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From: draco@chinet.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.m6809
Subject: OS9 Level II device drivers
Message-ID: <1549@chinet.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 12-Sep-87 17:18:53 EDT
Article-I.D.: chinet.1549
Posted: Sat Sep 12 17:18:53 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 13-Sep-87 10:21:22 EDT
Reply-To: draco@chinet.UUCP (Kent D. Meyers)
Distribution: comp.sys.m6809
Organization: Chinet - Public Access Unix
Lines: 38


In <58@abvax.icd.ab.com> harmon@abvax.icd.ab.com (Larry Harmon) writes:

>        When I was running Level 1 os9 on my Dragon I had two device
>drivers which I loaded and linked only as needed then unlinked when
>I no longer needed them.  One was a parallel printer driver the other
>was a serial port driver.
>        I am now using the same hardware with my CoCo 3 Level II system, but
>have been unable to use the old drivers.  When I try to load them I get a
>"System RAM full" error.  What does it all mean?

Each module that is explicitly loaded under Level II occupies a minimum of
one 8K block. So assuming that you loaded 4 modules (2 drivers and 2 device
descriptors), this would be a total of 32K. These modules will be mapped
into the system space in order for them to execute, which will cause the
error which you reported.

If you just want to test them out under Level II, merge them all into one
file first. This way they will only occupy a single 8K block, which the
system space should be able to support in most instances.

But once you have determined that they will function correctly under Level
II, they should be incorporated into your bootfile so that they will take
up the absolute minimum of your precious system RAM.

If you have already merged the modules and the error still persists, it is
probably because of the form of the extended addresses in the Level I device
descriptors. 

To run under Level II, the extended addresses must be changed from
$FFFF(xx) to $07FF(xx). Otherwise OS9 will try to map another block into
the system space, producing an "Error #207".

Kent D. Meyers
PO Box 266
Le Roy, MN 55951

(507)-324-5836 (After 8:30PM CDT)              Net> ihnp4!chinet!draco