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Added Level 3
author boisy
date Sun, 17 Jan 2010 21:35:51 +0000
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1 The Level III modifications are Copyright 1996 by Alan T. DeKok, all rights
2 reserved.
3
4
5 Level III
6 =========
7
8 It's what everybody's been asking for, so here goes.
9
10 One warning: Level III is VERY dependant on the order of modules in the
11 OS9Boot file. If you do NOT follow the directions below exactly, your
12 system will NOT BOOT. I'm willing to answer questions and perform support,
13 but Level III is not for the faint of heart or the OS-9 beginner.
14
15 When you install Level III, you MUST do it on a system using NitrOS-9.
16
17 When you build a Level III OS9Boot, be aware that you WILL NOT be able
18 to cobbler a disk once LIII is booted. You must copy the OS9Boot by hand,
19 and use 'ezgen' to update LSN0, or use OS9Gen.
20
21 ******************************************************************************
22 ** DO NOT COBBLER DISKS WITH LEVEL III! IT WILL COBBLER BUT WILL NOT BOOT! **
23 ******************************************************************************
24
25 Your OS9Boot file MUST be magically formatted as follows. The reasons for
26 this are long and detailed. I'll just say that if it isn't done this way,
27 Level III will NOT work.
28
29 ****** start of the OS9Boot file.
30 NitrOS9 (from the NitrOS9.L3 file.)
31 SCF
32 (other SCF modules, i.e. SACIA, Printer, VRN)
33 ( NOT CC3IO or WindInt or VDGInt. Never!)
34 (up to a limit of 15k of modules)
35 _end <--- specifies the end of SCF information, from the _end.L3 file.
36 RBF
37 (other RBF modules, i.e. CC3Disk, Rammer, RamPak, CCHDisk, etc.)
38 _end <--- specifies the end of RBF information
39 (everything else. Order does not matter here.)
40 (ALL descriptors, Clock, IOMan, OS9p2, Init, CC3IO, Windint,
41 PipeMan, etc.)
42 ****** End of the OS9Boot file.
43
44 Late tests indicate it is possible to put CC3IO inside the SCF local memory.
45 Whether or not it works is dependent on local system configurations. Either
46 way, there's plenty of system memory, and it doesn't appear to make any
47 difference to anything.
48
49 Similarly, PipeMan may be put in SCF local memory between SCF and the first
50 _end module. Note that PipeMan may NOT be put in with RBF!
51
52 An 'ident -s' of my Level III OS9Boot file (with comments) looks like this:
53
54 1 $C7 $389B28 . NitrOS9
55 16 $D1 $E2B0EB . SCF \
56 12 $E1 $82D6D3 . SACIA | SCF and SCF device drivers
57 1 $E1 $329D69 . VRN |
58 13 $E1 $3389A4 . PRINTER /
59 1 $C7 $BB7259 . _end
60 30 $D1 $753C86 . RBF \
61 4 $E1 $3AB3AA . Rammer | RBF and RBF device drivers
62 2 $E1 $BCE29D . RamPak |
63 11 $E1 $CFAA38 . CC3Disk /
64 1 $C7 $BB7259 . _end
65 1 $C1 $BFF958 . OS9p3 everything else
66 67 $C0 $680456 . Init
67 82 $F1 $7EBD63 . DD DEVICE DESCRIPTORS GO HERE
68 82 $F1 $93C195 . D0
69 82 $F1 $F09A9D . D1
70 82 $F1 $323E4F . D2
71 82 $F1 $092A49 . MD
72 82 $F1 $B31A99 . R0
73 114 $F1 $FD590E . T2
74 83 $F1 $C9B7C1 . P
75 19 $C1 $67D5A0 . WindInt OUTSIDE SCF local memory!
76 20 $E1 $B4F1E2 . CC3IO perhaps here, perhaps in SCF local memory
77 83 $F1 $17FBEF . Term
78 83 $F1 $F8D0CB . W
79 83 $F1 $5EA5AA . W1 WINDOW DESCRIPTORS HERE!
80 83 $F1 $691BAA . W2
81 83 $F1 $FB498B . W3
82 83 $F1 $05BFAA . W4
83 83 $F1 $97ED8B . W5
84 83 $F1 $E30B59 . W6
85 83 $F1 $710B78 . W7
86 83 $F1 $9F0B78 . W8
87 83 $F1 $0D0B59 . W9
88 18 $C0 $826A54 . OS9p2 All these modules MUST come after the '_end'
89 12 $C1 $1B5CA4 . IOMan module, or your system will crash.
