VOGONS


Reply 20 of 33, by sklawz

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retro games 100 wrote:
sklawz, Please can you tell me how to connect to that FTP site? I tried the following actions: […]
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sklawz, Please can you tell me how to connect to that FTP site? I tried the following actions:

1. I launched Total Commander, an FTP program
2. Inside TC, I clicked on the "Net" drop down menu, and then selected the "FTP New connection" option.
3. Inside the FTP "Connect to" user input field, I typed in 89.179.18.66, then clicked the OK button.

For the Connect to (host or URL) user input field, do I just enter 89.179.18.66? When I click on OK, I get a No response / timeout error message. Thanks a lot for any help on this.

Edit: Partially solved. Instead of entering in 89.179.18.66, I entered in

ftp://89.179.18.66:/oldftp/DRV&BIOS

And that worked, but only once. I left both password boxes blank, and just clicked OK for them. Also, the FTP directory folder area was blank when the connection succeeded. To get around that, I clicked on the .. button. Now I can see some folders to navigate. However, this method seems "hit and miss", because I tried this sequence of actions again, and I can't see any folders to navigate any more.

Edit 2: The problems I am having above may be because the FTP is either slow or unreliable or both. I waited a minute, and tried to refresh the FTP folders area so that I could see some folders to navigate, and that worked. I can now see and navigate the FTP folders.

Edit 3: Do I have to include Total Commander as an "exception", inside Windows firewall? Currently, I have no exceptions allowed.

Edit 4: After many attempts at connecting to this FTP site, and trying to navigate around the folders, I was finally able to download a file. I picked one at random. I was Video/Hercules/Disk1. I scanned the downloaded file called DISK1.ZIP with Avast, and according to this scanner, it contains a virus! The threat reported is Win32:CIH-C.

Hi.

I used LFTP which is a command line client. in windows you
have a similar application called FTP in a command box. however,
it may not support passive mode of operation which you may need
if your router doesn't support regular ftp port triggering. it's
been a long time but i believe the two favourite windows clients
were cuteftp and WSftp many years ago.

no doubt you need to be cautious when using any FTP site or any
web site for that matter and I cannot vouch for anything outside
of my own control. btw, i logged in but couldn't find the file
you are referring to.

cya!

Reply 21 of 33, by keropi

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@retro games 100:
use FlashFXP for windows, it is maybe the best ftp client for them... alternatively get FilleZilla which is free...

🎵 🎧 PCMIDI MPU , OrpheusII , Action Rewind , Megacard and 🎶GoldLib soundcard website

Reply 23 of 33, by retro games 100

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gwb wrote:

Thanks so much for the help guys, I really appreciate it. Great community indeed! 😀

I definitely 2nd that, thanks everyone.

Oops, regarding my "edit 4" made in a post above, I made a mistake. The Disk1 file I mentioned was found inside the N_NINE folder, and not the Hercules folder. Sorry about that.

Reply 24 of 33, by Great Hierophant

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Sorry to resurrect an old post, but I found a very similar-looking Packard Bell card as shown in the original post, recently. After peeling back the Packard Bell labels, I discovered the AZT1605 chip, and this card is identical for all intents and purposes to the Aztech Labs Sound Galaxy Nova Pro16 Extra, which is a Windows Sound System card with SB 2.0 compatibility. The card reports a 2.02 DSP. However, there is a Yamaha YMF-262 OPL3 chip on the board, whereas a true Sound Blaster 2.0 has a Yamaha YM-3812 OPL2 chip and sockets for a pair of SAA-1099 Game Blaster chips. MIDI and mixing presumably are handled by the CS4231 WSS chip. The gameport may not be speed sensitive.

