It is true that every ES688 based sound card has no hardware MPU-401 port?
According to this, i have to load a driver to use a wavetable board. Is this correct?

twistedemotions wrote:

ESS Technology ES688 AudioDrive
[*]The MPU-401 on these is "emulated" in software, you have to load a driver to use a WaveBlaster daughtercard

Sound cards - from best to worst

May be this driver is the one to go... ?
https://github.com/bjt42/softmpu

Hmm, i assume that these jumpers from the middle group may have something to do with the MPU port... ?! 😕

melbar wrote:

It is true that every ES688 based sound card has no hardware MPU-401 port?
According to this, i have to load a driver to use a wavetable board. Is this correct?

Yes, the ES688 chip doesn't support MPU-401 UART mode in hardware. As for the existence of a driver, the prime reference was in the ISA cards FAQ, so I asked the author. Gerwin found notes in some ESS documentation, but nobody seems to have found the actual utility. It's probably technically possible, but the lack of software makes it non viable for now.

Thanks for the confirmation of this information.

I've tried already these drivers, but it doesn't work cause it requires the ES968 chip (Setup install a path to ES968.com)
http://www.vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=372

Next time, i'll try also this drivers:
http://www.vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=112

For DOS, according to the information of the site http://www.amoretro.de/ , there is only the entry, SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 T4, necessary.

After set the jumpers to A220 I5 D1, and insert the ' SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 T4 ' into autoexec.bat the digital sound and FM sound is working, but no wavetable...

I've loaded also the softmpu.exe driver from the previous mentioned site, but it still cannot work. The driver still take about 11kB of conventional memory 😐

I think it has something to do with the jumpers of the middle area of the soundcard. They are still not set.
Next to these jumpers JP6 to JP8, there are the words "IRQ", "DACK" and "DRQ".

Here are some pictures of the jumpers (left, middle and right) and the backside of the card:

Got the same card but same as clue less..

My best guess by looking at it, is that it sets the IRQ & DMA for the panasonic/mitsumi/sony CDROM interface.

Which jumper is which can be easily determined by looking at the isa slot pinout.

add:
the es688 pdf says it has midi I/O functions as documented in the Sound Blaster Series development kit
it seems like pin 56 & 58 on the chip.
I recall the blaster environment variable having a P330 or P300 in it for the midi port though I guess the card is at best fixed at 330 due to the settings of the cdrom interface.