AWEUTIL.COM + TDK MC8000 PCMCIA sound card \ VOGONS

AWEUTIL.COM + TDK MC8000 PCMCIA sound card

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First post, by Bondi

Posted on 2021-09-23, 09:49

Bondi Offline

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I'm trying to make the TDK PCMCIA MIDI card work in DOS. It's a EMU8000 based card. It has a DOS enabler that sets port 2xx for synthesizer and 3xx for MIDI output port.
As I understand the EMU8000 has to be initialized and then it can be fed with MIDI data. This is what aweutil does.
Aweutil is hardcoded for port 620h, and all other ports are calculated on this base. I was able to change it to 220h. TDK card can be set to 220h as well.
But aweutil still complains that "Initialization failed" when I run it. Maybe it also performs some checks to make sure it's the AWE card present?
Don't know much about how it actually works with this regard.
I'd be grateful for any hints on this.

PCMCIA Sound Cards chart
archive.org: PCMCIA software, manuals, drivers

Reply 1 of 3, by jesolo

Posted on 2021-09-24, 21:17

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Have a look at this thread, first post (scroll down): PCMCIA Sound Cards
And
Re: PCMCIA Sound Cards

Reply 2 of 3, by Horun

Posted on 2021-09-25, 00:52

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I think AweUtil requires a real Creative card. No luck on the TDK wbesites for DOS/Win3 drivers and not sure if this helps but the old Win3.1 drivers were saved to:
http://nwserveur.no-ip.org/win3xorg/devices/P … 208000/drivers/
Maybe there is something in those files that can help...

Hate posting a reply and then have to edit it because it made no sense 😁 First computer was an IBM 3270 workstation with CGA monitor. Stuff: https://archive.org/details/@horun

Reply 3 of 3, by Bondi

Posted on 2021-09-25, 08:15

Bondi Offline

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Horun wrote on 2021-09-25, 00:52:

I think AweUtil requires a real Creative card. No luck on the TDK wbesites for DOS/Win3 drivers and not sure if this helps but the old Win3.1 drivers were saved to:
http://nwserveur.no-ip.org/win3xorg/devices/P … 208000/drivers/
Maybe there is something in those files that can help...

Yes, I use this DOS driver to enable the card in DOS. I.e. it just sets the ports, and then windows driver takes over.
What I want is to stay within DOS. The functionality of aweutil seems to be very close to what is needed. But it probably checks if there is a real AWE card installed. I'm wondering if someone has disassembled it, and if someone knows how it works and what the AWE card check could be. Or maybe it requires some other functionality of AWE card to address the EMU8000 chip.
I've found several versions of aweutil and plan to see if it makes any difference.

PCMCIA Sound Cards chart
archive.org: PCMCIA software, manuals, drivers

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