Interestingly, this card has a jumper to set the IRQ and DMA settings either by software or EEPROM. Sound Blaster I/O is set by jumpers. Unfortunately, I do not know of any DOS software or drivers that will allow you to change the settings or write to the EEPROM, it seems only the Windows drivers can accomplish this. Fortunately, the card was already set to IRQ5 and DMA1. The card is mainly an 8-bit card that uses the 16-bit connector for high IRQ/DMAs and one data pin (probably to program the EEPROM).

http://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/ - Nerdly Pleasures - My Retro Gaming, Computing & Tech Blog

Reply 25 of 33, by NJRoadfan

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It might use the "EASYSTAR.EXE" program (or something similar) that the PB Sound144 card used to set hardware resources. Complete drivers for most of these PB/Aztech cards can be found on old Master CDs the machines shipped with. I'll check mine tonight.

Reply 26 of 33, by MatureTech

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Aztech cards can be unambiguously identified by FCC-ID using this list from Aztech.

I have a NOV16E. There is a DOS configurator, HWSET.EXE, but it is buried inside of the Windows driver bundle. Storing settings to EEPROM did nothing in particular, but running HWSET in AUTOEXEC is enough.

Mixer Control and Hardware Configuration Setting, Version 1.0
Copyright (c) 1993, AZI Labs. All rights reserved.

Command Line Format: HWSET /[S|?] [/MR] [/MS] [/option:value ...]

**** Miscellaneous Setting ****
/S or /? Simplified single screen help message
/MR Reset to factory defaults
/MS Store settings to EEPROM

**** Sound Card Mixer Volume Control ****
/VV:L,R Set Sound Blaster Voice Volume (L = 0 -- 16, R = 0 -- 16)
/VF:L,R Set FM/WaveTable Volume (L = 0 -- 16, R = 0 -- 16)
/VL:L,R Set Line-In/CD Volume (L = 0 -- 16, R = 0 -- 16)
/VM:X Set Microphone Volume (X = 0 -- 16)
/VX:L,R Set Master Volume (L = 0 -- 16, R = 0 -- 16)

**** Sound Card Hardware Address Setting ****
/SBA:X Set Sound Blaster Port Address (X = 220*, 240)
/MPUA:X Set MPU401 Port Address (X = 300, 330*)
/MSSA:X Set MSS Port Address (X = 530*, 604, E80, F40)

**** MITSUMI/SONY DMA Channel Setting ****
/CDDMA:X Set Mitsumi/Sony DMA Channel (X = 0, 3, D -- Disable*)

**** Sound Card Interrupt Setting ****
/SBIRQ:X Set Sound Blaster Interrupt (X = 2, 3, 5*, 7)
/MPUIRQ:X Set MPU401 Interrupt (X = 2*, 3, 5, 7)
/CDIRQ:X Set CD-ROM Interrupt (X = 11, 12, 15, N -- None*)

**** Sound Card CD, Game Port and Sound System Setting ****
/CD:X Set CD (X = M -- Mitsumi/Sony/Aztech, P -- Panasonic,
E -- All Enable*, D -- All Disable)
/GPA:X Set Game Port Status (X = D -- Disable, E -- Enable*)
/MSS:X Set MSS Status (X = D -- Disable, E -- Enable*)
/MPU:X Set MPU401 Status (X = D -- Disable, E -- Enable*)

Props to Aztech for keeping drivers on the net. Has anyone seen original specs for this card anywhere, such an Aztech data sheet that specifies SB 2.0 compatibility?

ISA go Bragh™

Reply 27 of 33, by Lunar07

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Back to this old thread if anyone is readng.
In the photo provided. What are the two headers on top and bottom?
Is the one on top a wave blaster header?
How about one at bottom?

ProfessorProfessorson wrote:
Posting a pic of the card below. Trying to get info on it, and drivers for Dos through Win98. Any help would be greatly apprecia […]
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Posting a pic of the card below. Trying to get info on it, and drivers for Dos through Win98. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.
crystalcard.jpg

Reply 28 of 33, by gerwin

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If you look at CHiLL72s website, you find two fitting Aztech Midi Daughterboards:
Pretty sure the 26-pin header is an ordinary Waveblaster Header.
The CS9233-based Daughterboard seems to connect the larger header 'EXPCON' physically, but not electrically.
The Wavefront-based Daughterboard connects it electrically though. Maybe to upload samples?

