kleung21 wrote on 2022-02-20, 20:33:

I have a Compaq LTE Elite 4/50cx Laptop ( Intel 82365 pcmcia chipset I believe) and I got it working with an Eigerlab/Fujitsu 16 […]
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I have a Compaq LTE Elite 4/50cx Laptop ( Intel 82365 pcmcia chipset I believe) and I got it working with an Eigerlab/Fujitsu 16 bit stereo sound card. I'm using the pcmcia drivers that come with the Compaq Softpaq drivers (sp1250).

The fujitsu/eigermedia drivers install fine and FM audio is working with basic installation.

Windows Sound system works (in windows 3.1); haven't tested SB compatibility in Windows.

SB support in dos is non-existent. When I try to to use esscfg.exe utility to select a different irq; it shows a IRQ conflict even though I have used a harware info tool (manifest from QEMM) to check that the IRQ is free. I think this is likely due to the lack of DMA support in dos.

I didn't realize this was an issue until I came back and (re-read) the 24 pages of comments and found that most PCMCIA audio cards do not support DMA/sound blaster in dos. I spent many an hour trying to fix the IRQ error but now realize it's not important in dos and the error may have something to do with the DMA not being supported in dos.

Dune2 adlib audio works fine.

Futurecrew demos (unreal/second reality) do not work in dos

I have not tested SB pro in windows as I'm interested mainly in dos gaming. Once you get into windows gaming (win95+); I have a pentium class machine with better audio/faster for those windows 95/98 compatible games).

Thanks to Bondi for the help in getting a compatible dongle cable for the Fujitsu 16 bit stereo sound card (pcmcia) - documented above

Unfortunately yes, there is no DMA support in DOS for PCMCIA cards. Yet, there are some games that use SB Direct DAC mode, which Fujitsu card can make use of. You can play these games both with music and digital sound: DOOM 1,2 (FastDoom mod), Wolfensten 3d(WolfMIDI mod), Alone in the dark series, Jack in the Dark, maybe some others, I don't remember now.
As for SB support in Windows (DOS session), Fujitsu card worked only for digital sound in real mode games for me, no FM music, and nothing in protected mode games. Maybe I did something wrong, but that's what I faced. I'm cruios what your experience would be.

FYI my Compaq LTE Elite 4/50cx is not an Intel 82365 nor is it compatible, this is also supported by the IBM 3D Sound documentation listing it as one of the ones you must use the card/socket services for, the intel compatible point enabler is a no go. It was the machine that pushed me to implement the cardservices support to my tsr.

It is a VLSI chip I cannot remember the # right now.

yyzkevin wrote on 2022-02-22, 20:07:

FYI my Compaq LTE Elite 4/50cx is not an Intel 82365 nor is it compatible, this is also supported by the IBM 3D Sound documentation listing it as one of the ones you must use the card/socket services for, the intel compatible point enabler is a no go. It was the machine that pushed me to implement the cardservices support to my tsr.

It is a VLSI chip I cannot remember the # right now.

Thanks for chiming in and I've amended my post to delete the chipset information. I'm sure I got it wrong in that case and I dont' want to confuse people.

I trust you on this completely; in case other forum members aren't aware, YYZKevin is working on recreating/engineering a PCMCIA sound system for retro systems!

I believe his first love is the PC110 though.

I just got an LTE Elite 4/75CX - what PCMCIA sound card should I be looking at if I want something that can do decent MIDI in DOS/Win3.1 and won't break the bank? I want to integrate the laptop into my mid-90s music studio. Sound Blaster support would be a bonus for gaming on the... well, the battery's dead so it's not going much of anywhere.

LuigiThirty wrote on 2022-03-05, 22:40:

I just got an LTE Elite 4/75CX - what PCMCIA sound card should I be looking at if I want something that can do decent MIDI in DOS/Win3.1 and won't break the bank? I want to integrate the laptop into my mid-90s music studio. Sound Blaster support would be a bonus for gaming on the... well, the battery's dead so it's not going much of anywhere.

I assume you want MIDI in/out connectors, right?
It limits the range to pretty much only the Roland SCP-55 or the Ratoc REX-5570 .

