Hmm I didn't find much, but maybe this is a start?
I uploaded that file if anyone wants to have a crack at it. It will initialise differently, because selecting a PAS16 driver (Space Quest 4) will get you an error on a Sound Blaster Pro or 16.
Other games just say OPL3 (Descent) and those games work on the PAS16 and Sound Blaster Pro / 16.
Just joined the forums to be able to post here, so hello everyone! I've been a regular idler on the DOSBox IRC on Freenode, and I checked VOGONS as a guest up until now. Now I have the ability to reply to this old and forgotten topic.
A couple days before I wanted to watch some videos on YouTube about Media Vision's Pro Audio Spectrum, but only found one video. Checked the description and saw that it was recorded with DOSBox but the sound is from the real hardware. Now wait a second! There's no support for that in DOSBox. I did a Google search and found this topic, read it and I support the idea. There's a bunch of MS-DOS games that support this hardware, but unfortunately it's still just a SoundBlaster clone, and the possibility to get the Pro Audio Spectrum emulated in DOSBox is nearly 0% unless some knowledgeable person programs the thing, and makes a patch for us. This could take a lot of time effort, and still it may not make it in the DOSBox mainline.
Saw that we need as much information as possible in order to start coding the emulator module for the project, and we only have so far an SDK. That may or may not be sufficient to finish the emulation module. Unfortunately I'm not a programmer, but I can differentiate a C/C++ and a ASM or Pascal source code. So my ability to code is absolutely zero! I know how to compile stuff though. However I'm got at finding information about stuff, so I thought I save some time for the person who is willing to write the stuff for us. I'm totally fine if nobody wants to do that, or it will never happen. It's just a wish of mine and Mau1wurf1977's, so please don't bash us.
Here are the stuff I found out about the Pro Audio Spectrum! Beware that there's a lot of stuff and I hope I can post everything in a single post and I don't have to split things up.
First things first is Wikipedia. Duh everybody can do that, here's the stuff anyway for those who are lazy to look it up. It's obvious that Media Vision went bankrupt, but it was somewhat successful and made some cheaper alternatives for Creative's SoundBlaster cards. They founded the company in 1990 and did business up until 1995is.
Pro Audio Spectrum (1991): 8-bit ISA audio card with CD-ROM interface.
Pro Audio Spectrum Plus: ISA audio card, 8-bit digital sa […] Show full quote
Pro Audio Spectrum (1991):8-bit ISA audio card with CD-ROM interface. Pro Audio Spectrum Plus:ISA audio card, 8-bit digital sampling, 16-bit digital audio playback with CD-ROM interface, Sound Blaster compatibility. Pro Audio Spectrum 16 (May 1992):16-bit ISA card with CD-ROM interface, 16-bit stereo digital audio, stereo FM synthesis, Sound Blaster compatibility; based on the MVD101 chipset. Thunder Board:low-cost 8-bit ISA Sound Blaster compatible sound. Thunder and Lightning:VGA adapter with Sound Blaster compatible sound. Pro Audio Studio 16:enhanced version of the Pro Audio Spectrum 16 sound card, bundled with voice-recognition software and a microphone. Pro Audio 16 Basic:Stripped down version of Pro Audio Spectrum 16, without SCSI interface, the bundled voice recognition software and microphone; based on the MVD101 chipset.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Pro Sonic 16:Based on Media Vision's JAZZ 16 chipset (not compatible with the Pro Audio Spectrum line). Pro 3-D:Based on Media Vision's JAZZ 16 chipset (not compatible with the Pro Audio Spectrum line), with built-in SRS surround sound, and KORG wavetable daughter board.
Interesting links from the same Wikipedia article which lists some more cards. Unfortunately there are some Chinese characters but nothing to worry about. It's just a nice list of cards that Media Vision made during the time. http://www.yjfy.com/Hardware/video/MEDIAvision.htm
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_Vision_Pro_AudioSpectrum
Pro AudioSpectrum 16 with SCSI CD-ROM interface
The Media Vision Pro AudioSpectrum (commonly referred to as "PAS") family of personal computer sound cards included the original 8-bit Pro AudioSpectrum (1991), the 8-bit Pro AudioSpectrum Plus, 16-bit Pro AudioSpectrum 16, Pro AudioSpectrum 16 Basic and 16-bit Pro Audio Studio. All PAS cards with the exception of Pro AudioSpectrum 16 Basic could connect to CD-ROM drives—variants having SCSI or various proprietary interfaces—and many were sold in multimedia kits with compatible CD-ROM drives.
