The issue with USB MIDI devices is that they work on USB, and likely do not have freedos drivers. Just because freedos has storage drivers, does not mean it has USB MIDI drivers.

You can try playing Windows games on it, but if you only have 64MB of storage, that may be a severe issue.

You can definitely try an ISA/PCI card. If you just want MIDI, find something with a MIDI port that most DOS games can access.

The sad fact is that most of these systems were just never made to have great sound capabilities. If you have ISA/PCI expansion then you can use a sound card, but if all you have is USB and Centronics, you're stuck with Windows USB MIDI, and Covox/DSS.

i am able to run win3.1 off of a 4GB usb stick just fine. the thing is, i just wanted to play dos games. i want to use windows as little as possible.

i would try isa if i had a slot for it. i believe it has a pci slot on the board in an incredibly awkward spot, requiring me to remove the entire case just to see it, and keep it off if i have a card in it which i dont want. i also dont have any pci sound cards at all. only isa. i have an mt-32 that works fine with my other dos computers, so i wanted to use that or one of the spare isa cards i have.

not my photo, but here are all the ports i have on mine: http://www.vecmar.com/images/hp/HP_t5710_BACK3-4_LG.gif

What does that headphone jack do? If this system is without sound, I don't see why it would be on there.

Ampera wrote:

What does that headphone jack do? If this system is without sound, I don't see why it would be on there.

That, and a microphone jack next to it. It probably has some cheap onboard AC'97 audio or something.
Which you probably can't get going under FreeDOS.
If it's one of these, it indeed lists audio specs:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-Compaq-t5000-t5520 … s-/321211615730

Audio
Output Internal amplified speaker, 1/8-inch mini, full 16-bit stereo, 44-kHz sample rate
Input mini microphone

Scali wrote:

That, and a microphone jack next to it. It probably has some cheap onboard AC'97 audio or something. Which you probably can't ge […]
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That, and a microphone jack next to it. It probably has some cheap onboard AC'97 audio or something.
Which you probably can't get going under FreeDOS.
If it's one of these, it indeed lists audio specs:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-Compaq-t5000-t5520 … s-/321211615730

If it got a VIA VT82C686A/B based southbridge there are chances for that sound will work under DOS as one of the few onboard AC'97 solutions (also got the SiS 7018 of the 730/630 chipsets). It looks like there's a few different configured models in the T5000 series, perhaps the threadstarter could be a bit more spesific on which one he got.

Kamerat wrote:

If it got a VIA VT82C686A/B based southbridge there are chances for that sound will work under DOS as one of the few onboard AC'97 solutions (also got the SiS 7018 of the 730/630 chipsets). It looks like there's a few different configured models in the T5000 series, perhaps the threadstarter could be a bit more spesific on which one he got.

From the specs he gave, it sounds like a HP t5530. If that's it, it has a CN700 Northbridge and VT8237 (or VT8237A) Southbridge. It might be worth trying with the general VIA AC97 audio driver, or maybe DOSSOUND.

The headphone jack just outputs the beeper speaker noise. Microphone jack i have no idea since ive never used it.

i never thought about the AC'97. probably has it.

at scali, yes, it is that same kind. interesting why it doesnt list the actual sound chip and just describes the speaker.

here's a manual in case you guys want to take a look: http://www.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c00219714

mine doesnt come with the riser card unfortunately 🙁

at kamerat, i searched the above manual for "via" and came up empty handed. I dont know how else to describe it except that its an HP T5000. The plastic case says "t5000" but the sticker on there by, im guessing the ebay seller, says "HP COMPAQ T5520 PY356AA EDEN 800". ill give more info of the sticker when i can. also when i can, ill open it up again and see if the board says exactly what this thing is, if the case is or is not the original.

at maeslin, i also searched the manual for "cn700", "vt8237" and "vt8237a" and came up empty handed as well.

p.s. my english isnt the best, so if my writing is crap i apologize

What about using a PCI riser cable to route the PCI slot outside the case?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/32-Bit-Flexible-PCI-R … K-/382129130934

The closest you are going to find for an ISA slot is this USB to ISA adapter. They have a special version of DOSBOX to go along with it so you can use sound cards with it but not pure DOS drivers.
http://arstech.com/install/ecom-prodshow/usb2isar.html

For a PCI card with good DOS support, you are going to want either a Yamaha YMF 7xx or a Forte Media FM-801 based card.
If a Yamaha card, you may have to mod the initilization program to support the chipset. Just depends on if there is a modded version out there already that will work with it.

