[Oberon] Tracing Oberon-0 boot problems

[Douglas G. Danforth]

Folks & Peter,
My machine is a standard COMPAQ machine (1200MHz)
with 80GB IDE hard drive and a second 3 GB drive
on which I hope to load Native & Bluebottle.

muller at inf.ethz.ch wrote:
> 
> Doug Danforth <danforth at greenwoodfarm.com> is having problems
> getting any version of Native Oberon to work on his machine.
> We are now systematically trying to trace the problem.  Since this
> might be of interest to others, and others may want to contribute
> with their experiences, I'm taking the discussion to the mailing list.
> 
> To recap, Doug said (speaking of the Oberon-0 boot diskette):
> > Under both V2.3.6 and Alpha no cursor appears on my screen.  (I believe under
> > some other version of Native I had a red cursor which now I can not reproduce).
> 
> And I asked: That probably means booting did not work out.  We should
> concentrate on finding out why.  What exactly do you see after booting
> the Alpha version of Oberon-0?  If you don't have a visible cursor,
> what do you see in the System.Log?  Do the Oberon tracks even appear,
> or is the screen just black?
> 
> To which he replied:
> > Yes, the tracks do appear.  The system track is as expected and the
> > user track is all grey.  There simply is no cursor and the keyboard
> > does not seem to do anything.
> 
> And now we are "live" again with this email... (BTW we've decided to
> concentrate on the Alpha version).
> 
> These are startup commands in Oberon-0 (from Install.Oberon.Text in
> Alpha/Build/Build.zip), one of them is apparently hanging:
> 
> { System.OpenLog }
> { System.Open Install.Tool }
> { UsbSystem.Start }
> { UsbMouse.Init }
> { UsbKeyboard.Init }
> { ConfigInput.WatchMouse 3 }
> { Config.Oberon0 on }
> 
> My guess would be one of the Usb commands, since the first two
> commands have apparently been executed (you see the log and Install.Tool
> in the system track), and the last two are quite harmless.
> 
> When it is hanging, do the NumLock/CapsLock keys toggle the
> corresponding LEDs?  

No, they don't toggle.

First time: Booting from diskette with Alpha on it.
COMPAQ logo appears and then the numlock LED comes on and stays
on.  Then OBERON booting... followed by colored boarders
and finally the system track.  Nothing happens when any of the
numlock, shiftlock, or scroll lock keys are pressed.

Second attempt:  Reboot but this time just after the numlock LED
comes on I press scroll lock which does toggle its LED at this
time.  The OBL> prompt then appears.  At this point all LED
*can* be toggled by their corresponding keys. Parameter settings
to the OBL> prompt can then be performed.  Pressing OBL>c and
letting process continue gives nothing different from "First time",
i.e. lights do not toggle at appearance of system track.

Third attempt: Reboot but when numlock LED comes on toggle it
off and no other change.  Let process run until system track
appears.  Same response as with "First time".  Lights do *not* toggle
at this point.  


> If not, keyboard interrupts are probably
> not working.  If the LEDs work, try Ctrl-Break (once or twice)
> and let us know what the resulting trap viewer says.  This should
> show us which command above is hanging.

No effect from Ctrl-Break.

> To conclude, once we have the answer to the questions about the keyboard
> LEDs and Ctrl-Break above, we can continue.
> 
> -- Pieter

Ok, so between the OBL> prompt and load completion the keyboad interrupts
seem to be corrupted.  I have a printout of the Configuration strings
that can be entered at the OBL> prompt.

It should be noted that my *keyboard* is connected to a USB port
and my *mouse* to a round connector.

So my hypothesis is that, indeed, the USB driver may be failing.
Now what?

-Doug