Though the 8-bit Pro AudioSpectrum cards were only modestly successful, the 16 bit-series cards aimed toward semi-professional users and hobby musicians were quite popular. These gave serious competition to the SoundBlaster 16. Most games in the mid 1990s had genuine support for the PAS cards, thus the lack of Sound Blaster Pro and Sound Blaster 16 compatibility was not much of a problem.
Media Vision was the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) of the Logitech SoundMan (also marketed as Pro AudioSpectrum 16 Basic) card, which was compatible with the PAS and could thus use the same drivers.
Digital and FM audio
The 16-bit PAS cards employed a relabeled CODEC chip made by Crystal Semiconductors of Austin, Texas (now p […] Show full quote
Digital and FM audio
The 16-bit PAS cards employed a relabeled CODEC chip made by Crystal Semiconductors of Austin, Texas (now part of Cirrus Logic) for digital audio playback and recording and an AdLib-compatible Yamaha OPL3 FM music synthesizer. The 8-bit versions used different DAC and ADC parts for playback and recording and used dual AdLib-compatible Yamaha OPL2 FM music synthesizers to create stereo sound.
Sound Blaster compatibility
To provide true compatibility with the Sound Blaster's 8-bit playback on its 8-bit Pro AudioSpectrum Plus and 16-bit Pro AudioSpectrum 16, Media Vision included the same sound processor chip it used on its Thunder Board card. Thus, there were actually two digital audio playback devices on these cards that could also be used at the same time. The analog output of each of the two digital audio channels was combined in the on-board analog mixer.
CD-ROM interface
All Pro AudioSpectrum cards included a CD-ROM interface.
Most PAS cards were equipped with a NCR-designed 5380 SCSI controller made by Zilog that boasted a data transfer rate of 690kB/s using PIO (DMA was not supported); though intended for use with CD-ROM drives, these could interface with other SCSI devices with drivers written by Trantor Systems; Windows 95 includes drivers for the PAS SCSI interface and autodetects it as a PAS 16 Trantor SCSI host adaptor.
Other PAS cards included proprietary interfaces to CD-ROM drives they were packaged with. These included drives made by Sony and Matsushita (Panasonic). There was also variant with LMSI controller for LMSI Philips CM205, CM206 CD-ROM drives.
MIDI and game port
Each Pro AudioSpectrum sound card included a MPU401-compatible MIDI and Gameport interface similar to those on Sound Blaster cards.
The Thunder Board was an 8-bit mono personal computer integrated circuit sound card from Media Vision, that had Sound Blaster co […] Show full quote
The Thunder Board was an 8-bit mono personal computer integrated circuit sound card from Media Vision, that had Sound Blaster compatibility at a reduced price. It was widely advertised as “proudly made in the USA”; possibly a reference to the Sound Blaster, manufactured by the competing Singapore-based Creative Technologies.
Other features included: 8 Bit mono record and playback of .VOC files
Yamaha YM3812 OPL2 FM Synth
2 Watt output
Joystick Port
8 Bit ISA bus
Volume Control
Powered Output Jack
Microphone Input Jack
Mediavision Pro Audio Spectrum (PAS) […] Show full quote
Mediavision Pro Audio Spectrum (PAS)
AdLib compatible, no Sound Blaster compatiblity. Requires loading MVSOUND.SYS in CONFIG.SYS for card to work. 8-bit @ 44.1kHz DAC support. SCSI CD-ROM interface. Better noise characteristics than any 8-bit Sound Blaster. Stereo FM using 2 x OPL2 chipsets. There are games from Sierra that support this card for stereo FM music that do not support the Sound Blaster Pro. The MIDI interface has no MPU-401 compatibility.
The PAS can emulate the PC Speaker without having to route the sound from the motherboard. This is weird, however, since there is a header for the analog PC speaker output from the motherboard on the card.
The jumper settings for the original, 8-bit Pro Audio Spectrum are hard to find online and not marked on the circuit board. Look here, which also gives the pinout for the CD Audio input header:
Mediavision Thunderboard
AdLib and Sound Blaster 1.5 compatible clone (no CMS) with a volume wheel. Some games have a Thunderboard install option for better compatibility. Claims dynamic filtering for better output quality. Supposed to be reported as a 2.0, presumably because it supports auto-init DMA as does a SB 1.5 with DSP v2.01. The Thunderboard can disable the FM via jumper to work alongside the PAS and provide Sound Blaster compatibility to the Pro Audio Spectrum. (I assume you can do the same thing on a real Sound Blaster by removing the YM3812 chip.) The PAS16 would use the Thunderboard chipset for Sound Blaster compatibility. Do not use in a Tandy 1000 T/R/SL because the DMA channel cannot be changed or disabled. Interestingly, for a Sound Blaster clone it does not support MIDI output of any kind from the joystick port. Its jumper settings are here:
Twin 9 channel FM synthesis, 8bit DSP, stereo
Created by newly formed Californian based Media Vision. The first Pro AudioSpectrum released in 1991 was an 8 bit stereo card that used two YM3812 chips for FM music and had its own DSP chip. I am pretty sure the DSP chip was stereo but was not Sound Blaster compatible, limiting its appeal. It did however include a SCSI CDROM interface allowing the connection of a then new to market CDROM drive. In this era there were significant savings to have had for buyers who purchased a Pro AudioSpectrum instead of a SoundBlaster Pro with a separate SCSI card.
