Sardis Technologies KwikGen OS-9 Boot File Editor

(This page is still under construction.)

KwikGen lets you quickly modify an existing OS9Boot file, by reading the file into its in-memory edit buffer, performing all editing operations on that buffer, then writing the file back to disk.

KwikGen features:

• commands to delete, insert, move, rename, display, and patch modules
• can write the kernel to disk
• written in assembler for maximum speed and minimum size
• menu driven operation
• built-in help for all commands
• automatically adjusts for 32 or 80 column screens
• versions for (Nitr)OS-9 Level I/II, CoCo 1/2/3, and serial terminals

I was inspired to write KwikGen when I was investigating the so-called "Boot List Order Bug", aka the BLOB:  [1] [2] [3].  Some people noticed that the order of the modules in the OS9Boot file seemed to make a difference, and in some cases caused the OS-9 system to malfunction. But using OS9Gen or similar utilities to modify the OS9Boot file in order to try different sequences was too time-consuming, especially on a system with only floppy disks. By doing all the editing in a memory buffer, KwikGen can create a new OS9Boot file much faster.

I later licensed KwikGen to Wes Gale of Gale Force, who then sold it as a separate product for several years -- refer to ad and review below. In August 2010 I gave him permission to include it in the NitrOS-9 project.

(Click on a picture for a larger version.)

Ad in Rainbow magazine (August 1992) (183KB .png), review in Rainbow magazine (August 1992) (286KB .png).

	KwikGen User's Manual. (not available yet) (??MB .pdf scanned image)
	DSK image (35T/SS/DD CoCo OS-9 format) of KwikGen source code (in Microware assembler format) and binaries. (not available yet) (??KB .zip)

"OS-9" is a registered trademark of Microware LP.
"Radio Shack" and "Color Computer" are trademarks of Tandy Corp.

Last revised 2024-Apr-04 13:25 PDT.
Copyright 2018- David C. Wiens.