90 9 $C1 $402FE2 . Clock
91 4 $D1 $ED94CC . PipeMan
92 2 $E1 $ADB22E . Piper
93 80 $F1 $CC06AF . Pipe
94 1 $F1 $B2004F . Nil
95
96
97 OK, now the theory behind the magic.
98
99 When booting OS-9, the startup routine in OS9p1 calls the Boot module to
100 load in the OS9Boot file. OS9p1 then looks for a module named 'NitrOS9
101 as the FIRST module of the OS9Boot file. If it exists, that module is called
102 BEFORE verifying the OS9Boot file.
103
104 The NitrOS9 module allocates memory, and moves the SCF modules (up to
105 the _end module) into 'SCF local memory', and verifies the modules. The
106 same procedure is followed for RBF modules, and when I get the chance later,
107 for PipeMan and SBF modules.
108
109 Extra memory is allocated in 16k chunks, and mapped into address $2000
110 to $5FFF of the system map. An 'smap' will show you that this memory is
111 allocated.
112
113 IOMan intercepts EVERY system call, and EVERY request/return system call.
114 Any module inside 'local memory' asking for system RAM gets allocated
115 RAM from that local memory. Any module in 'system global memory' asking
116 for system RAM gets allocated RAM from the global memory pool.
117
118 The net result of this is that you lose 16k of memory from the bottom
119 of the system memory map, but you move about 16k of modules into system local
120 memory. On my setup, I had about 14K free after booting, and now 'smap'
121 usually gives me 11k of _global_ memory free. And I still have 8k of SCF
122 memory, and 9k of RBF memory left!
123
124 The ONLY things that take memory out of 'system global memory' are process
125 descriptors (.5k each) and path descriptors (.0625K, 64 bytes). 11K is
126 room for another 20 processes, each with STDIN, STDOUT, and STDERR going
127 to a window. And 8k of SCF memory is just about enough memory for SCF
128 buffers for each of those 20 processes.
129
130 i.e. Level III enables you to have about 25 _different_ processes
131 running in different windows, all at the same time! The only way that this
132 is possible on a Level II system is to strip your OS9Boot file down to almost
133 nothing. Level III allows you to keep all of your favorite modules in your
134 OS9Boot.
135
136 VDG windows come out of system global memory, too. That's why I added the
137 'largest free block' display to the 'sfree' command, below. If you have
138 less than 6k free in one block, you can't run many old Coco2 games.
139
140 The local 16k memory map is saved and restored across every system call,
141 and changed whenever a call to SCF/RBF is done. Because only IOMan knows
142 about the changes, only it (and clock) have to be modified. All of the
143 old file managers and drivers work perfectly. This includes programs
144 like 'winfo' and 'wdir'.
145
146 I got the idea from thinking that it's perfectly possible to boot OS-9
147 with NO SCF modules, and likewise with NO RBF modules. If that's possible,
148 why not map SCF and RBF into the same area of memory, and switch between
149 them on the fly? So far, I would say it's taken me the equivalent of 4 weeks
150 full-time work, as I ran into HORRIBLE problems. Level III is sufficiently
151 different from Level II that you can't really think the same way about it.
152
153 Anyways, here's an 'sfree' of my current system, with OSTerm running
154 in another window, and 3 'shell' windows:
155
156 ----- Level III System Memory ----- System memory:
157 37 free pages, largest block 37 pages.
158 9K of free RAM.
159
160 SCF local memory:
161 21 free pages, largest block 21 pages.
162 5K of free RAM.
163
164 RBF local memory:
165 31 free pages, largest block 31 pages.
166 7K of free RAM.
167
168 ----
169 That's 89 pages (22K) of free RAM, and my OS9Boot file is $73E2 bytes long!
170 Even with a 4K SACia buffer open, 8 processes, and 4 windows! I like it...
171
172 Here's an 'smap':
173
174 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F
175 # = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
176 0 U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U
177 1 U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U
178 2 U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U
179 3 U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U
180 4 U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U
181 5 U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U
182 6 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
183 7 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
184 8 _ _ _ _ _ U U U U U U U U U U U
185 9 U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U
186 A U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U
187 B U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U
188 C U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U
189 D U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U
190 E U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U
191 F U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U .
192
193 Number of Free Pages: 37
194 Ram Free in KBytes: 9
195
196
197 ---
198 This is enough room to format a disk (greater than 7K), even with many
199 processes and OSTerm running!
200
201 I've been running Level III for just under a year, and I've had it in
202 beta test on 10+ systems for 8 months. One system was running a BBS, and
203 at one report was up and running for 2 months without a reboot. I think
204 it's stable enough to release to the general public.
205
206 Have fun!
207
208 Alan DeKok.