Kahenraz wrote on 2022-06-14, 18:34:

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.

It is indeed a clone of Turtle Beach card.
Is it digital sound or MIDI that is garbled on your card?
Digtial worked fine for me. But MIDI was very CPU dependent. 486 50mhz was barely enough for a smooth playback. And if I moved the window or even the mouse, the sound started to stutter.

I think it was the MIDI, and the laptop was a 486 DX4, I think. This was some time ago.

It makes sense that this was a problem with CPU speed. I never tested it on anything else.

Finally got my TDK DMC9000 PLUS working. It worked only with driver version 2.07 (attach it here). The later 2.08 version did not work for some reason.
I was also trying to understand what the "PLUS" stands for.
Here are the descriptions of both cards. The only difference I could spot is that the PLUS version has MPU-401 UART compatibility mentioned.
DMC9000 http://web.archive.org/web/19990922002740/htt … 01/bda80000.htm
DMC9000 PLUS http://web.archive.org/web/20000407203244/htt … 01/bda97000.htm

Also noticed that this website that had all PCMCIA Sound cards drivers doesn't work anymore http://nwserveur.no-ip.org/win3xorg/devices/P … 0Sound%20Cards/ Wonder if that's the case in other parts of the world.

Good catch, I never noticed there were 2 different models of DMC9000.
Did you try it in DOS too with the edited driver from the MC8000?

That drivers repository appears to be dead for me as well.
I have all the drivers somewhere, i'll upload them somewhere.

lolo799 wrote on 2022-07-09, 11:21:

Good catch, I never noticed there were 2 different models of DMC9000. Did you try it in DOS too with the edited driver from the […]
Show full quote

Good catch, I never noticed there were 2 different models of DMC9000.
Did you try it in DOS too with the edited driver from the MC8000?

That drivers repository appears to be dead for me as well.
I have all the drivers somewhere, i'll upload them somewhere.

Well, my card is not working again. Looks like it was not the driver, but my card is flaky. The stars are not right again, and I get the error message "Chip Communication timeout!".So I can't test it with the DOS enabler now.
BTW, not quite understand what the claimed MPU-401 compatibility means in practice for the PLUS version. It still works as a standard MIDI device in Windows, like the non-PLUS one, and there still is no MIDI support for windows DOS session.

lolo799 wrote on 2022-07-09, 11:21:

Did you try it in DOS too with the edited driver from the MC8000?

Do you have a link to the modified driver?
I thought there was no way to get the DMC9000 to work in DOS.

Bondi wrote on 2022-07-09, 14:12:

lolo799 wrote on 2022-07-09, 11:21:

Good catch, I never noticed there were 2 different models of DMC9000. Did you try it in DOS too with the edited driver from the […]
Show full quote

Good catch, I never noticed there were 2 different models of DMC9000.
Did you try it in DOS too with the edited driver from the MC8000?

That drivers repository appears to be dead for me as well.
I have all the drivers somewhere, i'll upload them somewhere.

Well, my card is not working again. Looks like it was not the driver, but my card is flaky. The stars are not right again, and I get the error message "Chip Communication timeout!".So I can't test it with the DOS enabler now.
BTW, not quite understand what the claimed MPU-401 compatibility means in practice for the PLUS version. It still works as a standard MIDI device in Windows, like the non-PLUS one, and there still is no MIDI support for windows DOS session.

I had that happen many times, uninstall every trace of the drivers and start again.
The MPU-401 compatibility differelce isn't clear at all...

Dooser wrote on 2022-07-11, 09:50:

lolo799 wrote on 2022-07-09, 11:21:

Did you try it in DOS too with the edited driver from the MC8000?

Do you have a link to the modified driver?
I thought there was no way to get the DMC9000 to work in DOS.

The MC8000 enabler recognizes the card, after that you're on your own!

lolo799 wrote on 2022-07-11, 12:20:

Bondi wrote on 2022-07-09, 14:12:

Well, my card is not working again. Looks like it was not the driver, but my card is flaky. The stars are not right again, and I get the error message "Chip Communication timeout!".So I can't test it with the DOS enabler now.
BTW, not quite understand what the claimed MPU-401 compatibility means in practice for the PLUS version. It still works as a standard MIDI device in Windows, like the non-PLUS one, and there still is no MIDI support for windows DOS session.

I had that happen many times, uninstall every trace of the drivers and start again.
The MPU-401 compatibility differelce isn't clear at all...

Ah, that's interesting. Still doesn't look like normal behaviour. When the card started to work, it worked on all three laptops. And when it stopped working , it was on all of the computers as well. Maybe our cards have same fault.
Will try reinstalling the drivers anyway, but first will let the card rest for a while.

I've been putting down all the prices of PCMCIA sound cards I had personally seen since about 2019 for my own reference and use. I'm now completely cut off from international markets, and I thiought that this info might be of use or just curious for the community. So here is the chart. The prices are roughly converted from EUR and JPY and don't include shipping or taxes. "Others" column include some exotic marketplaces as well as local purchases.

