Here ya go:
https://shop.tattiebogle.net/product/prod_EkTnv3Tk2Trxhf

Supports audio as well.

Only $200

On another note, I would think it would be possible to add mixed-mode support to SHSUCDX.

The sources are available and the author is looking for somebody to take over. I already sent him an email.

I haven't done much assembly programming at all but I have a bunch of books on assembly and am no stranger to working on projects that were abandoned by other people.. mainly where I used to work.

Mixed-mode bin/cue support would be an absolute godsend.

Tryna mentally retrace my steps from last week when I saw a DOS driver for mounting a CD over the network. It was a 90s DOS archive somewhere, not sure if it was a Simtel one because it wasn't in the CDROM directory, or I was looking at a later capture than the 93 walnut creek CD that several hosts have. Might have been in network though. Was supposed to work with MSCDEX. Anyhoo, was wondering if it could be combined with gdjacobs mention of a Pi host. Or personally I've got a load of android boxes and netbooks around, if it only requires dumb filehosting at the host end, then maybe just a big USB drive in my router is good enough. I know right, bit of a useless post, but thought it might jog someone elses memory if I can't figure out where it was, or forget about it before I find it.. squirrel!

You can mount CUE/BIN with Daemon Tools Windows 98 and play the DOS game from Windows 98. Tomb Raider 1 3Dfx DOS played in this way have full CD music. Many late DOS games in CD media distribution would just work from Windows 98. Just create a PIF and run them in full-screen, not even reboot into MS-DOS mode is required.

Though you said it out that you were not using DOSBox and other emulators, DOSBox actually made all these easy. For $200 just to get IDE/CD emulator hardware that supports audio, you can just buy Rock Pi X at $75 with 4GB RAM and 32GB storage, run Linux and play all your DOS/Windows games with DOSBox and QEMU.

Or being true to the way of Marvin, then just get a real CD-ROM drive for your real DOS/Win98 machine. 😁

So I've been looking into this and it looks like it should be possible... however, I am not finding much on how to send the digital audio directly to the sound card.

Most everything I am coming across is to convert CD audio to WAV.

The other problem is that I am not sure if it is possible to mix sound from multiple program in DOS using a single sound card.

The CD-ROM driver being used also has to support reading DA frames from the CD. Then we have to send data to the sound card that will play properly.
See here:
https://web.ncf.ca/aa571/docs/cdda.txt

Ahh. I see now how this would be a problem. CD audio is normally piped into the sound card through a cable and it mixes internally. With a tool we would have to be communicating with the sound card directly and it might not be possible to mix the audio at all in that way.

Not quite, he's referring to CD-DA in which the audio data can be extracted digitally without any cable between the sound card and the CD-ROM drive. This is generally considered higher quality without the audio data being resampled at the sound card in case of analog audio cable between CD-ROM drive and sound card. Later CD-ROM drives have 2nd cable option in SPDIF which would be in the same quality as CD-DA extraction.

I am betting the hardware emulator I linked earlier does the CD-DA extraction and conversion in real time, hence the 180Mhz cortex CPU.

Hmmm.

On another note, I did run into a modified version of HX DOS extender that has audio support for AC97 and some other cards. From reports, it works fine with DOSBOX and provides sound and is faster than running DOSBOX in Windows 7.

I wonder if it would be easier to do this with the HX extender and the built in functionality for digital CD audio? But how would that work in conjunction with the card being used for the DOS programs?

It seems to me like it would be a whole lot easier to use a PCI sound card dedicated to the use of playing CD-DA over the PCI bus... All you would need is AC97 on the PCI bus and it should work... Lots of hmmm.

I don't see how you would ever be able to stream the digital CD audio to the PCM of a soundblaster or whatever while the game is playing its own digital sounds

That is why I am suggesting using a separate cheapo PCI card or onboard AC97 for the CD audio and then either port the output of the AC97 card into the other card's line in or mix them externally.

Per the author, the sound card support is:
Intel-HDA, ICH/AC97, VIA82xx, ENS1371/1373, CMI 8338/8738

So here would be the setup that might be able to be made to work:
1. HX-DOS Extender with sound support: https://sound-dos.ucoz.ru/load/new_hxdos_exte … er_2_17/1-1-0-8
2. Take DOSBOX virtual CD code and make it into a stand-alone program.
3. Play the mounted CD game in DOS - sound should output on the DOS sound card and the CD Audio should output on the PCI AC97 sound card.

