VOGONS


First post, by popfuture

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Hello, everyone. I read the following thread recently (about a portable computer for DOS gaming):

Portable x86 Device (size of PSP) to play MS-DOS games natively

So I decided to get a Toshiba Libretto for some classic gaming on the go. Well the libretto works great with its hardware-level Soundblaster Pro capabilities. I am enjoying Star Trek 25th Anniversary on it with awesome FM synth goodness.

However, I also have this Roland SCP-55 PCMCIA sound card that I want to try. I can't get it to recognize in DOS, though. CONFIG.SYS loads the SCPENA.EXE driver but gives an error saying initialization failed or something like that. It also gives the exact same error if the card isn't in the machine. After much Googling, I finally figured out that, in DOS, a PCMCIA card requires more to get working than just the driver that comes with it. It also needs a "point enabler" or "socket service" driver such as CardSoft or CardWizard. I finally found a couple of these online, but neither one include any documentation.

I was wondering if anyone who has installed a Roland SCP-55 in a Toshiba Libretto could point me to a guide or something that could help. I know there are at least two of you out there. Does the SCP-55 driver need SCPENA.EXE in the CONFIG.SYS in order to work in Windows 98? The Roland readme told me to use the DOS install program which puts SCPENA.EXE in the CONFIG.SYS, but this doesn't make sense to me. If Windows 98 has it's own PCMCIA drivers, why would the DOS driver be needed, and if I install CardSoft in DOS, won't this interfere with Windows 98's CardSoft Drivers?

Could someone who has done this before please shed some light to help a fellow gamer find his way?

popfuture

Reply 1 of 12, by Mau1wurf1977

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There was a user here who wrote a post about several PCMCIA sound cards. Try looking for previous posts and get in touch with him!

My website with reviews, demos, drivers, tutorials and more...
My YouTube channel

Reply 3 of 12, by Menkau_ra

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I don't reember how I did my installation on SCP-55 on Libretto. But I did't use any 3rd party card services drivers, Libretto supports it on hardware level, I think.
Try to install it on fresh Win98. I recommend you to turn off SB in the BIOS before reinstalling Win98, so H330 port woud be free. Turn it on after you finnishing with SCP-55.

Reply 4 of 12, by Mau1wurf1977

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Here is the thread I talked about: PCMCIA Sound Cards

I suggest you contact the poster as he seems to know about this topic!

My website with reviews, demos, drivers, tutorials and more...
My YouTube channel

Reply 5 of 12, by lolo799

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Socket services/Card Services and scpena.exe are only for DOS/Win3.x.
For using the SCP-55 in Win9x, use the driver found at
http://www.rolandus.com/support/downloads_upd … eneral_apps.php

Reply 6 of 12, by popfuture

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lolo799,

Thank you for that link! The only driver I could find on Roland's site was the one I already had. I had the dos/win3.1 driver. I thought the driver was for both dos and win95. I remember other cards where you had to use the win3.1 driver in win95 just to make it work.

Now I'm getting great sounding music on my Toshiba Libretto! What a great forum this is.

Of course now in the back of my mind I'm thinking, this card can work in DOS, eh? So now I gotta fight the urge to try and make it work in DOS, an endeavor I know would take a lot of effort, possibly fail, or provide very little reward, when really I can just open up DOS from Windows 98 and get the same result. Sigh.

Still though, it's so fun to tinker around. If I didn't like the challenge I'd probably be using DOSBox. I'm addicted to making life hard (but fun) for myself.

Jaymes

Reply 7 of 12, by lolo799

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Making it work in DOS is not that difficult, if you have the system services/card services files copied on your libretto, edit your config.sys and add the following:
(Each executable starting with "SS" is a Socket Services driver for a particular controller, I don't know wich one your libretto has, so try them one at a time to find out wich is the one you need).

device=c:\cardsoft\SS365LP.EXE rem device=c:\cardsoft\SS365SL.EXE rem device=c:\cardsoft\SSCIRRUS.EXE rem device=c:\cardsoft\SSD […]
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device=c:\cardsoft\SS365LP.EXE
rem device=c:\cardsoft\SS365SL.EXE
rem device=c:\cardsoft\SSCIRRUS.EXE
rem device=c:\cardsoft\SSDBOOK.EXE
rem device=c:\cardsoft\SSIBM720.EXE
rem device=c:\cardsoft\SSVADEM.EXE
rem device=c:\cardsoft\SSVLSI.EXE
device=c:\cardsoft\CS.EXE
device=c:\cardsoft\CSALLOC.EXE c:\cardsoft\CSALLOC.INI

