I'm yet to get an XT system working (still missing a keyboard), but here are my two cents:

- I've seen collectors selling XT systems with an ES1868F card. AFAIK that card has been known for quite some time to be a cheap option for XT;
- there are many different flavors of ESS, not just ES1868F. ES688F isn't PnP. Also there is ES488F which is used mostly in 8-bit card.

WSS stuff should be completely doable on 8bit slots too since 16bit DMA is not used either and it is much more supported in various sound cards than SB16 compatibility. Yamaha YMF71x cards should be perfectly usable with my SETYMF software (original software needs 386+ while mine should work on 8088/6, it certainly does on 286).
I could provide some source code to show how to get WSS make sound if needed.

My vote also goes for WSS. Even though I like the CT17xx series of SB16s, WSS was a good codec (can do 48KHz, which is a multiple of the popular 8KHz sampling rate).
And I reallly hope it gets more attention in general, especially in emulators. Being able to use Windows Sound System on Windows 3.x/9x in DOSBox/PCem etc. would be cool.
Especially if you take classic MOD players into account. A sampling rate of 48KHz would come in handy.
Just think of trackers that support both samples and OPL2/3 (~49KHz). 😁

How many 8086/88s would make use of WSS?

Non-PnP ES688/ES1688/ES1868 cards use the 16 bit bus only for the Wavetable and IDE controllers IIRC so they should work fine on an 8-bit bus. For PnP versions of these you will probably not be able to initialize them, so you may have to make them work at their default IRQ and DMA (usually IRQ5 and DMA1) which is not ideal for most XT era DOS games that look for the hardware on IRQ7.

Windows Sound system does not support Adlib, so This is indeed quite useless on XT.

I have an ES1869F, this is the chip for witch I found the most complete datasheet.

FreddyV wrote on 2020-01-10, 10:26:

Windows Sound system does not support Adlib

Really?
I have one PC with onboard WSS-compatible sound (I think AD1846+OPL3), and had no problems with software set for Adlib.
Sound Blaster emulation is problematic, eg. no SFX in Doom, but FM music plays OK.

Also, have anybody tried playing CD-quality sound on the original PC platform, ie. 8088@4.77MHz?
Of course, I don't expect it playing off the original MFM HDD, but with some modern(ish) storage, it should be possible...

Does Adlib even require WSS? Or any driver framework whatsoever? Or even a driver of any kind at all? Regardless of whether you have WSS or not anything you send to 388h should outright play?

I used several Vibra Cards on XT, at least FM is working fine.

Grzyb wrote on 2020-01-10, 10:58:

Really?
I have one PC with onboard WSS-compatible sound (I think AD1846+OPL3), and had no problems with software set for Adlib.
Sound Blaster emulation is problematic, eg. no SFX in Doom, but FM music plays OK.

Yes, because the OPL3 does Adlib.

The WSS specs are actually a bit weird. The WSS reference design used the AD1848, which is the WSS codec only. However, the WSS specs state that it must be accompanied by an OPL3. So both of you are correct. The WSS codec can't do Adlib, but any soundcard based on the WSS specs can.

I remember seeing a thread over at vcfed.org about this, I think a surprising number of 16bit soundcards work but there are a lot of variables. I think people even had luck using 16bit isa cards in 8bit isa slots occasionally because it seems that most sound cards use the 16bit portion to support onboard ide/scsi. In some cases the issue was with the sound card drivers - the install or PNP configuration programs required 286 instructions. Even then people had some success using NEC 20/30 replacement cpu's since those support some 286 instructions.

The biggest variable might be what XT system you are using.

appiah4 wrote on 2020-01-10, 09:51:

For PnP versions of these you will probably not be able to initialize them, so you may have to make them work at their default IRQ and DMA (usually IRQ5 and DMA1) which is not ideal for most XT era DOS games that look for the hardware on IRQ7.

