VOGONS


First post, by detalite

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Few years ago (2013) i bought Toshiba Tecra 750CDT. It was in nice condition, everything works as it should, but there was something more which i only found out few months ago. A hardware wavetable. It's nothing fancy just Yamaha YM721 OPL4-ML2. Nice "free upgrade" to my old hardware. I probably wouldn't discover that, if I didn't buy CompaQ Armada 7360DMT. It was DOA (leaky BIOS battery). When i disassembled it, i found there was small chip on sound/modem PCB, an ES690F. This was clear evidence that some companies had made notebooks with hardware wavetable. Then i checked some old computer press they rarely mention which type of wavetable (hardware or software) we are dealing. The only reliable source of information are manufacturer manuals or datasheets. Sometimes there are comprehensive informatioin, and sometimes we only have laconic information like "16bit stereo 3D sound". Below you will find the results of my current research in this topic.

Toshiba Tecra 750CDT (Yamaha YM721)
"Yamaha 3D sound effect-enabled OPL3-SA3 and Wavetable-enabled OPL4-ML2"

COMPAQ Armada 7300 series - 7330T, 7350MT, 7360DMT, 7362DMT, 7370DMT, 7380DMT (ESS ES690F)
"Built-in speakers, microphone, and jacks for 16-bit stereo sound with electronic equalization and wave table synthesis"

Compaq Armada 7400 series (ESS ES692S)
"16-bit Compaq Premier Sound™ and Hardware Wave Table for enhanced audio (16-bit Sound Blaster Pro compatible), integrated stereo speakers and Bass Reflex speaker ports, integrated microphone, hardware and software volume control, headphone, microphone and stereo line-in jacks, standard CD-ROM Drive or DVD Drive, software MPEG1, software MPEG2 available"

COMPAQ Armada 7700 series - 7710MT, 7730MT, 7750MT,7770DMT, 7790DMT, 7792DMT (ESS ES690F?)
"Compaq PremierSound for enhanced stereo audio includingintegrated 16 bit Sound Blaster Procompatible stereo audio,integrated stereo speakers and microphone, software volume control, stereo line in, headphone out, microphone in jacks,optional 20X Max1 CD-ROM Drive (standard on somemodels), software MPEG-1 and hardware Wave Table audio for more realistic sound"

Compaq Armada 7800 series (ESS ES692S)
"16-bit Compaq Premier Sound™ for enhanced stereo audio (16-bit Sound Blaster Pro compatible), integrated stereo speakers and microphone, software volume control, stereo line-in, headphone out, microphone-in jacks, standard. CD-ROM Drive or DVD-ROM Drive, software MPEG1 and hardware Wave Table audio for more realistic sound; software MPEG2 is available"

Micron Transport XKE (ESS ES692S)
"True SoundBlaster compatible 16-bit stereo audio systemwith 1MB hardware wavetable and 3D Spatializer sound for optimal sound quality and convenience."

Gateway Solo 9100 (Yamaha YM704)
"Yamaha YM715 and 704B: 16 bit stereo audio, 20 voice,four-operator FM music synthesis; full-duplex operationwith two DMA channels, hardware wavetable synthesis"

IBM ThinkPad 755CD, 755CDV, 755CE, 755CSE, 755CV, 755CX, 760C, 760CD, 760E, 760ED, 760XD,765D (MWave MDSP2780)
MWave Audio and Modem controller - General MIDI-compatible 32-voice wavetable synthesizer

Digital HiNote VP 725, VP 735, VP 745 (Crystal CS9236)
"Wavetable support is provided by the Crystal CS9236 chip", "Integrated 16-bit 3-D sound WaveTable synthesis on VP 725, VP 735, and VP 745 models"

Not sure/need to confirm

Fujitsu LifeBook 565Tx, 585Tx (ESS)
? MPU I/O address configuration in BIOS (maybe for extrenal MIDI port) / "16-bit Stereo Sound Wavetable/MIDI, 3D-Stereo"

Gateway 2000 Solo Multimedia Notebook (Pentium 75 and 90)
? MPU-401 Base Port select in BIOS (maybe for extrenal MIDI port)

Reply 1 of 2, by vorob

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How can I understand that wavetable will work under pure dos?
I've got Toshiba 2805 with a hardware wavetable, but no ROM chip, so it has to keep its samples in RAM and general midi works only in Windows.

On the other hand, I've got Siemens Nixdorf Scenic Mobile 710 with a wavetable that has its own ROM chip and it works in pure dos.