Not sure with a Forte Media based card as I haven't actually tested yet.

The other option would be to get a PCI to PCMCIA adapter card and use that with the PCI riser cable and use a PCMCIA/Cardbus card that has good DOS support.

Edit: You could also try an ESS Solo-1 based PCI card for DOS support.

Wouldnt a riser card work a bit better than a cable, since a cable could have higher chances of shorting the board?

Here's a riser card I fuond on ebay. (http://www.ebay.com/itm/Rightward-Left-Angle- … KYAAOSw32lYo0ci) hows this?

i didnt exactly want to buy another sound card, but ill search for pci yamaha ymf7xx cards

If it has a serial port (DB9) you can get an old serial port MIDI interface and run SoftMPU. You'll need to use Microsoft's HIMEM/EMM386 under FreeDOS, but that generally works fine. You'll also need an interface that can convert the PC serial port baud rate to MIDI. That's probably the most game-compatible way to get MIDI out of it. Second best would be a PCI card with good drivers if you have a slot.

I am wondering, if Win98se booted in dos mode, will accept and run the usb to midi dongle from Roland. Anyone know if that is possible?

DOS-623 wrote:

Wouldnt a riser card work a bit better than a cable, since a cable could have higher chances of shorting the board?

Here's a riser card I fuond on ebay. (http://www.ebay.com/itm/Rightward-Left-Angle- … KYAAOSw32lYo0ci) hows this?

i didnt exactly want to buy another sound card, but ill search for pci yamaha ymf7xx cards

Looks like the T5520 got USB 2.0 which means it got a newer southbridge than the VIA VT82C686A/B, so you might stay away from the YMF7xx. It also looks from the pictures I found online that this model actually lacks a PCI slot. 😢

Alright, so a quick check in the bios shows that it is indeed a t5000. i dont know why that sticker is on there, though.

In the bios it also reveals that its processor is actually a VIA Eden esp 8000. thats all it says though, regarding important info.

i also popped the hood open, which confirms what kamerat just said. no pci slot 🙁

Edit: Whoops, sorry xjas, didnt see your post there at first. To answer your question, yes it does have a db9 port. I believe I already have HIMEM installed, so I'll look around for a serial port midi interface.

So i did some googling. could i buy something like this (https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/645641 … IDI_S_PDIF.html) and use it? Or do you guys have any other suggestions?

DOS-623 wrote:

So i did some googling. could i buy something like this (https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/645641 … IDI_S_PDIF.html) and use it? Or do you guys have any other suggestions?

I think you need an active adapter like this as the signal levels and bitrate differs between RS232 and MIDI. Some later Roland modules supported RS232 but I don't think any MT-32 did.

Oh man, sounds like a daunting task. but im willing to try it out if its the only solution!

since i dont have any of the parts i need, it will probably take me 2-3 years to get it working (joking)

DOS-623 wrote:

Oh man, sounds like a daunting task. but im willing to try it out if its the only solution!

since i dont have any of the parts i need, it will probably take me 2-3 years to get it working (joking)

One other complicated solution would be: Terminal PC (running SOFTMPU under DOS) -> Nullmodem cable -> PC with Windows (or linux) -> Hairless MIDI (software bridge for Windows) -> USB to MIDI adapter -> MT-32 😕

Hmmm, clever! ive got all of those resources so I'll try that idea after work.

Ok, so I set everything up, and this is what SoftMPU spits out at me:

1Serial interface detected at port 3F8
2MPU-401 interrupts disabled
3Error: Port trap failed. Please submit a bug report
4
5JemmEx: exception 06 occurred at ....

And it locks up. I feel like im getting closer every second, but im not sure what to do next. I know its not emm386 or himem, but i thought jemmex was good enough?