There is no AudioSpectum emulation in DOSBox.
Pro AudioSpectrum Plus / 16 (PAS) […] Show full quote
Pro AudioSpectrum Plus / 16 (PAS)
18 channel FM synthesis, 16bit 44KHz DSP, stereo
Released in 1992 the PAS 16 supported 16 bit 44KHz playback and 16 bit recording. Because of the built in SCSI CDROM interface, the card would often be bundled with expensive multi-media packages which included a CDROM drive. The 16 bit PAS was price at the same point as Creative’s 8 bit Sound Blaster Pro making it a popular choice for non-gamers.
The PAS Plus and PAS 16 are essentially the same cards for audio playback. They are both backwardly compatible with AdLib, Sound Blaster 1.5 and the original PAS.
There is no AudioSpectum Plus/16 emulation in DOSBox.
MEDIA VISION TECHNOLOGY, INC. 16-BIT AUDIO CARD
MEDIA VISION TECHNOLOGY, INC. 700-1031-11 (SANYO 94S/60)
MEDIA VISION TECHNO […] Show full quote
MEDIA VISION TECHNOLOGY, INC. 16-BIT AUDIO CARD MEDIA VISION TECHNOLOGY, INC. 700-1031-11 (SANYO 94S/60) MEDIA VISION TECHNOLOGY, INC. 700-1113-02 (5302B/152) MEDIA VISION TECHNOLOGY, INC. 700-1127-01 (SA254S/111) MEDIA VISION TECHNOLOGY, INC. 700-1166-01 (94A/66) MEDIA VISION TECHNOLOGY, INC. 700-1169-01 (SA94S/87) MEDIA VISION TECHNOLOGY, INC. DELUXE SOUND BOARD (650-0123-01) MEDIA VISION TECHNOLOGY, INC. DELUXE SOUND CARD MEDIA VISION TECHNOLOGY, INC. DOUBLE FUSION LX LSMI (650-0082-03) MEDIA VISION TECHNOLOGY, INC. FUSION CD 16 MEDIA VISION TECHNOLOGY, INC. FUSION CD16 REV. D (650-0032-01) MEDIA VISION TECHNOLOGY, INC. FUSION CD16 S/E LMSI (650-0042-01) MEDIA VISION TECHNOLOGY, INC. GETTING STARTED(SANYO 94A/123) MEDIA VISION TECHNOLOGY, INC. GUIDE PREMIUM 3D MCD MEDIA VISION TECHNOLOGY, INC. MEMPHIS MEDIA VISION TECHNOLOGY, INC. MM DBL CD-16 PHILLIPS 206 MEDIA VISION TECHNOLOGY, INC. MV 4000 PREMIUM 3D SCSI 2 (650-0111-01) MEDIA VISION TECHNOLOGY, INC. PREMIUM 3D MULTI CD (650-0090-05) MEDIA VISION TECHNOLOGY, INC. PRO 16 CD III MEDIA VISION TECHNOLOGY, INC. PRO AUDIO SPECTRUM 16 (700-0271) MEDIA VISION TECHNOLOGY, INC. PRO AUDIO SPECTRUM 16 BASIC (650-0053-52) MEDIA VISION TECHNOLOGY, INC. PRO AUDIO SPECTRUM 16 REV.C (650-0022-01) MEDIA VISION TECHNOLOGY, INC. PRO AUDIO SPECTRUM 16 REV.D (650-0097-05) MEDIA VISION TECHNOLOGY, INC. PRO AUDIO SPECTRUM REV.D (650-0044-01) MEDIA VISION TECHNOLOGY, INC. PRO AUDIO STUDIO 16 (650-0060-02) MEDIA VISION TECHNOLOGY, INC. PRO AUDIO STUDIO 16 (650-0091-03) MEDIA VISION TECHNOLOGY, INC. PRO AUDIO WAVEREADY 16 MEDIA VISION TECHNOLOGY, INC. PRO AUDIO WAVETABLE (650-0152-51), PRO AUDIO WAVETABLE IDE (650-0154-52) MEDIA VISION TECHNOLOGY, INC. PRO AUDIO WAVETABLE 32 MEDIA VISION TECHNOLOGY, INC. PRO AUDIO WAVETABLE SCSI MEDIA VISION TECHNOLOGY, INC. PRO AUDIOSPECTRUM PLUS MEDIA VISION TECHNOLOGY, INC. PRO SONIC 16 (650-0066-02) MEDIA VISION TECHNOLOGY, INC. PRO SONIC 16 FD-SCSI (650-0087-03) MEDIA VISION TECHNOLOGY, INC. PRO SONIC 16 PANASONIC (650-0066-04) MEDIA VISION TECHNOLOGY, INC. SPECTRUM 16 (700-0171-02)
PRO AUDIO SPECTRUM REV.D (650-0044-01)
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ http://nsd.dyndns.org/pas16/
The Pro Audio Spectrum 16 (pas16) is an obsolete ISA non-Pnp audio card produced by Media Vision, a company that went down in fl […] Show full quote
The Pro Audio Spectrum 16 (pas16) is an obsolete ISA non-Pnp audio card produced by Media Vision, a company that went down in flames after the CEO was discovered cooking the books. That said, I own one and the sound quality is quite nice. And when I wanted to use it (in place of a PoC SBPro; 8bit+22Khz max? feh!) I could not find documentation online about the jumper settings. Hence what follows.
Pro Audio Spectrum 16 jumpers
