ISA Cards for a DOS Build. \ VOGONS

ISA Cards for a DOS Build.

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First post, by bytesaber

Posted on 2012-03-29, 20:27

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Besides sound cards, are there any other types of ISA cards that may be desired for a DOS build?

I have been playing with the software emulated solutions PCI sound cards offer for DOS gaming support. Audigy, Live!, etc. It's driven me to desire a motherboard with an ISA slot. I like as many PCI slots as I can get, but would hate to buy a board with only 1 ISA slot and regret it.

Are there other card types that I may not be considering for ISA? Even rare cards. Perhaps multiple ISA sound cards?

BTW: These motherboards looked interesting as they have an ISA slot with current CPU platforms.
http://www.adek.com/ATX-motherboards.html

I am currently working on an Abit AN7 using:
Diamond Stealth 2000 4Mb (s3 virge 325)
Diamond Monster (Voodoo 1)
Audigy (SB0090)
Voodoo5 PCI 5500 (pc flashed)

Not really using the AGP slot. Not sure what i can put in it. Mostly dancing between a DOS 6.22 and Win98se dual boot.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
-bytes

Reply 1 of 9, by megatron-uk

Posted on 2012-03-29, 20:41

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The mb800 design works well.- I have the mb810 with agp, pci and isa using a p4_3.06 and all isa cards I tried (gus, sb16, mpu401, awe32) work fine.... however those later boards don't support NMI, so many won't work. The p4 is about as late as you can go and still have fully functional isa.

My collection database and technical wiki:
https://www.target-earth.net

Reply 2 of 9, by bytesaber

Posted on 2012-03-29, 20:49

bytesaber Offline

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I'm not familiar with what some of those are. What is gus and mpu401? Can you tell me any reasons I would like to play with some of those?

I've seen mpu401 in my AWE64 settings. Or wait... maybe it was a TIE Fighter sound option?

GUS I'm guessing is Gravis Ultra Sound.

What is NMI support?

Reply 3 of 9, by Jorpho

Posted on 2012-03-29, 22:38

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Non-masking interrupt. I'm guessing it's needed for true legacy Sound Blaster support.

Reply 4 of 9, by Norton Commander

Posted on 2012-03-30, 12:13

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ISA sound cards are good for legacy systems but I don't think you really need more that 1 ISA slot. Video, hard drive, CD ROM and Network cards benefit from 32 bit PCI slots.

Reply 5 of 9, by Qbix

Posted on 2012-03-30, 12:27

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Jorpho wrote:
Non-masking interrupt. I'm guessing it's needed for true legacy Sound Blaster support.

A soundblaster generating non-maskable interrupts might/would be a bad thing. Think there are other hardware that would need it though, but not the soundblaster as far as I know.

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Reply 6 of 9, by 5u3

Posted on 2012-03-30, 12:45

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NMI support is needed by some sound card drivers to emulate a MPU-401 MIDI interface for the internal synthesizer.

e.g.:
AWEUTIL for AWE32/64, MEGAEM for GUS/PnP

Reply 7 of 9, by Qbix

Posted on 2012-03-30, 13:15

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ah yes, for emulating things it can be useful.
However, the soundblaster part itself (dma transfered sound) shouldn't generate non-maskable irq as else a lot of games will crash

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Reply 8 of 9, by Malik

Posted on 2012-03-30, 14:59

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I think the main reason for a DOS based build, with DOS games in mind, are the ISA based sound cards. It opens up a whole range of ISA sound goodies to try.

In one of my systems, I'm using a AWE64Gold, A SB16 CT1740 (both ISA) and Sound Blaster Live! PCI (for Win95 digital output).

As I have said before, never underestimate the power of ISA based Sound Cards when it comes to DOS gaming and DOS music programs. 😁

SB Dos Drivers

Reply 9 of 9, by bytesaber

Posted on 2012-03-30, 15:10

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Very helpful guys. Thank you.

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