Thanks!
I noticed all the links to the pictures in the first post don't show up anymore, i'll try to fix it at some point...

lolo799 wrote on 2023-04-28, 13:39:

Thanks!
I noticed all the links to the pictures in the first post don't show up anymore, i'll try to fix it at some point...

Yeah I remembered they use to work and 🤣 😆 are you willing to part with any of the pcmcia in your collection 🤔

vespirah wrote on 2023-04-28, 13:42:

lolo799 wrote on 2023-04-28, 13:39:

Thanks!
I noticed all the links to the pictures in the first post don't show up anymore, i'll try to fix it at some point...

Yeah I remembered they use to work and 🤣 😆 are you willing to part with any of the pcmcia in your collection 🤔

All the pictures are still there on my internet provider hosted page, but in http, and vogons doesn't display them.
The only cards I still have are a non working kxl-d745 and a VXPocket which I never tested.

lolo799 wrote on 2023-04-28, 15:40:

vespirah wrote on 2023-04-28, 13:42:

lolo799 wrote on 2023-04-28, 13:39:

Thanks!
I noticed all the links to the pictures in the first post don't show up anymore, i'll try to fix it at some point...

Yeah I remembered they use to work and 🤣 😆 are you willing to part with any of the pcmcia in your collection 🤔

All the pictures are still there on my internet provider hosted page, but in http, and vogons doesn't display them.
The only cards I still have are a non working kxl-d745 and a VXPocket which I never tested.

That's fantastic 😀 it would be great seeing those photos again and wow you had such a well documented collection and I hope too some day aquire a few extremely rare ones some of which is very hard to trace or track down

On a somewhat related note: PCMCIA drivers are being removed from the mainline Linux kernel for the upcoming 6.4 release.

I totally understand the reasoning behind this decision (maintenance burden, risk of bugs and vulnerabilities in mostly unused code), but it's always a bit sad to see support for hardware (even very old hardware) being removed.

For people insisting on running modern operating systems on such affected retro/vintage systems, I guess there's always NetBSD.

And of course, this won't stop this hardware from working in DOS. 🙂

The issue I have with Linux removing features is that it can be hard to go back and use older versions when their update repositories have been taken offline.

Kahenraz wrote on 2023-04-29, 21:38:

The issue I have with Linux removing features is that it can be hard to go back and use older versions when their update repositories have been taken offline.

When are you saying "update repositories", are you speaking of security updates, or just where to pull packages from?

Where to pull kernel and package updates. Say, I download an ISO for an old distro. There's no guarantee that I'll be able to pull all of the updates for it if the repo no longer exists. And it's not obvious how to make an offline backup of a repository for this purpose.

The 90's-early 2000's GPUs are having their code removed from the Linux kernel, as everything on Linux has gone 64-bit now.

Kahenraz wrote on 2023-04-29, 23:27:

Where to pull kernel and package updates. Say, I download an ISO for an old distro. There's no guarantee that I'll be able to pull all of the updates for it if the repo no longer exists. And it's not obvious how to make an offline backup of a repository for this purpose.

That's a distro specific issue. They picked inflexible package systems, and if they were online only, killed what they pointed to with no obvious recourse. But if you take slackware as an example, to answer your question, you can get the base install and all their security updates in one location. So just pick a mirror, download the tree, run the iso script, and also get all 10 years of security patches in one go all on a single disk. And of course, pcmcia support. So you got everything for that distro, including updates, in an offline backup.
http://slackware.cs.utah.edu/pub/slackware/slackware-8.1/
http://slackware.cs.utah.edu/pub/slackware/sl … inux/README.TXT

Another thing you could do is stick with LTS distros and/or LTS kernels. Such distros tend to be supported for a much longer period, and usually don't run the lastest and greatest kernel version.

Just another "official" picture of IBM 16 bit Audio Adapter (sold by Dell) found in the depths of archive.org

https://web.archive.org/web/20040814184959/ht … docs/dta/78778/

@lolo799, it's a good idea to restore the pictures of the cards! I have many of them, just let me know if you need any.