There appears to be more than one board labeled "PAS16" out there. This diagram does not match my board at all, but maybe it matches yours. My board has a much smaller cdrom connector than the 50-pin scsi connector that that site shows, and the silkscreen reads "(c)1993 PRO AUDIO 16 LMSI 650-0082-03-A FCC ID: IXW-LMSI2". My board is a full length 16-bit ISA card, and there is a depopulated 20-pin J2 at the top edge of the board. On top of that some diagrams in my manual are obviously mislabeled.
The native sound portion of the PAS16 is based at I/O address 0x388 and uses IRQ 10, DMA 3.
The sound blaster compatability circuitry uses IRQ 5, DMA 1, and is based at 0x220, like the default sound blaster settings.
This is John Neary's website. He was employee #42 at Media Vision. Has some neat images of the cards that the company did, and maybe he can provide us some further more information. You will find Mr. Neary's email address on the bottom of the page on his website.
In October of 1991,I joined a company called Media Vison Incorporated. This page is a partial history of the company as I watched it grow and then fold. When I joined the company, I was employee #42 and the company eventually reached to almost 500 employees at its high point. When I left, there were a little over 200 employees left and dwindling FAST!
Also I found some neat discussion on the QuestStudios forums that is related somewhat with the topic that Mau1wurf1977 started here on VOGONS.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
There are some Linux related stuff too on kernel.org and other websites that provide some information about the Pro Audio Spectrum cards. I'm not sure if these are useful, but it's worth take a look I guess. The Linux kernel has support for the Pro Audio Spectrum 16, Studio 16 and Logitech SoundMan 16 cards, however not the original Pro Audio Spectrum or the Pro Audio Spectrum Plus cards. So we have some source code now.
Here are some books that could be useful, especially the second one. It may include some technical documentation, but I'm not sure. There's no digital copies out there that we can obtain.
The Official handbook on the Pro AudioSpectrum line of sound cards. Comprehensive coverage ranges from installation basics to getting the most from sound manipulation techniques. The reader should learn to use the entire MediaVision family of sound products including the latest. Hot new tricks are revealed, using the software bundled with the MediaVision sound cards. Details on accessories such as speakers, CD-ROMS and joy-sticks are included, as well as a disk packed with music, sound effects and multimedia utilities for Dos and Windows.
These are just some drivers and utilities. Nothing special, but might be useful. Maybe they can be reversed.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
And last but not least some more utilities, drivers, SDK (at least tree of them and they are even bigger than the one already in this topic). This is the most valuable archive that I have and found. It even has FAQs, support emails, reviews, software support list and more. Check them out, because I'm not going trough all of the archives... 🤣!
That's all I have guys! Sorry for the humongous post. Have a very nice day!
Edit: Sorry for my crappy English skills! If you find some grammar or other errors I apologize for that.
You are welcome! I'm not sure that all these information is enough, or what to look for so I just included what I think it could be useful for a knowledgeable person who understands source code and how things work. We have some source code, but it might be difficult to understand if they are not commented properly. It's old code, and old card. I was pretty much amazed how the internal 3dfx emulation was done by kekko.
