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From: saba@ihlpl.UUCP (Sabalaskey)
Newsgroups: net.micro.6809
Subject: coco II & J&M disk contoller
Message-ID: <998@ihlpl.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 11-Jun-86 12:56:20 EDT
Article-I.D.: ihlpl.998
Posted: Wed Jun 11 12:56:20 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 15-Jun-86 01:45:09 EDT
Distribution: net
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 44

I'm having trouble formatting a disk under OS-9 for my coco II.
I would appreciate any help. Also, does anyone know of an easy way
to change the disk device driver to get 40 tracks & double sided
support??? 


My story continues .....

I just got my disk drives for my coco II. I have two Teac 40 track,
double density, double sided drives, and the new J&M controller
(switchable DOS) with both JDOS and RSDOS. I also have the OS-9
version 1 (1.01.00 I think). If if format a disk using DSKINI0
or DSKINI1 from JDOS or RSDOS basic, it works just fine.

However, when I use OS-9 format command, the drive steps through
formatting but seems to barf when it writes the system info. I get
error #245 (write error) every time. I tried numerous diskettes.

I also have some old 40 track single sided drives (complete with
their own cables). I tried these too and I got the same problem.
By chance, I also had two J&M controllers to try, both of which
failed the same way.

From all this experimenting, it seems not to be the disk drives or
diskettes or the controller. What's left??? The OS-9 master diskette
(I can't make a backup because of this problem), the multipak
interface and the computer itself.

The computer has not seemed flakey before (didn't use it much before
the disk drives came. I can do dir's, mdir's, load's, and zillions
of other OS-9 commands, but not format. Is there something in OS-9
format program that is picky about J&M controllers??

Anyone have any other ideas??

PS: if you know how to patch OS-9 to get 40 tracks & double density
easily, please let me know. I have only been playing with OS-9 for a
total of 4 hours now, so I don't know all that much yet (Yes, I'm
trying to save myself the work of figuring out which bit to set in
which byte where!) Unfortunately, I can't do this until I figure on
how to make a backup of the system master.

Bruce Sabalaskey
ihnp4!ihlpl!saba