
OK, glad to see that you are back for
lesson #2.  I'll cover the way the OS-9
has multiple directories and how each
directory can have directories within
that.  What is this good for and how can
you use this on your OS-9 system? Well,
first it makes it very easy to put your
files on your disks in a manner that
will make it easy for you to find those
files again in the future...
Let's take a blank disk and format it.
If you have one drive do this:
OS9:load format dir makdir build free
take your Master Disk out of drive 0
and put in a blank disk. Now at the OS9
prompt you type format /d0.  You will
be asked if you really want to format
the disk in drive 0?  Type Y for yes.
When the format is done you will be
asked for a name to put on the disk.
Each disk you format under OS-9 will
have a NAME on the disk.  For the time
being we'll call this disk JUNK DISK.
OS-9 will check the disk to be sure all
the sectors are good and if not OS-9
will lock out the bad sectors from the
directory.  This means that you could
use a scratched disk that you were not
able to format under RS Dos...But you
should beware of doing this if you
intend to put anything realllllly
important on this disk.
Now that the format is done at
the OS-9 prompt...type:
OS9:free /d0.
This will check the disk you just did
the format on in drive 0 and it will
tell you the name of the disk...how many
total sectors there are on the disk and
how many of those sectors are available
for you to store data in.  OS-9 is set
up for a 35 track system with 18 sectors
per track...This gives you 630 sectors
total on the disk and OS-9 will take 10
of those sectors for its Directory
information.  If you do not see 620
sectors free for use than the disk had
some bad sectors on it and you might
not want to put anything important on
this disk.  But for now we will just
experiment with the disk.
at the OS9 prompt type:
OS9:makdir /d0/LETTERS
OS9:makdir /d0/BILLS
OS9:makdir /d0/LETTERS/FROM.JOE
OS9:makdir /d0/LETTERS/FROM.SUE
OS9:makdir /d0/LETTERS/FROM.TOM
OS9:makdir /d0/BILLS/PHONE
OS9:makdir /d0/BILLS/GAS
OS9:makdir /d0/BILLS/FOOD
OS9:chd /d0
OS9:dir /d0
....You will see that the dir returns
LETTERS    BILLS
as what is on the disk in drive 0
But you made 6 directories...so where
are the other ones?  Try this:
OS9:dir /d0/BILLS
PHONE     GAS     FOOD
is what you will get.  See how you can
cluster important stuff in directories
so that it has a logical flow and you
can work your way down thru the levels
of the directories to get the info you
want????
Try this:
OS9:dir /d0/LETTERS
FROM.JOE   FROM.SUE   FROM.TOM
is what you get...in a real life
situation...say the business world you
could then do this:
OS9:dir   /d0/LETTERS/FROM.TOM
and you would see the letters you stored
from someone called TOM...A very neat,
logical way to store and retrieve data
from your disk.  When you get into
owning double sided disks for storage
or even a Hard Disk drive for storage
you will see how this makes it easier
to get to your information.  Imagine
having a Hard Disk under RS DOS?  A Dir
of that drive might return a directory
listing some 100-500 lines long...It
would be a real pain to read all those
titles and try to find the file you
wanted to del or copy or rename...
>>>If you had a two drive OS-9 system
than you can go thru this exercize too
by just putting the disk you wish to
format in drive /d1 and changing all
the makedir and dir statements I gave
so they say /d1 instead of /d0.
......................................
Now in the prior example I showed you
the command chd...what is this?  Well
OS-9 has two commands built into it and
you can call them to tell OS-9 that you
are changing your DATA directory or your
EXECUTION directory.  Now this is very
important to remember!!!  If you take
the Master Disk out of drive /d0 and
put in a new Master Disk that say has
more commands in its /D0/CMDS directory
you >>must<< tell OS-9 that you did
this...you do this by:
OS9:chx /d0/cmds
OS9:chd /d0
OS-9 will then check this disk so it
will know where the DATA directory is
on the disk and where the EXECUTION
directory is on the disk.  It will >NOT<
always be in the same spot on each disk.
You might be used to RS DOS where the
directory was >>ALWAYS<< on track 17,
but this is not true under OS-9.  OS-9
must always know where these two 
directories are before it will do a
read/write for that disk.
Another benefit of the chd and chx
command are to save you some typing.
So if you are not a quick or accurate
typist these commands are a real boon
to you.  Take the example above where
we had directories within directories.
If you wished to copy files or delete
files or build files in the
/d0/letters/from.joe directory you would
think you would have to type that long
line each time.  You could for your own
piece of mind but there is a shortcut
to all that typing...do this:
OS9:chd /d0/letters/from.joe
If you do a dir now you will see that
there are >NO< files in the directory
you are in...
You could build a file in this new
DATA directory by typing
OS9:build /d0/letters/from.joe/june.1st
or you could just say:
OS9:build june.1st
as you used the chd command earlier OS-9
knows to add that whole string of chrs.
in front of june.1st to make the whole
pathlist to where you wish to build a
file.  You see that there is less chance
of a typing error in this shorthand
method rather than typing out that long
string of chrs. each time....
.......................................
When you go to makdir or build something
on the disk you have to keep in mind
that OS-9 expects titles of directories
and files to obey certain rules.  The
names of these files/directories >MUST<
begin with a letter(upper/lower case)
and may have no spaces in the title.
