-6951 71615,531