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OS 9 Tutorial
Author: Bob Montowski
This will be my first tutorial on using
OS-9 and it will be for the beginners
who bought OS-9 and are now ripping
their hair out trying to figure out how
to use it now that they have it...
OS-9 is not a programming language.
It is totally different from BASIC and
if you wish to program in Basic then I
suggest you buy Basic09 after you are a
bit familiar with OS-9.
For people who have Disk Basic 1.0 you
will need to load the OS-9 BOOT disk
and RUN"*". This will then tell you to
put the OS-9 Master Disk in Drive 0 and
push any key to continue.
If you have Disk Basic 1.1 then all you
need to do is put the OS-9 Master Disk
in Drive 0 and type DOS...
Now that OS-9 has started up and given
you your Logo and license information it will
ask you for the DATE and TIME. This
information is very important and should
be given correctly each time you start
up OS-9. Do not just hit enter, give
a date and time. This information is added to
each file as it is saved to disk and
will be used by the OS-9 in the future
to keep track of current files. The
same information is also available to you to
help you keep tabs on the dates and
times of the files that you saved to
disk.
OS-9 runs on a 24 hour clock so when
giving the time you must remember that
times after 12 noon convert to the
following:
1 pm-1300 hours
2 pm-1400 hours
3 pm-1500 hours
.
.
.
10 pm-2200 hours
11 pm-2300 hours
midnite-0000 hours
To enter Dec 25, 1985...3:30 pm you
would type
YY/MM/DD HH:MM:SS
85/12/25 15:30:00
After a date and time have been given
to OS-9 you may check this time anytime
you want from OS-9 by typing DATE T at
OS9: prompt. If you just say DATE that
is all you will get. You must say
DATE T to get the date and the time...
OS-9 has only a few commands already in
memory. All the rest of the commands
that you can use from OS-9 are on your
Master Disk. Each time you give a
command at the OS9: prompt the computer
will check to see if the command is in
memory and then it will go to the disk
in drive 0 and check the /D0/CMDS
directory to see if the command is in
there. You must remember to type the
command in correctly (SPELLING) or it
won't be found when the computer goes
to the /D0/CMDS directory looking for it.
OS-9 can be a bit slow as it has to go
to the /D0/CMDS directory each time you
type a command at the OS-9 prompt but
you can speed this up a bit by loading
some of the commands that you will use
the most in OS-9. So you could type:
OS9:load dir list del attr copy
You will now have the commands dir,
list, del,
attr, copy all in memory and
they are ready for quick access. The
drawback is that they are taking up
memory that you might need later. The
only way around this right now is to
either set your drives to run at a new
faster step rate (another tutorial) or
to get a Hard Disk Drive for use with
your OS-9. Radio Shack had OS-9 coded
to run the disk drives at 30 MS. track
to track and to format the disk as 35
tracks. Both of these can be changed
with a little knowledge of OS-9 or by
buying some commercial software that
will make the changes in OS-9 for you.
Another way to speed up OS-9 is to add
a 256K Ram Disk to your CoCo. With the
256K Ram board installed and the right
software added to OS-9 the extra memory
will act like a very fast 40 track
disk drive.
OS-9 always has 2 directories that it
keeps track of. One is the DATA and the
other is the EXECUTION directory. When
you type a command OS-9 will check the
current EXECUTION directory which is
/D0/CMDS at startup for the command you
just typed in. When you go to do a
list, dir, del, rename, etc... OS-9 is
going to do to the current DATA
directory and look for your file there.
The current DATA directory at startup
is /D0.
So if you just type DIR, OS-9 will go
and assume you meant DIR /D0. If you
wish to get a directory of say the
DEFS directory you must give OS-9 the
whole pathlist (NAME) to the directory.
In this case you would type:
DIR /D0/DEFS and OS-9 will know which
directory you are talking about.
So how do you know what is a command?
Or what is a data file? Or what is a
directory? You can get this information by
typing:
DIR E /D0
and OS-9 will give you a directory
of everything that is in the /D0
directory with exact information on each entry
in that directory. You will get the
date and time the entry was put on the
disk and the user number (0 which means
you), the entry's name, the attributes
of the entry and the size of the entry
in hexadecimal.
It is the attributes of an entry that
we will want to check. They list across
like this:
DSPPPERW
EWR
--------
That is 8 slots that can have a letter
in it. If the dir e command shows this
on a line
D--RW-RW
It would mean that it is a directory
and that you and any timesharing users
you had on your system could read and
write to that directory...
If the entry gives this back:
--E--ERW
It would mean that it is a command that
can be used by you and your timesharing
users and that you have the right to
say copy that file, rename that file or
delete that file. The timesharing user
would only be able to execute the file.
If you don't want to do a dir e on a
whole disk than you can get the information
you need on a single entry by typing:
ATTR /D0/startup
this will printout the attributes in
the same manner as the dir e command
did, but you now have the option of
changing the attributes of a file on
the disk.