If you wanted to build a file called:
a letter from my buddy
You would need to type it in as:
a.letter.from.my.buddy
for OS-9 to accept it...you could have
even typed it in as:
aletterfrommybuddy
But this is a bit harder to read...
Another chr. you can use to separate
words for easier reading is the left
arrow sign...this can be made by typing
the clear key/minus sign together...
depending on the type screen you are
reading OS-9 on you will see a left
arrow or an underline.  They are both
the same ascii chr.  But the chr. rom
on the CoCo was setup for the left
arrow sign.  This clear key/minus key
is a bit hard to remember and harder
yet to type so I use the period(.) to
separate my words in my titles and
directories.
File names and directories can be up to
29 chrs. long...You can have numbers
mixed into this but the first chrs. of
each file/directory >MUST< be a letter!
so these names are perfectly legal:
   number11111111    jan281985
   q1234567890       a2gggg8888cccc9999
NO SPECIAL CHRS. MAY BE USED IN A FILE
NAME OR A DIRECTORY NAME!!!  This means
no !@#$%^&*+="'- are allowed in any
title.  Some of these chrs. are used by
OS-9 to perform other useful functions
that will be covered in a future lesson.
.......................................
OS-9 has the ability to take information
and pass it thru a pipe into a filter to
change the info in some manner before
showing it on your screen or your
printer.  The command for a pipe is the
exclamation point(!).  A filter can be
thought of as a program that will take
data in and do something with it before
passing some data out.  The ONLY filter
that you have with your original OS-9
is the filter called TEE.  If you were
to do this:
OS9:list startup ! tee /d0/f1 /d0/f2
it would list the data in the file
called startup thru the pipe (!) into
the filter TEE...this program would then
send the data out to two files that
are called /d0/f1 /d0/f2 and you would
have two perfect copies of the file
startup called f1 and f2...You could
have done this same thing by typing:
OS9:copy /d0/startup /d0/f1
OS9:copy /d0/startup /d0/f2
TEE will take any data that is piped 
into it and send it to the list of
devices or files that are printed after
the tee command and separated by spaces.
so a line like this:
OS9:dir /d0 ! TEE /d0/stuff /p /d0/s2
will send a directory of /d0 to your
screen, a file called /d0/stuff, to the
printer, and to a file called /d0/s2.
This is a way to get some data to a lot
of different places all at about the
same time.  There are other filters you
can buy that will do the following:
OS9:list startup ! upper
this will take any data in a file
called startup and send it thru the
filter called upper...upper will take
ALL lower case letters and change them
to upper case before passing that info
on...
OS9:list startup ! wc
This command will list the file startup
thru the pipe into the filter wc which
will count the # of line, chrs, and
words in the file which wc will then
printed out to your screen...imagine
doing that by hand?
There are a LOT OF FILTERS that you can
buy...check the Official OS-9 Tour
Guide out for a list of the filters you
can buy and who sells them.
.......................................
A piece of advice now...If you think you
are going to get into OS-9 you should
consider getting a 2nd disk drive if
you now only have 1 drive...OS-9 can be
run on a single drive CoCo but it is a
real PAIN IN THE BUTT!!!  On a 2 drive
system you can keep all your commands on
drive /d0 and all your data on drive /d1
and should speed along just fine and not
worry about space being tight on your
drives when you go to build files in
the future.
......................................
Until you bcome familiar with OS-9 and
the way it gives error #'s instead of
letter codes for the errors you make
then do this:
OS9:printerr
this will then print the error # of any
error you have and give you a short
english(???) sentence of what was wrong.
As you use OS-9 more you will find that
you will likely get 4-6 error codes that
tend to repeat a lot.  Most errors on
OS-9 are caused by typing errors when
entering directory names or file names.
......................................
I hope I don't appear to be jumping
about two much with these lessons but
I am trying to tackle the problems of
OS-9 in the same manner that I ran into
them and am sure other new users are
finding them.  So I give this final bit
of advice...OS-9 comes with 3 books.
a red(purple) one, a blue one and a
yellow(orange)one.  Don't even look at
the blue book yet.  It has m/l info in
it that you >MAY NEVER< use unless you
get into m/l programming under OS-9.
The red book will tell you all the
commands available under OS-9 and a bit
on how they work.  READ THIS BOOK OVER
AND OVER AT LEAST 4 TIMES!!!  The yellow
book has info on the text editor that
comes with OS-9.  This is covered in
the 1st half of the book...READ THIS
VERRRRRY CLOSELY...IT GETS COMPLICATED
but there  are a lot of examples...
The 2nd half of the yellow manual also
has some m/l info in it for doing
assembly of m/l programs...If you are
not going to get into m/l ever than you
don't need to read this info.  Even
tho' you have these 3 fine manuals...run
to the nearest RS store and buy the
Officail OS-9 Tour Guide...It has more
info than these 3 manuals and it is 
written in a lot friendlier manner than
these 3 manuals...It also gives better
examples on how to use the commands
available to you under OS-9 and give
a history of OS-9 and why it is such a
fine Operating System to run on your
CoCo....
.......................................
Next lesson?  I will tell you the
commands that you might neve use and
how to delete them to make more space
on your Master Disk.
Bob Montowski   277-6951

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