The Pro Audio Spectrum 16 cards shouldn't be hard to do, we just need a volunteer and a bunch of time of course. I wish a lot of luck to the person who would implement the stuff. If it's hard or a waste of time just don't bother coding it, just concentrate on other more important things.
I fear the issue with the PAS is that there has been no true "need" to implement it, there is little documentation of how the underlying hardware works and it uses a boatload of I/O ports. Its not like there are games that will suddenly fly out and sing by choosing this option.
There are a few games that, only with PAS or PAS 16, will offer Stereo FM Music. But having said that, most of these game support the MT-32 anyway. Space Quest 4 and Police Quest 3 for example.
Referring to the Pro AudioSpectrum cards as "Sound Blaster clones" is a bit disingenuous, especially as far as the PCM and Mixer support is concerned. In any event, and despite being a pretty big Media Vision aficionado myself, I happen to agree with Great Hierophant in that there is simply no known reason to emulate the PAS/16. Other than one or two Dynamix titles, I'm not aware of any stereo FM support that can't be (or hasn't already been) extended to other, stereo-supporting sound cards at the driver level.
I'd hate to deter anyone though...
I have complete SDKs for the Pro AudioSpectrum/16 and Thunder Board cards, including the technical reference documentation for both. There are a few hundred pages that need to be scanned, but it's been on my list of things to do for some time, and this renewed interest may serve as an impetus to get started...
I have complete SDKs for the Pro AudioSpectrum/16 and Thunder Board cards, including the technical reference documentation for both. There are a few hundred pages that need to be scanned, but it's been on my list of things to do for some time, and this renewed interest may serve as an impetus to get started...
Wow! That's awesome to know that someone has some valuable information about the most important cards. The #1 priority is the original Pro AudioSpectrum, because that card is not SoundBlaster compatible. The rest of these are not as important than the first card! Would be nice if we could get hold of the technical documentation, simply because it's rare and hard to come by. Media Vision is defunct so I don't see any problem.
Also I can't agree that only a few games are supported. MobyGames lists a bunch of games that have Pro AudioSpectrum support. Here are some of the games that do...
Also you can find in the PROAUDIO.ZIP archive a file called PAS-SSL that has some stuff too. I fixed the formatting, and made some corrections. Please note that it's not a complete list but it's worth something.
And lo, another six months later, I've finally gotten around to scanning the Thunder Board Programmer's Reference. I'm linking to a version converted by Jim Leonard to include a searchable-text layer (because my version of Acrobat is, uh... deficient), hosted on his FTP server:
Unlike the PAS SDK, there is no accompanying software for the Thunder Board.
The Thunder Board was released in July of 1991, and was designed to compete with, and was superior to, Creative's then-current Sound Blaster 1.5 w/DSP 2.00. The Sound Blaster 2.0 was released several months later, featuring the 2.01 DSP with "high-speed," 44kHz playback functionality, thereby leapfrogging the Thunder Board's playback capabilities. (I like to think that, without Media Vision, Creative wouldn't have bothered to innovate at all, with this being yet another example. Any-hoo...)
The Thunder Board programmer's reference was written in June of 1992. In August of 1992, Media Vision licensed the 2.01 DSP "code" from Creative as part of a lawsuit settlement, and while this made it onto several of the PAS16 variants in the form of the MVD201 chip, I'm not sure if a 2.01-compatible "ESP" was ever featured on a Thunder Board proper.
Finally, it's worth mentioning that the Thunder Board was designed in such a way as to complement the original, 8-bit Pro AudioSpectrum, with the owner's manual going so far as to cover installing them both together.
Sid Meier's Civilization had a patch released April 14, 1994 which adds support for some additional sound cards, including Pro Audio Spectrum. This file was downloaded from the Microprose BBS.
EDIT: Just tested and selected "Sound Blaster 2 / Pro" and it gave me stereo sound, so I guess this isn't PAS specific after all.
New sound drivers for Civilization […] Show full quote
New sound drivers for Civilization
Due to the continued popularity of MicroProse's best seller, Civilization, your friends in the MPS Sound Department have created new sound drivers to support the latest sound cards.
Support is added for all OPL-3 based FM cards (Pro Audio Spectrum Plus, 16, Studio; Sound Blaster Pro, 16, 16ASP, AWE32; AdLib/Cardinal Gold; Microsoft Windows Sound System; and all compatibles) and for any General MIDI card or external synth via a standard MPU-401 type MIDI interface. The General MIDI driver is optimized for the Roland SCC-1, but works well on any GM device.
...
I do not hear much of a difference between PAS and ATI. ATI Stereo F/X uses some stereo enhancements. Sounds richer than SB 2.0.
Any game making real use of the additional OPL2?