Running COHERENT on PCem

Udo Munk

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Jan 7, 2018, 7:28:05 PM1/7/18

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That looks pretty good, some demo videos for now until I wrote stuff up
at the web site.

3.0 : https://youtu.be/LpVYGQWFrc0
4.0 : https://youtu.be/hQ4oACPtzgU
4.2 : https://youtu.be/GgtguRAPX7k

Udo Munk

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Jan 9, 2018, 5:42:29 PM1/9/18

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Tested the 3.x releases on PCem, some of the disk images were wrong:

The 3.0.0 ddk disk actually is a 3.1.0 ddk.
From the 3.2.0 ddk disks one was unreadable, the other was a 386 ddk.

Web site corrected.

Update from 3.0 -> 3.1 -> 3.2 works OK.

Udo Munk

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Feb 19, 2018, 5:25:48 PM2/19/18

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A disk image for PCem is available with an installation of COHERENT 4.0.1,
DDK und update to COHERENT 4.0.1r72.

The web site explains the installation procedure for this.

This is a pretty good 4.0 development system as we had it in 1993, ready
to install the bitmapped graphics device driver and bring up MGR on
the system.

Have fun,
Udo

mikey

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Feb 28, 2018, 8:34:28 PM2/28/18

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Thank you very much for all the disks for Coherent 3 and 4.
With your latest addition of the Coh-4.0.1 y2k patched bootdisk and the ddk sets, we have now a complete set of Coherents for fun.

One question though, Is it possible to have two more different OS variants
co-existing on ONE virtual hard disk ? Have been trying to get Coherent 3x
succesively upgraded, together with SLS 1.04 and Slackware-1.01 all into one
virtual hdd. Had to change around floppies disk-type, CDROM images and using qemu as well as VirtualBox emulators to get the three dists. into one HDD. PCem
could only run 2 out of three combo in one hdd so created.

Best regards,

michael.

Udo Munk

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Mar 1, 2018, 1:19:17 AM3/1/18

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On Thursday, March 1, 2018 at 2:34:28 AM UTC+1, mikey wrote:
> On Tuesday, February 20, 2018 at 6:25:48 AM UTC+8, Udo Munk wrote:
> > A disk image for PCem is available with an installation of COHERENT 4.0.1,
> > DDK und update to COHERENT 4.0.1r72.
> >
> > The web site explains the installation procedure for this.
> >
> > This is a pretty good 4.0 development system as we had it in 1993, ready
> > to install the bitmapped graphics device driver and bring up MGR on
> > the system.
> >
> > Have fun,
> > Udo

Last night I uploaded a 3.1 disk image that as bonus has swapping activated. Still
need to write up how to configure this with the DDK, should be there in the next
few days.

> Thank you very much for all the disks for Coherent 3 and 4.

You are welcome. Many of the images were contributed by others, I have no
hardware anymore to image 5.25" floppy disks, only 3.5" ones.

> With your latest addition of the Coh-4.0.1 y2k patched bootdisk and the ddk sets,
> we have now a complete set of Coherents for fun.

I think the 3.2 update still needs the Y2K fix, but is the same patch as for 3.0
and can be build self from the patch files for 3.0, until I get at that one.

> One question though, Is it possible to have two more different OS variants
> co-existing on ONE virtual hard disk ? Have been trying to get Coherent 3x
> succesively upgraded, together with SLS 1.04 and Slackware-1.01 all into one
> virtual hdd. Had to change around floppies disk-type, CDROM images and using
> qemu as well as VirtualBox emulators to get the three dists. into one HDD. PCem
> could only run 2 out of three combo in one hdd so created.

Yes that is possible. Always install everything else before COHERENT, install it
as the last OS and use the MWC master boot for booting all OS's. The MWC boot
code is one fine piece of art work, other boot code from this era has problems
that need to be fixed.

I have not yet found time to write bug reports for PCem and now they a freezing
it in for release 14. Guess I'll wait and have a look at this first, and then see what
still is not working correct.

mikey

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Mar 2, 2018, 7:25:53 AM3/2/18

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Harro and Thank you Udo for quick response !

On Thursday, March 1, 2018 at 2:19:17 PM UTC+8, Udo Munk wrote:

> Last night I uploaded a 3.1 disk image that as bonus has swapping activated. Still
> need to write up how to configure this with the DDK, should be there in the next
> few days.

Thanks ! Looking forward to test that .

> You are welcome. Many of the images were contributed by others, I have no
> hardware anymore to image 5.25" floppy disks, only 3.5" ones.

Like you, I can't buy/get any more 5.25" drives or disks. I have a stack of new 3.5"-1.44MB disks but no serviceable floppy drive to use them.
Lucky I had dd the old stuff from SLS-1.04 (1993) and my Coherent-3.1 and /rdb
from Mark Williams back in 2007. The rest of the nostalgic testing stuff from the "InfoMagic" cdroms up to 2003.