I didn't know it existed but has anyone a Casio WP-150?

I have never seen it on sale even here in Japan so I guess it might be ultra rare. It sounds very similar to a GZ-50M as I have read

nach wrote on 2023-05-24, 08:24:

I didn't know it existed but has anyone a Casio WP-150? […]
Show full quote

I didn't know it existed but has anyone a Casio WP-150?

I have never seen it on sale even here in Japan so I guess it might be ultra rare. It sounds very similar to a GZ-50M as I have read

I'm into this topic since about 2019 and have never seen it for sale either. It's on my list in the signature, but there is very little info about this card. Only this drivers diskette has popped up once at Yahoo auctions.

Sample recordings here https://www.youtube.com/@upc831/search?query=casio%20wp-150

On a different note, nach, as you're in Japan, maybe you have any clues regrding this matter. It's a pain to have the card and not to have DOS drivers for it 😀
Looking for a japanese vintage computers forum

Bondi wrote on 2023-05-24, 08:51:

I'm into this topic since about 2019 and have never seen it for sale either. It's on my list in the signature, but there is very […]
Show full quote

nach wrote on 2023-05-24, 08:24:

I didn't know it existed but has anyone a Casio WP-150? […]
Show full quote

I didn't know it existed but has anyone a Casio WP-150?

I have never seen it on sale even here in Japan so I guess it might be ultra rare. It sounds very similar to a GZ-50M as I have read

I'm into this topic since about 2019 and have never seen it for sale either. It's on my list in the signature, but there is very little info about this card. Only this drivers diskette has popped up once at Yahoo auctions.
casio wp-150.jpg
Sample recordings here https://www.youtube.com/@upc831/search?query=casio%20wp-150

On a different note, nach, as you're in Japan, maybe you have any clues regrding this matter. It's a pain to have the card and not to have DOS drivers for it 😀
Looking for a japanese vintage computers forum

Hi, i looked for them using all my weapons and several japanese keywords but no luck at all. It seems they are 99.9% impossible to find.

I will look further when i have some free time while looking after my 8 months old daughter because she is super time consuming (in a good way!)

nach wrote on 2023-05-25, 12:01:

Bondi wrote on 2023-05-24, 08:51:

I'm into this topic since about 2019 and have never seen it for sale either. It's on my list in the signature, but there is very […]
Show full quote

nach wrote on 2023-05-24, 08:24:

I didn't know it existed but has anyone a Casio WP-150? […]
Show full quote

I didn't know it existed but has anyone a Casio WP-150?

I have never seen it on sale even here in Japan so I guess it might be ultra rare. It sounds very similar to a GZ-50M as I have read

I'm into this topic since about 2019 and have never seen it for sale either. It's on my list in the signature, but there is very little info about this card. Only this drivers diskette has popped up once at Yahoo auctions.
casio wp-150.jpg
Sample recordings here https://www.youtube.com/@upc831/search?query=casio%20wp-150

On a different note, nach, as you're in Japan, maybe you have any clues regrding this matter. It's a pain to have the card and not to have DOS drivers for it 😀
Looking for a japanese vintage computers forum

Hi, i looked for them using all my weapons and several japanese keywords but no luck at all. It seems they are 99.9% impossible to find.

I will look further when i have some free time while looking after my 8 months old daughter because she is super time consuming (in a good way!)

Thank you for your effort! Yeah, I've lost the hope to find them online mostly because they were were sold separately by Ratoc under REX-71A code. I tried to contect Ratoc several temes under different names 😁, they really tried, but never found the drivers. So my last hope was to find people in japanese community.
And yes, health and happiness to your nice daughter! 😀

Hello

I have Fujitsu FMV-J451 PCMCIA sound card and it seems it is the same with Panasonic CF-VEW211 as noted in this thread except for device information. Drivers and programs of Panasonic CF-VEW211 can be used for FMV-J451 and they are nearly the same with those of FMV-J451.
But the DOS enabler panas13.exe does not work for FMV-J451 (no sound card error)
I guess panasnd13.exe does not recognize FMV-J451. I wonder if there are any other versions of DOS enabler for CF-VEW211 to try. And also if there is possibility of modifying panas13.exe using hex editor to recognize FMV-J451, please advise about it. If there is checking device part and can modify it, I hope panasnd 13.exe may work also for FMV-J451.