This would take care of any real-time DA conversion as the PCI sound card would handle that.

I agree that this might be the only way for it to work. Use a dedicated secondary sound card to receive the CD audio and have it mixed elsewhere with whatever other card is being used for DOS sound and music.

Kahenraz wrote on 2021-08-17, 23:44:

Following up on this. Is there still no way to mount a .bin/.cue file in DOS for CD audio without having to burn it to a disc?

Deksor wrote on 2018-06-09, 08:03:

The problem with games with audio tracks is that they can't be read while the sound card is being used under DOS. However I wonder what would be possible with two sound cards in a setup ?

I don't understand. What does reading audio tracks from a disc have to do with a sound card using used in DOS?

I think this is because normally CD-ROM players read tracks on their own and so the music is routed to the sound card with a small wire.

However with a simulated CD-ROM, you need something to play the music. You can't really use the sound card for that because a game would need full access to the card's ressources. You could probably get away with two sound cards, but it's definitely not as practical.

The best solution would probably be something similar to the gotek but for CD-ROMs. The bluescsi and the rascsi can do some of it, but as their name stands, they're SCSI emulators which again isn't the most practical solution on PC. We need a ATAPI emulator with playback capability.

Deksor wrote on 2021-08-18, 05:50:

I think this is because normally CD-ROM players read tracks on their own and so the music is routed to the sound card with a sma […]
Show full quote

Kahenraz wrote on 2021-08-17, 23:44:

Following up on this. Is there still no way to mount a .bin/.cue file in DOS for CD audio without having to burn it to a disc?

Deksor wrote on 2018-06-09, 08:03:

The problem with games with audio tracks is that they can't be read while the sound card is being used under DOS. However I wonder what would be possible with two sound cards in a setup ?

I don't understand. What does reading audio tracks from a disc have to do with a sound card using used in DOS?

I think this is because normally CD-ROM players read tracks on their own and so the music is routed to the sound card with a small wire.

However with a simulated CD-ROM, you need something to play the music. You can't really use the sound card for that because a game would need full access to the card's ressources. You could probably get away with two sound cards, but it's definitely not as practical.

The best solution would probably be something similar to the gotek but for CD-ROMs. The bluescsi and the rascsi can do some of it, but as their name stands, they're SCSI emulators which again isn't the most practical solution on PC. We need a ATAPI emulator with playback capability.

Such as the one I linked above?

Yeah ... Although this may be a bit too expensive for most people. I think something cheaper can be made

As much as I dislike using CDs, it's so inexpensive for me to use them I can't see paying 200 dollars for anything like that and it just works. I'm not sure anything else would be worth the trouble of compatibility. And what about copy protected stuff besides A120 and Daemon tools idk anything else that can emulate it.

I feel like installing a bogus soundcard is equal amounts of work to just installing a genuine CDROM drive, and it has the added bonus of requiring zero programming effort

It's the scaling problem. handful of machines, handful of CDs, no problem. Lots of machines, lots of CDs and you need to build out a hostess cart as mobile CD storage to drag the whole collection around the house. Plus drives are dying, even pressed CDs are wearing out with use, microscratches getting them misty whenever they get put away, pulled out, put in drive, no matter how careful you are. Keep burning copies, you say, but media supplies drying up, burners dying too.

sounds a lot worst than what it really is.

BitWrangler wrote on 2021-08-18, 02:50:

Tryna mentally retrace my steps from last week when I saw a DOS driver for mounting a CD over the network. It was a 90s DOS archive somewhere, not sure if it was a Simtel one because it wasn't in the CDROM directory, or I was looking at a later capture than the 93 walnut creek CD that several hosts have. Might have been in network though. Was supposed to work with MSCDEX. Anyhoo, was wondering if it could be combined with gdjacobs mention of a Pi host. Or personally I've got a load of android boxes and netbooks around, if it only requires dumb filehosting at the host end, then maybe just a big USB drive in my router is good enough. I know right, bit of a useless post, but thought it might jog someone elses memory if I can't figure out where it was, or forget about it before I find it.. squirrel!

Found it or something like it... https://www.mirrorservice.org/sites/ftp.cdrom … tils/cdemu2.zip emulates MSCDEX to mount a shared directory/drive letter as an MSCDEX local drive... doesn't support audio 🙁 doesn't support direct sector access 🙁