We'll use the /D0/startup file for an
example. say the ATTR /D0/startup
prints this
------rw
This means that the file can be read
and written to. But say you don't want
to accidently delete or rename the file
in the future? You can type:
ATTR /D0/startup -w
and the write ability to that file will
be taken away. If you tried to delete
that file now you would get an error
message. You can use this attr command
to change the attributes on all your
important files so that they will not
be deleted by accident in the future.
This is kind of like having a write
protect tab on your disk like in Disk
Basic. But you can protect single files
on the disk. Or even lock out a DATA
directory from having files written or
deleted from it.
When I told you that OS-9 will check
to see if a command is in memory and
then check for it in the EXECUTION
directory I left out a final thing that
it does. It will go to the DATA
directory and check to see if there is
a DATA file there with the same name as
what you typed in at the OS-9 prompt.
You can check this out yourself. LIST
the file startup like this:
list /D0/startup
You will see this:
setime <term
it looks like a command right? Well it
is what OS-9 calls a procedure file.
OS-9 will take the command you type in
and first check to see if it is in
memory, if that fails it will go to the
EXECUTION directory and see if the
command is there, if that fails it will
go to the DATA directory and see if
there is a procedure file there with
the name you typed in. If there is it
will read one line at a time from that
file and treat it like you were typing
in the lines from the keyboard. If
you want to try this, just type startup
at any OS-9 prompt and the system will
ask you again for the DATE and TIME to
use on the system.
You can build a procedure file of your
own that does a little more than the
startup file does. Do this at the OS-9
prompt:
OS9:build /d0/myfile
you will then see a (?)
at each (?) type these lines
? dir /d0
? dir /d0/cmds
? mfree
? free
? (enter)
You will now have a data file on /D0
called myfile. If you were to type
myfile at an OS-9 prompt you will then
see a DIR of /D0 and then a DIR of
/D0/CMDS and then you will get a mfree
(memory free), and finally you will get
a free (free disk space) all listed to
your screen one at a time. OS-9 did
all the commands in the data file as if
you just typed them in at the keyboard.
Not bad huh?
Now the next important thing to worry
about with OS-9 is how does it keep
tabs on free space in memory and on the
disks? Memory in the computer is
split up in blocks of 256 bytes. If
you do a mfree you will get back about
159 to 162 blocks of memory. If you
know that 4 blocks of 256 bytes makes
one K (kilobyte) then you know you have
about 40K free in memory for your
programs and commands. This same idea
is carried over to the disk drive. All
writes to the disk are done in blocks
of 256 bytes or 1 sector. A newly
formatted disk will have about 630
sectors on it. But 10 of these sectors
are taken away for use as directory
pointers. As OS-9 only writes out to
the disk in blocks of 256 bytes you will
be able to get more information on an OS-9
disk than a Radio Shack DOS disk which
stores data to the disk in blocks of
9 sectors (9*256=2304 bytes). Write 1
character to an OS-9 disk and you lose 1
sector. Write 1 character to a RS DOS disk
and you lose 9 sectors!!!
Now do a dir /D0/CMDS and you will see
quite a long list of commands that are
available to you. Don't worry about all
those titles because as you learn OS-9
you will become familiar with all of
them and probably not use all of them.
The nice thing about OS-9 that was so
different from RS Disk Basic was that
it is so easy to add more commands to
OS-9 than it was to add commands to the
RS DOS. If you know 6809 machine
language you might even write some
commands that you will find useful and
might want to sell or trade with other
OS-9 users. If you aren't all that
familiar with machine language then you
can buy some new commands for OS-9 from
companies like Frank Hogg or from
Computerware or D.P. Johnson. These
are commands that are so easy to
install on your OS-9 disk! All you
need to do is copy them to your
EXECUTION directory which is usually
the /D0/CMDS directory. They are then
available for your use. No worry on
your part as to will they work with
your OS-9! Some of these programs
are actual commands that you call from
OS-9 and other programs are what are
called filters that you pipe data through
under OS-9.
And now one final thing to cover on
OS-9 before I end this lesson. Is
there a difference between upper and lower
case when you type in commands? The
answer is no... no... no...
If you type in DIR /D0 or dir /d0 they
will both act correctly... if you type
LIST /D0/STARTUP or list /d0/startup
they will both work correctly. OS-9
doesn't care about the case of the
commands you type in. But here is a
standard that you might wish to keep to
so that what is on your disk are a bit
easier to understand. It is felt that
if you keep all directory names in
capital letters and all data/command
files in lower case you will have a
better idea of what is on your disk
when you use the dir command. I find
this a useful tip and try to follow it
strictly when I work with OS-9.
The next lesson in the tutorial series
will be on nested directories and on
pipe and filters and how they are most
useful under OS-9.