Other options would be using an external Roland midi device with a compatible serial cable, or one of the parallel ports Midi devices from Serdaco.

Hey ppl, I just stumbled into a Sony PRD-155SB, ie the whole kit with the drive, soundbox, pcmcia card and cabling, including unopened documenation and installation disks. Any interest in the images from the disks?

Disk 1 is "Sony - Installation Software Ver. 1.2". It has both DOS and Windows instructions for starting setup on the label. Perhaps there are DOS drivers? Disk 2 is something called CardSoft and CardWizard.

everlast wrote on 2022-05-06, 17:54:

Hey ppl, I just stumbled into a Sony PRD-155SB, ie the whole kit with the drive, soundbox, pcmcia card and cabling, including unopened documenation and installation disks. Any interest in the images from the disks?

Disk 1 is "Sony - Installation Software Ver. 1.2". It has both DOS and Windows instructions for starting setup on the label. Perhaps there are DOS drivers? Disk 2 is something called CardSoft and CardWizard.

Cool stuff, everlast. Sure we need the disks!
I had to use modified Altec Lansing drivers to make mine work in DOS. But it did not support the CD-ROM part.
So, yes, would be nice if you could dump the disks that came with our PRD-155SB.

Bondi wrote on 2022-05-06, 18:07:

Cool stuff, everlast. Sure we need the disks! I had to use modified Altec Lansing drivers to make mine work in DOS. But it did n […]
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everlast wrote on 2022-05-06, 17:54:

Hey ppl, I just stumbled into a Sony PRD-155SB, ie the whole kit with the drive, soundbox, pcmcia card and cabling, including unopened documenation and installation disks. Any interest in the images from the disks?

Disk 1 is "Sony - Installation Software Ver. 1.2". It has both DOS and Windows instructions for starting setup on the label. Perhaps there are DOS drivers? Disk 2 is something called CardSoft and CardWizard.

Cool stuff, everlast. Sure we need the disks!
I had to use modified Altec Lansing drivers to make mine work in DOS. But it did not support the CD-ROM part.
So, yes, would be nice if you could dump the disks that came with our PRD-155SB.

What's the permitted way to share on this site? I'm a long time lurker but this is my second post! I was thinking I'd just put them on archive.org.

everlast wrote on 2022-05-06, 18:15:

Bondi wrote on 2022-05-06, 18:07:

Cool stuff, everlast. Sure we need the disks! I had to use modified Altec Lansing drivers to make mine work in DOS. But it did n […]
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everlast wrote on 2022-05-06, 17:54:

Hey ppl, I just stumbled into a Sony PRD-155SB, ie the whole kit with the drive, soundbox, pcmcia card and cabling, including unopened documenation and installation disks. Any interest in the images from the disks?

Disk 1 is "Sony - Installation Software Ver. 1.2". It has both DOS and Windows instructions for starting setup on the label. Perhaps there are DOS drivers? Disk 2 is something called CardSoft and CardWizard.

Cool stuff, everlast. Sure we need the disks!
I had to use modified Altec Lansing drivers to make mine work in DOS. But it did not support the CD-ROM part.
So, yes, would be nice if you could dump the disks that came with our PRD-155SB.

What's the permitted way to share on this site? I'm a long time lurker but this is my second post! I was thinking I'd just put them on archive.org.

You can attach files right to your post, up to 5 Mb.
And welcome to the forum!

www.vogonsdrivers.com possibly? Though (also) uploading to archive.org may be more secure in terms of long term archiving.

I got last week a SCP-55 and after some struggling with windows 98 configuration I'm very happy with it.

I attached it to an HP nx9030 with a fresh win98 installation (the only parts i cannot get working are the lan and wifi devices but i would not use them anyway) and firstly i got some blue screens whenever i plugged the card or when i tried to play any sound. I guessed there was some "IRQ?" conflict with the onboard sound card so i deactivated it on windows (i cannot do it via the BIOS) and now it is working fine!

As this card does digital sound on windows 9x but not on DOS, i thought why not to check dosbox and try to configure it and it worked!!!!!!! I had to change the block size to 4096 or more and a couple more of options because the sound was too fast, garbled and skipping, but once i found the sweet spot now it is working fine and getting midi by the 330 port natively and digital sound both together through dosbox so i don't have to depend on hooking to an external module nor mixing line ins and outs to enjoy the real sound canvas experience!