After each config.sys modification, restart your libretto and press F8 when "loading Windows 98..." appears then choose option °5 wich should be commandline only or something similar.
If the SystemServices driver give you an error message, try another one.
("rem" in front of a line turn it into a comment, so delete those characters when you want the line to be executed at boot.)
If you use EMM386 in DOS for some software, you'll have some extra stuff to edit...

Reply 9 of 12, by popfuture

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It worked!

For anyone who may be wondering,

device=c:\cardsoft\SS365SL.EXE

is the correct DOS PCMCIA driver for the Toshiba Libretto 110ct.

I was not able to get EMM386.EXE working, but I didn't try that long, or spend any time Googling about it. Star Trek doesn't require it either.

When I bought the Roland SCP-55 I did so with the assumption that it it requires Windows 3.1 or 95 and wouldn't work in plain DOS. That's what I thought I understood from reading various threads about it. This little experiment disproves that though. It's working quite well. It seems that the SCP-55 is way cooler than I originally thought.

Thanks for the insight. You can't even get paid support this good these days. 😀

Reply 10 of 12, by jmrydholm

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That's awesome, I've never seen such a tiny Sound Canvas! I have the full size SC-55 (mk I) but it was always small enough for me to lug around with my netbook. I basically use the Roland as a stand and hang the vent over the corner so it holds the laptop up from the table. Then I just stick a usb-midi cable on it.

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Reply 11 of 12, by Ariakos

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Sorry for necroing the topic but I recently acquired the SCP-55 and eagerly tried to install it in my IBM Thinkpad 600E. I just thought to share some insights I achieved from the process. First of all, Win95 was no-go with Thinkpad 600E for me. I couldn't get PCMCIA drivers to work in Win95 or in it's DOS mode (although later I got it to work in Win98 pure DOS mode so in that sense Win95 could work also).

Windows
Win98SE recognized the Thinkpad PCMCIA drivers natively but SCP-55 needed it's own driver. As soon as I installed Win95 SCP-55 drivers provided by IBM the SCP-55 was recognized in Win98 and it worked just fine. I could even start DOS games from Win98 GUI and the General MIDI worked in Windows.

DOS
Native DOS was a tougher nut to crack. First I edited msdos.sys so I could boot straight to DOS every time I turn on the laptop. Then I installed Cardsoft PCMCIA drivers for DOS/Win3.1 through floppy disk. Again I used the official drivers from IBM so the SS (Socket Service) in the package was correct one for my Thinkpad 600E. The same Cardsoft drivers apply to vast number of Thinkpads (380XD, 385XD, 380Z, 560X, 560Z, 600, 600E, 600X, 770, 770E, 770ED, 770X, 770Z) so I believe these instructions apply to those models also.

After installing the Cardsoft drivers and Roland SCP-55 DOS drivers I fiddled with the config.sys and found out I need only these files in config.sys to get PCMCIA and SCP-55 to work in Thinkpad:

DEVICEHIGH=C:\CARDSOFT\CARDXTND.SYS
DEVICEHIGH=C:\CARDSOFT\SSCBTI.SYS /numada:1 /ada1skts:2
DEVICE=C:\CARDSOFT\CS.SYS (I couldn't get this to load in upper memory)
DEVICEHIGH=C:\CARDSOFT\CSALLOC.EXE
DEVICEHIGH=C:\SCP\SCPENA.EXE (this is the SCP-55 enabler)

I deleted everything else Cardsoft installer added to config.sys. Or actually I put REM before those lines so config.sys only ignores them (just in case I later need them for something).

I even got my SCP-55 to work with EMM386.EXE. Here's the line I used:

DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\EMM386.EXE NOEMS X=D000-D7FF

After that SCPENA.EXE finally got proper port and IRQ for SCP-55 even with EMM386. In the end I put everything I could to upper memory and got 609kb free lower memory with the EMM386 loaded. Not bad.