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 really
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 through the levels
of the directories to get the information 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 have a two drive OS-9 system
then you can go through 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 characters
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 characters 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 character 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 character. But the character. 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 characters long... You can have numbers
mixed into this but the first characters of
each file/directory must be a letter!
so these names are perfectly legal:
number11111111 jan281985
q1234567890 a2gggg8888cccc9999
NO SPECIAL CHARACTERS MAY BE USED IN A FILE
NAME OR A DIRECTORY NAME!!! This means
no !@#$%^&*+="'- are allowed in any
title. Some of these characters 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 through a pipe into a filter to
change the information 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 through 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 through the
filter called upper... upper will take
ALL lower case letters and change them
to upper case before passing that information
on...
OS9:list startup ! wc
This command will list the file startup
through the pipe into the filter wc which
will count the # of lines, characters, and
words in the file which wc will then
print 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 become 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 machine language information in
it that you may never use unless you
get into machine language 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 information 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 machine language information in it for doing
assembly of machine language programs... If you are
not going to get into machine language ever then you
don't need to read this info. Even
though you have these 3 fine manuals, run
to the nearest RS store and buy the
Official OS-9 Tour Guide. It has more
information 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 never use and
how to delete them to make more space
on your Master Disk.
Below is a list of the commands that you
may seldom use and therefore may delete
from your EXECUTION directory which is
/D0/CMDS...
Note: 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 characters. 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...630 sectors
total on the disk... and 620 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...
If the disk that you did
the format on did not give you the whole
630 sectors on the disk and 620 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 then this is
very important...
You may also delete the asm command from
your /d0/cmds directory if you never
intend to do any machine language work... If you do
delete the /d0/cmds/asm command then you
can also get rid of the data files in
the defs directory that the asm
command works with. Do this by typing:
OS9:deldir /d0/defs
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 directory /d0/defs...
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
careful 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. Let's 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 machine language 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 through
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?
So you 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.
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 let's 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 /d0 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
Note: 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
Note: 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
Note: 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
Note: 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
Note: 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
Note: if you did not save rs232 and t1 in the save operation leave the next two lines out!!!
? rs232
? t1
Note: 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
Note: 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 </d0/bootlist
You will then have a working os9boot
file on the disk in drive /d0. Now if
you left out the d2, d3, printer, p,
rs232, t1, acia and t2 modules when you
did your save and when you built your
bootlist... those modules will not be in
memory when you use this disk to do
your next boot... *But don't
boot with this disk yet. It has no
command directory on it.* You will need
to copy all the data files and commands
off your master disk to this disk by
the same method explained in the start
of this tutorial where I talk about the
cobbler command.
Now I also said earlier that there was
2 other ways to make this boot disk and
you have to decide if they suit your
taste. The first way is to make the
new OS9boot file with either cobbler
or os9gen in the same way that I have
already explained. Now that the boot
file is on that disk... Don't copy the
whole Master disk over to this new disk!
Instead only do this:
OS9:makdir /d0/cmds
Copy the commands setime,
dir,
free and echo
over to the /d0/cmds directory on this
new disk from /d0/cmds on the old disk.
Use the build command to build a new
startup file on this disk...
OS9:build /d0/startup
and enter these lines in the file:
? setime </term
? echo take the disk out of drive 0
? echo and put your working disk in
? echo drive 0... This is ONLY A BOOT
? echo DISK!!!
? (enter)
So now when you wish to BOOT OS9 you can use
this disk. After OS-9 boots ok you
will take this disk out of /d0 and put
in your Master disk. Then type:
OS9:chd /d0
OS9:chx /d0/cmds
and you will be up and running. This
will be your working disk and the other
disk will be used each time you wish to
BOOT OS-9.
Another way to make a new BOOT disk is
to do this: Backup the old master disk
to a newly formatted disk. Leave this
new disk in /d0. Now type:
OS9:chd /d0
OS9:chx /d0/cmds
This will let OS-9 know that you have changed disks.
Use the makdir command to make a new
directory called /d0/modules...
Follow all the save commands listed
earlier in this tutorial. Use the
build command to build a file called
/d0/bootlist. Type in all the lines as
listed earlier in this tutorial.
When this is all done, you will use
the del command to:
OS9:del /d0/os9boot
at this point you will:
OS9:chd /d0/modules
OS9:os9gen /d0 </d0/bootlist
and your new BOOT file will go on this
disk with more/less modules as you told
it to put in the BOOT file.
Both of these methods will give you a
new BOOT disk but they both have their
drawbacks. The first method gives you
a boot disk but with little else on it
in the way of commands. The 2nd way
will give you a boot disk that has all
your commands on it and all your
working files. But the 2nd way to make
a new BOOT disk will not work 100% of
the time. When you go to cobbler or
os9gen a new os9boot file on a new disk
it will write that file out to track 34
of that disk. It 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 memory 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 memory 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 memory 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 magazine 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.
NitrOS-9: Empowering 6809 CPUs with a modern, efficient operating system