I know it is kind of defeating the purpose of a win 9x "retro laptop pureness" and maybe it might be tough for some low spec Pentium machines to achieve it but anyway I'm just sharing my experience to someone who is considering buying a SCP-55 for the compactness but worried about not having digital sound on pure dos as i found the workaround so at least we can have that alternative.

By the way, i suppose it might not be useful and i suppose that people with some programming skills have tried and it cannot be done but when I was trying on pure dos to configure the SCP-55 with a couple of games (one of them was Screamer and the other i don't remember just now), the digital sound was autodetected as "Roland RAP-10", but when i tried to test i can hear a "click" sound in the headphones and the sound test hangs. I have not tried all ports and irqs (there was an option for no dma also in the sound setup btw) in the setup because i had no time to mess and i have to restart the laptop every time but perhaps there could be any way to make somehow the digital sound working via pure dos with modified RAP-10 drivers or finding the exact configuration for it? (i don't have any programming skills whatsoever and maybe what i'm saying is nonsense but perhaps somebody could take it as a hint to find some workaround)

Got a Media Vision card recently. Tried it out, and found it really nice, one of the best cards. Detailed features are listed in the chart in by signature.
I tried it only in DOS so far on my TP 360CE that has Ricoh RF5C366 PCMCIA controller(Intel 82365 compatible). Software installation was fast and easy. The card needed no CS and SS, the enabler setsound.com sets Adlib (genuine Yamaha chip onboard) and joystick port and they work with any game I tried real and protected mode. The sound is loud and clean. Yet some hiss is present if there is no audio output or if the volume is maxed out. There is a physical volume control on the breakout box, which is very nice.
Sound Blaster compatible digital sound and MPU-401 port are emulated by vgameon.exe driver. It works also very well, but naturally it's limited to real mode games. I tried Wolf3d, Prince of Persia, Cannon Fodder, Duke Nukem 2. All worked with no issues whatsoever. I've read somewhere that Duke 2 is a picky game when it comes to sound, so looks like the emulation is very good.
It's also possible to connect a joystick and a MIDI device simultaneously (if you have an appropriate cable), all works fine.
The drawbacks in my view are that the MPU-401 is emulated and dosn't work in protected mode games. And also it doesn't work in Sound Blaster direct mode, as there is no hardware SB port. Overall it's a really cool card.

Ahother clone of Turtle Beach Audio Advantage card - Connectware SoundGear.

Scan of the manual of Media Vision card https://archive.org/details/media-vision-pcmcia-manual
Disk images, including drivers, bundled software and SystemSoft's CardSoft Version 3.1
https://archive.org/details/mv-pcmcia-ima

Potential "weird lashup that only works for me" kinda thing could happen here... mostly due to unlikelihood of matching the hardware involved, but just picked up this weird "serial" card https://www.farnell.com/datasheets/80519.pdf that sounds fast enough to mod to a very limited purpose USB interface which may or may not be coaxed to work with USB soundcard or USB speakers I have acquired. Also a possibility is some FM synth emulation projects using microcontroller boards which have appeared recently getting bodged to it.

edit: Hmmm I just started wondering if microcontroller FM emulation hooked into the UART with Digital sampled sound played through the DAC could cobble together a soundcard out of an old PC card voice modem... though not currently sure I have any PC Card voice modems to experiment with.

Some more Media Vision user experience.
Installation program

Demonstration program

Joystick test program

Mixer

I really like the interface of this software. Very clean and simple, but with a lot of useful information.

Nice finds Bondi!
How did you find about this Turtle Beach clone?

lolo799 wrote on 2022-06-14, 17:48:

Nice finds Bondi!
How did you find about this Turtle Beach clone?

Saw it on ebay ) https://www.ebay.com/itm/255572635858?hash=it … =p2047675.l2557

That looks just like my Turtle Beach Audio Advantage, adapter and all.

My Audio Advantage has something wrong with it though. It has very crackly and garbled output for some reason.

It can load custom wavetable sound fonts in software, if I remember correctly.