an excellent card, but with a price.... I was lucky to grab one for 25eur IIRC

cdoublejj wrote:

you need 2 adapters 1 slocket and a fcpga to fcpga2

Oh I See! Thanks that's the first time I hear this...

Will look into it 😁

I am picking up another slot 1 board on monday. This one is free, I asked in a forum and someone wants to get rid of it...

Still I wonder if I might just be better off buying a industrial 486 board and running a 486 SX 20 MHz...

Price doesn't worry me so much, as long as it works! I couldn't afford any of this stuff as a kid, now it is cheap and easy to obtain.

The problem is that ebay sellers want money and do little for you. I haven't seen people offer complete solutions, like all parts needed that will work together. It's usually a single board with zero documentation and idea what will work with it...

There is a nice little 486 machine in the US, but it only has a single ISA slot 😒 I also don't know if it will work with slow cpus like a 486 SX 16 and 486 SX 20.

So it's either Soundblaster or Roland midi card for midi... I can't have digital voice + midi...

cdoublejj wrote:

you need 2 adapters 1 slocket and a fcpga to fcpga2

That's getting a bit Rube Goldberg-esque. I'd just get one of the Tualatin-supporting slotkets... they're not really any rarer than the FCPGA->FCPGA2 adapters anyway. Or it's also possible (though a bit of a pain in the ass) to modify a regular slotket.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

So it's either Soundblaster or Roland midi card for midi... I can't have digital voice + midi...

You could always use a SB clone. ES1688 or Yamaha YMF-71x cards are good... full SBPro compatibility, and many have wavetable headers so you can use a MIDI daughterboard of your choice. You also have the option of using an external MT32 box, or whatever.

You could always use a SB clone. ES1688 or Yamaha YMF-71x cards are good... full SBPro compatibility, and many have wavetable headers so you can use a MIDI daughterboard of your choice. You also have the option of using an external MT32 box, or whatever.

Ok now this has always been a bit confusing for me...

I was under the impression that the midi ports on sound cards are fine for general midi but have issues with MT-32 devices, because these midi devices are UART and not intelligent mode...

If there are SB clones however with a intelligent MPU401 midi port, well that would be my solution. But I don't want to get my hopes up just yet

UART mode is actually the most common mode of operation, probably because so few sound cards supported intelligent mode. And AFAIK, even the few early games that "needed" intelligent mode (mostly Sierra games, IIRC) didn't actually use the extra features of it... I vaguely remember there being patched MIDI drivers available to fix the problem and enable use of UART mode.

Yes there is a patch for Sierra games, but for others there is no patch, e.g. Wing Commander...

I guess it's a compromise, General Midi will work because they don't need a intelligent mode. It really boils down to how many games are affected...

I guess not having speech is worse than having a few games where you can't get MT-32 to work...

I already got a gameport to midi cable here, so I can do a lot of testing soon 😁

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Took some pics. Benchmarks are full speed and with L1 cache disabled... […]
Show full quote

Took some pics. Benchmarks are full speed and with L1 cache disabled...

It's so slow 🙁 Not sure what to do now... How do you guys emulate 386 performance on a Slot 1 system?

What benchmarking tool are you using? I tried using PC Tools version 9, by Central Point. I am using a 2000+ rated T-Bred, with both L1 and L2 cache disabled. Looks like my slowed down system is twice as fast as a PS/2 model 80, which is a 16 MHz 80386 system. Information about this IBM machine can be found here:

http://members.chello.at/theodor.lauppert/com … er/ps2/8580.htm (Price ~ $10,000!)

I am using Norton SI 8.0 which is also called "sysinfo"...

Yesterday I finally got that Slot 1 adapter going and now have a PIII 1 GHz running. I had to set the FSB to 133 (overclocking) but from what I found on the internet, the BX440 chipsets do this quite happily.

The score should be around 20, at least thats what Wing Commander felt like. Clock speed does matter somewhat but I found that the high FSB and high SDRAM speed of 133 is really what gets things going. Setting Ram from CL3 to CL2 also adds a small boost.

I guess because these systems have fast AGP graphics, DOS games do run quite well even if the Norton SI score seems a bit slow. Just a theory though as I have done zero DOS level graphic benchmarks. I wouldn't know where to start to be honest...

Regarding DOS graphic benchmarks, try this:

http://www.mdgx.com/bench.htm#DOS

Note the 3rd and 4th entries - 3DBench and Pcpbench. If those links don't work, here are some alternatives I found:

www.sac.sk/files.php?d=13
web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.3dconcept.ch/files/benchmark/pcpbench.exe

Regarding the 1st, 2nd and 5th entries - I haven't tried them. I think I will try them today! 😀

Edit: I tried Norton 8.1 SysInfo, and I get a score of 28.3. (The 386 DX 33 score is 35.9)

EDIT: I shall continue the discussion here: YouTube Video: Wing Commander on a P III with L1 Cache disabled

Got some new goodies today! Uploading all the pics right now.

