DOCUMENTATION FOR RGBDOS ON VIRTUAL COCO3 SYSTEMS
Use only with Jeff Vavasour's Coco3 emulator or MESS versions higher than 56.1.

                    INSTALLATION
  Changes to NitrOS-9 have moved it further away from stock OS-9. It is now necessary to select whether stock OS-9 or the latest NitrOS-9 will be installed on your system. In the following instructions, bootdisk, refers to either os9boot.dsk or nitros9boot.dsk.
  You are required to install either OS-9 or NitrOS-9 on your hard drive. That will require you to gain access to the hard drive from your normal floppy boot disk. Copy the file hdrive from either of the enclosed boot disks to your CMDS directory, load hdrive, and iniz h0.
  The easiest way to stock the hard drive after a format, is with dsave. The syntax of dsave has changed so use the appropriate version.
dsave -s48K /d0 /h0 ! shell                       OS-9 version of dsave
dsave -s48K /h0 ! shell                            NitrOS-9 version

1) coco3.vhd not previoulsy used

Create a zero byte file called coco3.vhd in your emulator directory. Unzip disk.rom, tools.dsk, and bootdisk into the same PC directory. Start the emulator and immediately enter the command  DRIVEOFF. Assign to drives 0 & 1 respectively tools.dsk and bootdisk. Now run the program CREATE.BAS from drive0.

2) coco3.vhd in use as OS-9 virtual hard drive formatted with Alan DeKok's h0.dd and ddh0.dd descriptors

Unzip disk.rom, tools.dsk, and bootdisk into the emulator directory. Make sure you use the coco3.rom and not the os9boot.mor. Start the emulator and immediately enter the command  DRIVEOFF. Assign to drives 0 & 1 respectively tools.dsk and bootdisk. Now run the program CREATE.BAS from drive0.

3) coco3.vhd in use but not formatted to $5A000 sectors

If your .vhd drive is formatted for less than $5A000 sectors, proceed to 2). Otherwise you must patch the disk.rom file for the correct offset size. This will require that you have a raw file editor that can handle non text files. Change the bytes at $193A-$193C from $05A000 to whatever value is correct for your virtual hard drive. The value should be equal to the total number of sectors used for OS-9 on the .vhd disk.

                    RGBDOS COMMANDS

This DOS adds new commands and improves on old commands in Tandy's Disk Basic. RGBDOS was originally written by Roger Krupski for Joe Scinta's SCSI Pak in the Ken-Ton SCSI hard drive system. This version (for emulators) has all the SCSI commands removed but retains the DOS enhancements.

NEW COMMANDS
Flexikey (Colin J. Stearman) repeat keys and command line editing. Consult Rainbow for details. The most useful functions are SHIFT-RIGHT ARROW (recall last command), RIGHT ARROW (recall last command letter by letter), SHIFT UP ARROW (insert at current location), and SHIFT-CLEAR (turn off Flexikey for one character).

DRIVEON  DRIVEOFF  DRIVEOFF#  Turn on and off the "floppies" in drives 0-3. Driveoff# can make the hard drive section start earlier than drive four, ex. DRIVEOFF1 hard drives start at 2
instead of the default at 4.

COPY"filename"to #  Modification of command speeds up copying files. If the file is to be renamed, inclued "destination filename" as usual. Will copy over file of same name after warning. # May be a variable.

DOS #   Any drive can be used. If an OS-9 boot can't be found, any program labeled AUTOEXEC.BAS will be run from the indicated drive.

DIR first TO last    Display multiple directories. First and Last may be variables. Uses multiple columns for display.

RENAME DRIVE n, "string"   Drives may be named to distinguish a directory listing.

RUNM"filename.ext:dr      Same as LOADM then EXEC

BACKUP    Usual syntax but does not clear memory. Current Basic program stays intact. May be included within a Basic program.

DSKINI    Usual syntax but does not clear memory. Current Basic program stays intact. May be included within a Basic program.

RESERVED MEMORY USED BY RGBDOS

$D938    High Byte for OS-9 offset. 0 in all RGBDOS usage
$D939    Low Word for OS-9 offset. 0 in all RGBDOS usage
$D93B    Word  pointer to Emulator Port address
$0149    Flexikey
$014A - $014D
$014E    Indicates start of hard drive numbers
$0150    Maximum hard drive number available


robert.gault@worldnet.att.net