That's often not the case; most ISA Plug and Play audio ICs feature at least one configuration bypass mechanism that allows the chip to be configured without a Plug and Play BIOS or configuration manager. Furthermore, a number of them were specifically designed for operation in either an 8- or 16-bit slot. In some cases, it may be necessary to write your own initialisation tools, but it generally is possible. I don't have any non-PnP systems, but I'd be willing to bet that I could convince the ARGUS and maybe even the keropi/Marmes Orpheus card to work on such hardware.

I believe the fear in using IRQ5 lies within the "strangeness" of the XT architecture: The MFM/RLL controller cards were often using IRQ5..
So there's the fear that using any other device on IRQ5, too, could cause data corruption or any other "damage".

Grzyb wrote on 2020-01-10, 10:58:

Also, have anybody tried playing CD-quality sound on the original PC platform, ie. 8088@4.77MHz?
Of course, I don't expect it playing off the original MFM HDD, but with some modern(ish) storage, it should be possible...

Yes, me 😀 Mod Mater can play 16 bit Samples on the Gravis UltraSound.

FreddyV wrote on 2020-01-11, 21:09:

Yes, me 😀 Mod Mater can play 16 bit Samples on the Gravis UltraSound.

I'm more interested in playing 44100 Hz, 16-bit, stereo WAV files of any length.
Reading 176 KB/s of data from the disk, and then pushing it to the sound card looks pretty hard, but not impossible.

wasnt playing wav over gus extra cpu intensive?
would this become any easier if the cdrom was attached to sound integrated ide? or maybe scsi is the way to go?
cdroms on such old machines will often play cdaudio without software support - hence 0% cpu usage might be possible?
whats the use of playing huge files from hd if i may be so nosy?

mrau wrote on 2020-01-12, 05:02:

wasnt playing wav over gus extra cpu intensive?

I think it was.
So I don't insist on using GUS here, I accept any card that can play 16-bit samples via 8-bit ISA.

would this become any easier if the cdrom was attached to sound integrated ide? or maybe scsi is the way to go?
cdroms on such old machines will often play cdaudio without software support - hence 0% cpu usage might be possible?

Playing CD audio tracks is not a problem, indeed.
Playing files of the same quality is a challenge - and probably hasn't been done yet.

whats the use of playing huge files from hd if i may be so nosy?

As I already stated - I don't expect playing CD-quality sound files off vintage MFM HDDs.
I expect doing it off later media, like IDE, SCSI, CF, or from a network share.

MFM HDDs are fast enough for this task, but only with a controller capable of 1:1 or 2:1 interleave - and finding such a controller for XT may be impossible.

FreddyV wrote on 2020-01-10, 10:26:

Windows Sound system does not support Adlib, so This is indeed quite useless on XT.

There is a mess with terms 'WSS', one being a standard, the other being the self-titled sound card. WSS as a standard only supports PCM audio. It has nothing to do with Adlib.

However, the original Microsoft Windows Sound System card does support Adlib, as it has an YMF262-M chip onboard. Every WSS-compatible card I know of does support Adlib this way or another.

Ah yes, I've got that card, too. I've always seen it as the reference card (or some sort of prototype card) of the WSS standard.
Of couse, the WSS card also has an OPL chip installed, just like any PC sound card of its time (even the Sound Master got it later on!).
Except of (for ?) the mighty ol' Gravis Ultrasound (you oddball card, you! 😁).
If memory serves, there also was a WSS 2 standard and optional Sound Blaster compatibility (through to help of a TSR ?).
Generic, WSS compatible cards also often had SB Pro II support for legacy software.
Anyway, what I meant to say earlier: WSS supports samples at 48KHz, which comes close to the OPL3 sampling rate (~49KHz).
So it may, or may not, come in handy for MOD players/trackers with high-fidelity tunes. Or interpolation in general.
With quality headphones (&intact hearing), there's a small audible difference between 44,1 and 48KHz. 😀