--> ISA Soundcard Overview // Doom MBF 2.04 // SetMul

Reply 29 of 33, by Windows9566

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I have a sound card like that and i don't like it, not one bit, i would like to replace it with a soundblaster 16 or soundblaster awe32, I can play Commander Keen 4: Secret of the oracle, fine, but with Wolf3D with digitized sounds, it freezes out of nowhere, i have to press the restart button to reboot. 😠 In other games like epic pinball, the music and sounds are high pitched. and it has serious issues with windows 3x like it won't play midi 😠 . and BTW my pc that im talking about is a Packard Bell Legend Supreme 1600 from 1997
Packard Bell Specs:
133 mhz Pentium CPU
32 mb edo ram
2 gb seagate ide hard drive
16mb nvidia riva tnt pci video card

R5 5600X, 32 GB RAM, RTX 3060 TI, Win11
P3 600, 256 MB RAM, nVidia Riva TNT2 M64, SB Vibra 16S, Win98
PMMX 200, 128 MB RAM, S3 Virge DX, Yamaha YMF719, Win95
486DX2 66, 32 MB RAM, Trident TGUI9440, ESS ES688F, DOS

Reply 30 of 33, by orcish75

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Aztech cards are a bit of a mystery for their time period, especially in DOS. They have such good qualities and such bad qualities at the same time. When playing 16 bit DirectX audio in Win 9x, such as Diablo and Starcraft or MP3s with Winamp, they almost have no equal. They have an extremely good signal to noise ratio, with practically no background noise/hum to speak of. There's no hanging notes bug with wavetable cards and works very well with SoftMPU if you have a Roland MT32 or similar. It has a genuine Yamaha YMF-262 OPL3 synthesizer chip,which also sounds really crisp and clear. However, when you use the Soundblaster or Soundblaster Pro mode in DOS, things start to change. The PCM audio in 8 bit mode just somehow sounds bad. It's not distorted per say, but just has an unclear, almost scratchy sound to it. The best example I can think of is comparing the Emperor's voice in the Dune 2 intro with for example a sound card that has the Crystal CS4232 Codec. The CS4232 sounds really clear and precise, while the Aztech sounds muffled and scratchy.

The mixer for the OPL3/wavetable header is also really messed up in DOS. It's really loud, then loud, then a tiny bit less loud and then suddenly nothing when the mixer is at zero. It doesn't scale nearly as well as all the other volume controls. It's such a pity, because if Aztech sorted out these minor problems, they could've had an almost perfect DOS era soundcard, way better than most of the Creative stuff. The Turtle Beach Tropez Plus is still by far the best DOS soundcard I've ever come across.

Reply 31 of 33, by jesolo

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It would probably depend which Aztech model you have. There were a number of Aztech generation sound cards, utilizing different chipsets.
My favourites are:

  • the first generation (has support for Disney Sound Source/Covox Speech Thing as well) but doesn't have an MPU-401 interface (UART) and is also a bit noisy
  • the 3rd generation utilizing the AZT2316/A/R chipset (this is still a non Plug 'n Play sound card).

I'm not a fan myself of the second generation sound cards (utilizing the AZT1605 chipset) since they don't support Sound Blaster Pro (digitized sound) but, does have the Yamaha OPL3 for stereo FM synthesis.
However, I only utilize my Aztech cards in my older PC's (386/486) and use my Sound Blaster 16-bit based sound cards in my faster DOS PC's since most games from that era did support Sound Blaster 16/AWE32 and would therefore offer better sound playback at a higher sampling rate.

Reply 33 of 33, by Stiletto

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Speaking as a mod, for VOGONS a necropost of a year is reasonably tolerable. There's no straight rules on this, and moderators vary.

I've seen some crazy 12-year necroposting going on recently, those new posts get split and the old threads locked pretty much mandatory (and the posters get warnings and public shaming 😁 ). This, not so much.

"I see a little silhouette-o of a man, Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you
do the Fandango!" - Queen

Stiletto