Re: Tandy/Radio Shack Color Computer
  By: Greg Goodwin to William Schaub on Mon Aug 02 2010 09:19 pm

 > William Schaub -> mark lewis wrote:

 >  WS> Sorry about that. I don't know how I managed to mis-read that.
 >  WS> I am a coco guy I don't do much with my coco today, although I do
 >  WS> want to do more with NitrOS9 and the new drivewire4 software that
 >  WS> came out recently.

 > So please tell us about bit more about these and what they can do, or what y
 > find interesting about them.



NitrOS9 is a free and open source variant of Microware's OS9 operating system 
for the coco (and other 6809 or 6309 based machines).

NitrOS9 and OS9 are a real time multi user multitasking operating system.

It is vaugely like unix in some ways and an entirely different beast in others.
google should tell you everything you need to know.

Drivewire 4 is the most recent version of the server side of cloud 9's
Drivewire software which allows a coco to use a PC as a virtual disk drive
both in RSDOS and OS9/NitrOS9. under RSDOS (Radio shack disk basic) It is only
just a disk emulator that talks over the bit banger port.

Under NitrOS9 however the Drivewire 4 server has other extensions that are
taken advantage of by NitrOS9 drivers that speak to the Drivewire 4 server.

These features are:
virtual terminal devices that can allow remote logins to NitrOS9
(a server port is opened on the PC side and virtual terminals are multiplexed
downthe bit banger off that one listening port)

virtual modems for using legacy serial programs to connect to TCP ports on the
internet using AT commdands.

There is also a more general interface for more detailed control of 
sockets and there are some basic servers one of them being a web server
that uses this interface.

There is a clock driver that reads the time/date off the PC running drivewire.

I have already posted using an old terminal program under NitrOS9 and it worked
great. 


All of this is done over the bit banger port on the coco. 


I turn on the machine with the drivewire ROM pak plugged in and type DOS
on the disk extended basic prompt and it loads NitrOS9 from the PC over the
bitbanger and I'm ready for action and can have several NitrOS 9 shells running
over telnet on a PC and still have full use of the console at the same time.

I hope this helps. I'm betting its even more polished now than it was a month
or so ago when I first started playing with it.
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