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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!ihwpt!knudsen
From: knudsen@ihwpt.UUCP (mike knudsen)
Newsgroups: net.micro.6809
Subject: Spontaneous ReBoots of OS9?
Message-ID: <775@ihwpt.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 21-Mar-86 12:00:36 EST
Article-I.D.: ihwpt.775
Posted: Fri Mar 21 12:00:36 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 22-Mar-86 21:57:22 EST
Distribution: net
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 49

Under what conditions, if any, should RS CoCo OS9
version 1.1 decide to reboot itself?
This often happens to me while writing disk files
in either DynaStar or the C pre-processor or Pass 1.
Without any printed error message, the system just
re-boots!  The file being written may be garbage,
truncated, or complete, but it is THERE after reboot,
meaning it got "closed."

I have three theories (notice how OS9 has restored
the spirit of scientific research and philosphy to
home computing :-] ):
(1) Microware's code can detect certain error situations as
being so hopeless that the best thing to do is reboot
and let the user's STARTUP file restart the application.
This makes a lot of sense for unattended operations.
But I'm not sure that the disk driver should take such
drastic measures.  Could it be that OS9 realizes its
kernel is corrupted?  That would justify a reboot.

(2) My memory, 6809, SAM, etc is buggy and takes a wild
jump into the boonies, which just happens to end up in the
boot code.  Amazing how at least three different programs
(DynaStar (really Pascal pinterp) and first two phases
of C compiler) all happen to hit the right spot.

(3) My disk controller, or some other happy hardware,
is throwing glitches onto the RESET line.
You know you can re-boot Coco OS9 anytime just by hitting
the RESET button.  Since I sometimes get failed disk
writes (truncated files) without a reboot, possibly
the reset glitches are sometimes too small to reset
the 6809 and reboot, but large enough to wipe out
the disk controller chips and abort the writing.

I'd like to hear from some heavy hackers who can confirm
the existence of deliberate reboot code in OS9,
or from someone at Microware (I know you're online) who
can honestly deny such things, or best of all, another
Coco owner who had the same problem and fixed it.

Thanks, mike k

PS: I'm using a Hard Drive Specialists controller (for floppies
only, despite the name).
My troubles seem related to usage of large amounts of RAM,
either for data (running Dynastar with 13k) or for program
(C.pass1 uses 32k just for code!).
Maybe I have some crummy RAM near the middle (around $8000).