> I think the 3.2 update still needs the Y2K fix, but is the same patch as for 3.0
> and can be build self from the patch files for 3.0, until I get at that one.
>

I /etc/install CohUpd 3.10 and CohUpd 3.20 successively, and the Y2K
patch you provided for 3.1 worked well, but the y2k patch for CohUpd-COH-3.2 yielded a boot up message " AT clock month 0 not in the table of month 1-12 .."
However, this message disappeared after a few more boots over the month, to March 1st, and now everything is well.

The so-called 3.20 update that I installed seems to be still 3.10 as the
version number of the boot-up message reads " 3.1.0u ". The files in the
update directory /new are also the same for Coherent-3.1.0

So, many more things to try out for me !
However,

> > virtual hdd. Had to change around floppies disk-type, CDROM images and using
> > qemu as well as VirtualBox emulators to get the three dists. into one HDD. PCem
> > could only run 2 out of three combo in one hdd so created.
>
> Yes that is possible. Always install everything else before COHERENT, install it
> as the last OS and use the MWC master boot for booting all OS's. The MWC boot
> code is one fine piece of art work, other boot code from this era has problems
> that need to be fixed.

I have now been able to use only PCem to install 3 OS's viz Coherent-3x , SLS-1.04 linux and DrDos-7.03 from Digital Research ( later Caldera ) into
a 251 MB virtual HDD. Booting is with MWC Coherent Master Boot !

>
> I have not yet found time to write bug reports for PCem and now they a freezing
> it in for release 14. Guess I'll wait and have a look at this first, and then see what
> still is not working correct.

Will wait for that, thanks.

mikey ( perhaps the only SG user of MWC Coherent still around ).The uucp-BBS
will have some records of my logging in and asking around !

Udo Munk

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Mar 2, 2018, 7:06:22 PM3/2/18

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On Friday, March 2, 2018 at 1:25:53 PM UTC+1, mikey wrote:

> Like you, I can't buy/get any more 5.25" drives or disks. I have a stack of new 3.5"-1.44MB
> disks but no serviceable floppy drive to use them.

You can get USB 3.5" drives, they are inexpensive. Connected to any UNIX system
that supports USB devices allows to dd the disks to images.

> Lucky I had dd the old stuff from SLS-1.04 (1993) and my Coherent-3.1 and /rdb
> from Mark Williams back in 2007. The rest of the nostalgic testing stuff from the
> "InfoMagic" cdroms up to 2003.

Fortunately the CD-ROM's aren't a problem yet, should be still around for a while.

> I /etc/install CohUpd 3.10 and CohUpd 3.20 successively, and the Y2K
> patch you provided for 3.1 worked well, but the y2k patch for CohUpd-COH-3.2
> yielded a boot up message " AT clock month 0 not in the table of month 1-12 .."
> However, this message disappeared after a few more boots over the month, to March
> 1st, and now everything is well.

No idea yet, need to examine 3.2 in more detail, I only did a quick update
to check if it works OK and what I get.

> The so-called 3.20 update that I installed seems to be still 3.10 as the
> version number of the boot-up message reads " 3.1.0u ". The files in the
> update directory /new are also the same for Coherent-3.1.0

You probably got the wrong disks, the 3.2 update from the web site
definitely will result in a 3.2.0-something system .

> So, many more things to try out for me !

Indeed.

> I have now been able to use only PCem to install 3 OS's viz Coherent-3x , SLS-1.04
> linux and DrDos-7.03 from Digital Research ( later Caldera ) into
> a 251 MB virtual HDD. Booting is with MWC Coherent Master Boot !

Very well.

> mikey ( perhaps the only SG user of MWC Coherent still around ).The uucp-BBS
> will have some records of my logging in and asking around !

There are others too.

Udo Munk

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Mar 5, 2018, 2:57:23 PM3/5/18

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The 3.2 update doesn't require a Y2K fix, so just upgrade from 3.1 to 3.2
with the disk images. An already installed hd image is available too for download.

Also a hd image with 3.1 plus DDK is available with swapping enabled, the web
site explains how to setup such a 3.1 system.

John McCue

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Mar 5, 2018, 4:42:03 PM3/5/18

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Nice, thanks for the work you are doing, will
give this a try!

John

Udo Munk

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Mar 7, 2018, 4:16:02 PM3/7/18

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I converted my latest Virtualbox COHERENT 4.2 disk image into one usable by
PCem and reconfigured the system, so that it runs the color X11 server.
Documentation how to do this is at the web site, the ready to use disk image is
available too.

Looks like it is possible now to run all the MWC x86 COHERENT products on PCem.

Have fun with the machines,
Udo

John McCue

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Mar 24, 2018, 2:55:19 PM3/24/18

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Very nice!
Thanks

Udo Munk

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Apr 26, 2018, 6:13:47 PM4/26/18

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PCem V14 is released, installed it on OSX and had a brief look at the
things not working properly or have an inconvenient implementation.
No improvements with regards for running COHERENT OS's with V14,
also would need some bug reports.