Can't believe I will finally be able to listen / play with Roland sound. As a kid I just couldn't afford these midi modules but now you can get a bunch on a weeks savings. Man I love Retro stuff...

Don't mind the bear, he's just for giggles...

[/quote]

dual SC-55? overkill! hehe

Like my triple MT32 capable stack (got an SC-55MKII also)

Yes 3x Sound Canvas is a bit overkill, but there was a lack of other items. Really wanted a CM-32L as well, but none came up. A ton of CM-64s though and MT-32 in all flavours (Old and new and MT-100)...

So I just got a few Sound Canvas to get the cost average down.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Yes 3x Sound Canvas is a bit overkill, but there was a lack of other items. Really wanted a CM-32L as well, but none came up. A ton of CM-64s though and MT-32 in all flavours (Old and new and MT-100)...

So I just got a few Sound Canvas to get the cost average down.

I see you put it all into one package -- they're all from Japan, right? Wonder how much saving you'll get this way...

May i know the details? cost for each item, 3rd party bidding service and shipping costs etc (or maybe via PM please?)

Man, I feel like flying to Japan and hunt these stuff down myself then ship them all back to my home 🤣 but definitely not anytime this year 😐

Haven't got a problem with that...

Costs including shipping and tax and all fees worked out to A$ 125 per midi box. It's certainly not a bargain by any means, but you have to keep in mind that I was able to purchase all these units within 2 weeks and without the ebay bidding stress where you need to throw crazy bids in at the last second.

I am happy to pay for good service and getting stuff in a timely fashion. I have no doubt that you can get items cheaper, but I doubt that you will get all the items chaper and within 2 weeks. Bargains come over time and you need to look around all the time to spot them...

It was also a learning experience as this was my first purchase from japan, now I know my way around the system better. E.g. if you buy items that come in the original box with all the stuff it will make the box larger and also heavier.

They don't unpack each item and pack it all together, they just put all the boxes into a larger box, which I found surprising. I guess they don't want to be involved in case something is wrong with the goods.

Shipping was EMS and almost half of the cost was for shipping... There is surface shipping but that would take months and to be honest I rather pay the premium. It took less than a week to arrive.

My box was around 15Kg and that CM-64 item really made the box heavy and large. The Sound Canvas modules are tiny. Two of them just came in a bubble wrap, perfect. The power supplies also add weight and they are all 110V so bidding for a midi box without a power supply might be smart.

In these 2 weeks I saw at least 8 MT-32s (Old and New), 6 CM-64s, 1 CM-500 and 1 MT-100. Unfortunatly not a single CM-32L, but 2 CM-32P (which are useless for games) : 🙁 But I will get one one day... This time I was in a rush to get started, the next round I will take my time. There doesn't seem a limit as to how long they hold your items. I think you can just buy stuff over weeks or even months and when you got it all you ask them to pack it up for you.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Haven't got a problem with that... […]
Show full quote

Haven't got a problem with that...

Costs including shipping and tax and all fees worked out to A$ 125 per midi box. It's certainly not a bargain by any means, but you have to keep in mind that I was able to purchase all these units within 2 weeks and without the ebay bidding stress where you need to throw crazy bids in at the last second.

I am happy to pay for good service and getting stuff in a timely fashion. I have no doubt that you can get items cheaper, but I doubt that you will get all the items chaper and within 2 weeks. Bargains come over time and you need to look around all the time to spot them...

It was also a learning experience as this was my first purchase from japan, now I know my way around the system better. E.g. if you buy items that come in the original box with all the stuff it will make the box larger and also heavier.

They don't unpack each item and pack it all together, they just put all the boxes into a larger box, which I found surprising. I guess they don't want to be involved in case something is wrong with the goods.

Shipping was EMS and almost half of the cost was for shipping... There is surface shipping but that would take months and to be honest I rather pay the premium. It took less than a week to arrive.

My box was around 15Kg and that CM-64 item really made the box heavy and large. The Sound Canvas modules are tiny. Two of them just came in a bubble wrap, perfect. The power supplies also add weight and they are all 110V so bidding for a midi box without a power supply might be smart.

In these 2 weeks I saw at least 8 MT-32s (Old and New), 6 CM-64s, 1 CM-500 and 1 MT-100. Unfortunatly not a single CM-32L, but 2 CM-32P (which are useless for games) : 🙁 But I will get one one day... This time I was in a rush to get started, the next round I will take my time. There doesn't seem a limit as to how long they hold your items. I think you can just buy stuff over weeks or even months and when you got it all you ask them to pack it up for you.

Very informative, thank you. Saved this page for future reference 😀

Got these today:

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Got these today:

Now we're talking

You got a secret dual Tualatin project hiding in the shadows? 😉

No plans as of yet. I tend to buy 2 or more items to save a bit on postage / have a backup incase I break something.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

No plans as of yet. I tend to buy 2 or more items to save a bit on postage / have a backup incase I break something.

Would like to try two of these with a couple of powerleap adapters in my dual slot 1 Dell rambus beast 😁