Re: MIDIto - relocate hardcoded port 330h to somewhere else

Posted on Yesterday, 07:58

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by aitotat

in Release Announcements

in Release Announcements

Release 9 is now ready. No new features this time. Just some fixes and improvements to the INT 13h handler. Now the INT 13h handler restores locked volumes only and once per 64kB of data read. But I have something else as well: FIXYMF. It is the Yamaha YMF71x fix from MIDIto separated to fixymf.com. …

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Re: Trying to fix Soyo SY-5SSM

Posted on 2022-01-20, 09:26

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by aitotat

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'm happy to report that the mainboard is now working! Resoldering the 5595 did fix it. I had an old modem that I used for practice. Practicing first was a very good thing. Yes, lots of flux is needed and braid is necessary too. But I would also add that only a very little new solder is needed. Use …

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Re: New to DOS builds, need a sound card but not sure where to start

Posted on 2022-01-19, 14:21

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by aitotat

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Yes, I meant A2x0 since FM is available from Sound Blaster address space and from Adlib address space so some games can use "wrong" FM if they are configured for Sound Blaster (AWE64).

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Re: New to DOS builds, need a sound card but not sure where to start

Posted on 2022-01-19, 13:45

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by aitotat

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Set the 'clone' card with good MIDI to A220 I5 D1 P330 U9 T4 and the AWE64 to A240 I7 (or 3) D3 (or 0) H5 (or 6) P300 E620 T6 and you're good to go for pretty much anything. That is good if you are want to configure games based on what card you want to use. But there is another way to do things ( …

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Re: Trying to fix Soyo SY-5SSM

Posted on 2022-01-19, 09:24

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by aitotat

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I think I can be 99% sure now that the problem is some loose 5595 pin. I've saved a few old credit cards and other plastic cards since they are good at spreading thermal paste. I cut one card to match chip size so I could easily press down whole row of pins at a time. And it did the trick. All I …

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Re: Trying to fix Soyo SY-5SSM

Posted on 2022-01-18, 16:36

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by aitotat

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'm not using standoffs at the moment so when I push down both corners, the mainboard straightens close to what it should be. Sometimes it is not needed to push down both corners but pushing down the two opposite corners is a sure way to get the PSU to start. I discovered that method to start the …

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Re: Trying to fix Soyo SY-5SSM

Posted on 2022-01-18, 09:32

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by aitotat

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I did some more testing. SiS5595 seems to have stand by power (5V) so that is good. I measured it from pin 22 (RTCVDD). There is 5V on the ATX Power ON/OFF control pin 25 (PS_ON#) before pressing the power button. That should be correct since datasheet says that PS_ON# is internally powered by the …

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Re: UNISOUND - Universal ISA PnP Sound Card Driver for DOS v0.76f

Posted on 2022-01-17, 16:28

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by aitotat

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I have disabled serial port 2 so IRQ 3 is free. I'm not sure but I think I had parallel port enabled (IRQ 7) when I tried to test IRQ 7 for GUS PnP and that was set properly.

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Trying to fix Soyo SY-5SSM

Posted on 2022-01-17, 16:11

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by aitotat

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have a Soyo SY-5SSM/5 motherboard but it does not work. The problem is that PSU won't start. I tested that the motherboard is not shorted and I was able to follow the soft power button header to one leg of the SiS 5595 south bridge through a 1K ohm resistor (and the other pin of the header was …

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Re: UNISOUND - Universal ISA PnP Sound Card Driver for DOS v0.76f

Posted on 2022-01-17, 15:49

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by aitotat

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I can't set IRQ 3 for GUS PnP. It defaults to IRQ 11 instead. IRQ 7 was properly set. I did not try IRQ 4 or 5 since they were in use. Filename GUS_IRQ.jpg File size 117.83 KiB Views 353 views

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GUS ACE 1.0 reverse stereo fix

Posted on 2022-01-04, 21:40

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by aitotat

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

GUS ACE rev 1.0 has reversed stereo. The GUS sound channels are swapped but the Sound Blaster connected to the GUS ACE line in functions normally. But if you connect GUS ACE to speakers with reversed cable, then Sound Blaster channels are reversed and you need another reversed cable to conned the SB …

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Re: Audician/Labway YMF71x hardware differences

Posted on 2022-01-03, 21:30

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by aitotat

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I finally did the fixes. I removed the L1 from the other card and it was already shorted under the inductor. I moved that inductor to L3 on the other card (and cut the trace before soldering it). I did the wavetable reverse stereo fixes and changed the lowpass capacitors to 6.8nF SMD capacitors as …

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Re: Sound Blaster: From best to worst

Posted on 2021-12-31, 09:20

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by aitotat

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I've been testing with Skyroads and the ship explosion sound. It is very easy and fast to test with it and the clipping can be easily heard if there is any.

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Re: Sound Blaster: From best to worst

Posted on 2021-12-30, 12:58

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by aitotat

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Here are pictures from the good CT2940. I tested three more cards, CT1770, CT2290 and CT3900. No clipping and there should not be. So the CT2770 is the only non-vibra that clips. Here are some pictures from it. It has no jumpers for amplification. As for the mixerset.exe, I used version 2.18 (I …

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Re: Sound Blaster: From best to worst

Posted on 2021-12-29, 20:19

by

by aitotat

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I just tested three Vibras with Skyroads since it is very easy and fast to test the clipping bug with Skyroads. I tested CT3930 with Vibra 2501, CT2800 with Vibra 2504 and CT2940 with "Vibra pro" 2502. I used CT2770 and CT3670 (the AWE64 with SIMMs) as a reference. No surprises with Vibra 2501 and …

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Re: Newly made Gravis Ultrasound compatible cards ... what's the degree of interest?

Posted on 2021-12-29, 18:27

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by aitotat

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

why implement features that will be disabled immediately because people have a second card that does them better? I think I agree with this. Sure it would be a great card with GUS + YMF71x or some other good SB pro controller combined to a single card. But I think most useful would be something …

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Re: MIDIto - relocate hardcoded port 330h to somewhere else

Posted on 2021-12-23, 13:44

by

by aitotat

in Release Announcements

in Release Announcements

Release 8 is now ready! I wanted to get this ready before Christmas. I hope this is not too rushed release. So here are the changes: * Added INT 13h handler to mixer locking. This allows limited protected mode support (volumes are restored when reading data from hard disk). * Added ESS detection (at …

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Re: CRT Displays Choosing for DOS

Posted on 2021-12-19, 15:34

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by aitotat

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I really like 15" CRTs. They are perfect for DOS. New enough for OSD and no black borders (but 14" with large dot pitch can look nicer for games). 17" have too noticable scanlines and usually too sharp image for DOS resolutions but they are better for Windows. If scanlines and sharpness does not …

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Re: BIOS needed for Octek VL-COMBO

Posted on 2021-12-17, 11:37

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by aitotat

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

DOS driver must not be used with XTIDE Universal BIOS since the driver would reprogram the speeds and take over the disk I/O.

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Re: BIOS needed for Octek VL-COMBO

Posted on 2021-12-16, 19:38

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by aitotat

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

I have one of these but I'm using MR-BIOS with it. The mainboard came with Cyrix DLC 40 but the DLC support seems to have problems. 386 works just fine.

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