Nitros9 on the Dragon 64 ...

[tjewell]

Blimey, is it really 27 years since I was bought my first Dragon 32?

Well, in a fit of nostalgia, I thought a fun project for the winter would be to build myself the totally maxed out, fully specced mega-dragon I could never afford at the far off age of 15 (but always dreamed of).

The first step is to investigate Nitros9, which I will admit to have only just discovered. A multi-tasking operating system for the Dragon? That I have to have!

Right now, I'd be happy just to run it under an emulator, but I've stalled. I've got Xroar, and I can see a range of ROMs, plus disk images of Nitros9 at worldofdragon.org, plus the latest version from nitros9.org. But which 64 ROM do I need? Which DOS? How do I actually load the disk image? I never had such luxuries as floppy disks back in 1982, so I'm not sure where to even start with DragonDos.

So - anyone give me any pointers?

Many many thanks in advance!

Tony.

[admin]

You need the following:

http://archive.worldofdragon.org/archiv ... 20IC17.zip
http://archive.worldofdragon.org/archiv ... 20IC18.zip

Then DragonDOS for disk support
http://archive.worldofdragon.org/archiv ... %201.0.zip
or a better replacement for DragonDOS
http://archive.worldofdragon.org/archiv ... S%20E6.zip

That will get you a working Dragon 64 emulation with disk support. You can then either use the original OS-9
http://archive.worldofdragon.org/archiv ... System.zip
or NitrOS-9 which is a community developed replacement
http://archive.worldofdragon.org/archiv ... 20DS40.zip

You can of course also use any of the other disks in the download area...

[tjewell]

Hi Simon, and many thanks! Alas, I now feel a bit foolish, as I'm not sure what to do next.

I presume I need to rename the two Dragon 64 roms - I renemed the IC17 one to d64_1.rom, and the Superdos to sdose.rom, and that allowed me to start Xroar in D64 mode just fine. Not sure what to do with the IC18 file.

My main problem is the VDK file - I've never used a Dragon with disks, so I don't know how DOS works. I did a ctrl-L to load the disk, but a DIR gives an 'IV error' and now I'm just stuck.

Any help given gratefully received!

[sixxie]

NitrOS-9 isn't a DragonDOS disk, so you can't DIR it.

You should be able to BOOT it though!

[tjewell]

Brilliant, that worked perfectly, thanks. Never having had floppy disks, I wasn't aware of the subtleties.

Now, what would I need to do this for real? A dragon 64, obviously, a DOS cartridge and drives. Any pointers as to what I should look out for?

Thanks all!

[prime]

NitrOS-9 isn't a DragonDOS disk, so you can't DIR it.

{pedantic}
Or at least not until you booted it first....as Nitros9 does use dir to get a list of files.......
{/pedantic}

Phill.