I've been experimenting with ESS based cards in Windows 9x to see how they support Sound Blaster/Adlib in DOS games. The cards I tested were Ratoc REX-5572, Eiger and Panasonic KXL-D745/D20. The quick result is that Panasonic is the best card.
The long report is as foloows.
I've tested the cards on two laptops: IBM TP 360CE(W95) and IBM TP X60s(W98). The latter is a relatively new machine and does not support W98 officially. Yet can run it and most things work fine.
Ratoc and eiger cards along with standard drivers install a device called ESS AudioDrive DMA Emulation . One can see it in the device manager.
The resources that cards use a re following:
Ratoc: Port 240, IRQ 15, DMA 3 (emulation)
Eiger: Port 220, IRQ 5, DMA 1 (emulation)
Panasonic: Port 220 and 388, IRQ 10, no dma emulation.

Despite the fact that first two cards have the DMA emulation it does not help much, rather the opposite.
The games in which I could get sound are:
Ratoc: Heroes of Might and Magic 2 (PCM, FM)
Eiger: Heroes of Might and Magic 2 (PCM, FM), Chasm the rift (PCM), GTA1(PCM)
Panasonic: Heroes of Might and Magic 2 (PCM, FM), Chasm the rift (PCM), DOOM(FM), Prince of persia (PCM, FM), Duke 3D (FM), GTA1(PCM), Warcraft 2 (setup tests both FM and PCM fine, but the game crashes).

EDIT: All said above about Panasonic is 100% applicable to EXP Soundnote+CD-ROM device. It works likewise well.

Hi All,
Awesome work and great thread with heaps of good data and info!
Just wondering if anyone has tested on newer chipsets, i have a dell precision core2duo laptop with pcmcia/cardbus and was wondering about PCI/ISA/LPC bridges on these laptops (i have an indistrial p4 isa with an awe32, but i dont get out to the shed much to use it) it would be interesting to know compatibility on these later laptops (particularly if compatibility was provided for cardbus cards' sake) and whether it would be worth building a cardbus ESS Solo. Vortex 1/2 seems obvious but solo cards seem simpler. I might try to get hold of a Vortex in future just to have a look.

Kenpachi wrote on 2023-01-01, 22:12:

Hi All,
Awesome work and great thread with heaps of good data and info!
Just wondering if anyone has tested on newer chipsets, i have a dell precision core2duo laptop with pcmcia/cardbus and was wondering about PCI/ISA/LPC bridges on these laptops (i have an indistrial p4 isa with an awe32, but i dont get out to the shed much to use it) it would be interesting to know compatibility on these later laptops (particularly if compatibility was provided for cardbus cards' sake) and whether it would be worth building a cardbus ESS Solo. Vortex 1/2 seems obvious but solo cards seem simpler. I might try to get hold of a Vortex in future just to have a look.

I tested many cards on my Thinkpad X60s from 2006 that has Ricoh RL5C476 controller. That's a CardBus controller, but claims to be Intel 82365 compatible. Yet it's not in my experience, at least not 100%, as the point enablers that are supposed to program the controller directly did not work. If Card and Socket Services are loaded then most of the cards work. Not all of them, however. Wavjammer, Media Vision, Exp refused to work. All above relates to DOS environment. So first thing to check is whether the controller is supported by CS/SS.
In Windows it's also a gamble. I installed Win98 on the same laptop and got approx 50% of the cards working. For instance, Yamaha, KXL-D745, Ratoc, Eiger worked, while Roland, VEW211, Sony and storage ATA cards didn't.
Also none of the game port cards work on this particular laptop as port 201h is used for something else by the mobo.
Another problem is that newer laptops dropped Win98 support, so one can end up with only 16 colors palette. My X60s has some homebrew drivers, but no hardware acceleration is supported.
Using PCMCIA cards with newer controllers/laptops depends on many things. And it's hard to tell if a particular card will work untill one tests it.

Thanks for all the info Bondi!
I think you are right, the best way is to get hold of the hardware and test.
I'll get on the hardware hunt and also will report back if I find anything interesting.

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 […]
Show full quote

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.

Was the diskette uploaded to www.vogonsdrivers.com or archive.org ? I cannot find it

sangokushi wrote on 2023-03-22, 12:47:

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 […]
Show full quote

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.

Was the diskette uploaded to www.vogonsdrivers.com or archive.org ? I cannot find it

I think no. everlast never came back with it.

Hello gentlemen,
I quite literally was finally able to cross this off my to-do list. Better late than never?
https://archive.org/details/sony-prd-150-disk … rdwizard-ver1.1
All the best,
Jason

Not sure how to upload to vogonsdrivers.com, but anyone with access, please feel free to redistribute these disks to there.

If anyone is interested, I actually did a rip of these disks on my windows 98 machine tonight and uploaded over remote desktop from that machine too. It added some flair to the process. 😀

Thanks for uploading the diskette images!! Sony never put the DOS version on their site.

everlast wrote on 2023-04-13, 02:05:

Hello gentlemen, I quite literally was finally able to cross this off my to-do list. Better late than never? https://archive.org […]
Show full quote

Hello gentlemen,
I quite literally was finally able to cross this off my to-do list. Better late than never?
https://archive.org/details/sony-prd-150-disk … rdwizard-ver1.1
All the best,
Jason

Thanks for the images, everlast. I can now finally run the cd-rom part in DOS.

What a terrific list lolo799 and break down of the compatibility they each offer in dos to win9x