[Oberon] Re: BlueBottle CD

[muller at inf.ethz.ch]

Hi Doug

"Douglas G. Danforth" <danforth at greenwoodfarm.com> wrote:
> I followed the CD download instruction with Nero and was not successful.
> Booting from the created CD started with the cursor flashing in the
> upper left hand corner and then a very brief message "loading oberon" (?)
> before the screen went black (several shades of black seemed to occur).

If the screen goes black, at least the video mode seems to work.

> I have a Mitsubishi flat panel display which probable is one source
> of difficulty.  

Should be ok since the boot CD uses a standard VESA mode initialized by
the BIOS.

> All I really want to do at this point is simply to "see" what Bluebottle
> looks like.  Is there any other way to view it without having to
> "partition" some disk?

The boot CD would be the best way to do it.  There are some screenshots
at http://bluebottle.ethz.ch/wm/gallery.html, but this does not really
give you a "feel" of the system.  Of course you can also boot the normal 
Oberon environment on Bluebottle, either in a window, or full-screen.

To find the booting problem, you could try tracing the booting:

1. Connect a null-modem cable between your PC and another PC or 
serial terminal, configured to 19200 bps, 8 bits, no parity, 1 stop bit.
2. Hold down shift during booting so you get the OBL> prompt.
3. Enter: TraceMode=4
4. Enter: c (to continue booting)

The serial terminal should show trace output from the boot process,
and perhaps a trap which can indicate the problem.

cheers
-- Pieter

--
Pieter Muller, Computer Systems Institute, ETH Zurich / MCT Lab, Zurich
Native Oberon OS: http://www.oberon.ethz.ch/native/