Thanks

ychh0 wrote on 2023-07-07, 06:34:

Hello […]
Show full quote

Hello

I have Fujitsu FMV-J451 PCMCIA sound card and it seems it is the same with Panasonic CF-VEW211 as noted in this thread except for device information. Drivers and programs of Panasonic CF-VEW211 can be used for FMV-J451 and they are nearly the same with those of FMV-J451.
But the DOS enabler panas13.exe does not work for FMV-J451 (no sound card error)
I guess panasnd13.exe does not recognize FMV-J451. I wonder if there are any other versions of DOS enabler for CF-VEW211 to try. And also if there is possibility of modifying panas13.exe using hex editor to recognize FMV-J451, please advise about it. If there is checking device part and can modify it, I hope panasnd 13.exe may work also for FMV-J451.

Thanks

Yes, you can try hexediting the enabler. First need to extract the card name with dtpl.exe tool, it’s available online. Just run dtpl.exe -r 1 > dump.cis with the card inserted and you’ll get the dump of all card data, including the ID. Then you can hopefully fit it to the enabler. It may work, but don’t put too much hope 😀)

Bondi wrote on 2023-07-07, 07:44:

ychh0 wrote on 2023-07-07, 06:34:

Hello […]
Show full quote

Hello

I have Fujitsu FMV-J451 PCMCIA sound card and it seems it is the same with Panasonic CF-VEW211 as noted in this thread except for device information. Drivers and programs of Panasonic CF-VEW211 can be used for FMV-J451 and they are nearly the same with those of FMV-J451.
But the DOS enabler panas13.exe does not work for FMV-J451 (no sound card error)
I guess panasnd13.exe does not recognize FMV-J451. I wonder if there are any other versions of DOS enabler for CF-VEW211 to try. And also if there is possibility of modifying panas13.exe using hex editor to recognize FMV-J451, please advise about it. If there is checking device part and can modify it, I hope panasnd 13.exe may work also for FMV-J451.

Thanks

Yes, you can try hexediting the enabler. First need to extract the card name with dtpl.exe tool, it’s available online. Just run dtpl.exe -r 1 > dump.cis with the card inserted and you’ll get the dump of all card data, including the ID. Then you can hopefully fit it to the enabler. It may work, but don’t put too much hope 😀)

Thanks for your advise.
I just dumped FMV-J451 information using DTPL.exe as attached. I wonder how should I edit panasnd.exe. Could someone advise about it?
BTW, indeed it seems FMV-J451 is nearly the same with Panasonic CF-VEW211 according to dumped cis.

I won an auction today of a device that I'm not sure if it could be considered a PCMCIA sound card itself. It is called "IBM External 4X PCMCIA Stereo CDROM Drive with sound box". It is a complete one in box and luckily it has all the parts as almost always is missing the pcmcia card.

It is a normal PCMCIA portable cdrom drive as but it has attached a sound card module (the so called "sound box")in the bottom with even a game port (and integrated speakers). It seems there are drivers for dos, win 3.1 and windows 95 so It seems it is also compatible with DOS games? Maybe is it a sort of IMB 3d sound card?

I found a webpage in english and it says "Additional features - With 16-bit stereo audio support for SoundBlaster-compatible applications, FM music synthesizer and a joystick/MIDI port, the PCMCIA stereo CD-ROM Drive is perfect for playing games or even composing music."
http://ps-2.kev009.com/pcpartnerinfo/ctstips/e21a.htm

I also found a manual but it doesn't mention anything about sound blaster compatibility, only how to instal the dos 5.0 or later drivers.
https://ftp.zx.net.nz/pub/archive/ps2supersit … ns/d3qu9mst.pdf

Does anybody know or has this device? Is it real DOS mode compatible? could it be considered a PCMCIA sound card per se?
I will try is as soon as possible when it comes but i have no time so it might take a while to discover it my myself.