Warlord wrote on 2021-09-26, 00:09:

didn't get detected with pnp os on either.

A3config is not capable of configuring DMA/IRQ it seems. I had the same problem with ALS100+ and ALS120. It can only read the configuration, set volume and maybe a few other options. There is Intel ISA PNP tool that may be capable of configuring it and there is also universal config tool floating around on Vogons. With PNP OS ON in Bios setup Windows needs to configure the card before it can be used in DOS.

As far as noise level is concerned my Yamaha SM718 is quite noisy as well and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone to use with earphones.

I was eventially able to cofigure the card in pure dos with no windows install. You can change IRQs and DMAs with the ALS config tool, however if your card isn't detected using dosinit you cannot use config. I don't have any experience with those other tools, maybe I should take a look at them in case I ever need to. I ended up just disabling every onboard device in the bios of the motherboard and reserving IRQs 5 and 9 and DMA 1 and 5 and that did the trick.

I'm considereing making a recording of Jane's AH-64D Longbow (base theme) using the ALS100 I have to compare to the one in this thread here. A List of DOS Games with 16-Bit Sound

I tested my ALS100+ and ALS120 today with unisound and it works too. I used PNP OS Yes in BIOS setup.

Warlord wrote on 2021-09-27, 02:44:

I was eventially able to cofigure the card in pure dos with no windows install. You can change IRQs and DMAs with the ALS config tool, however if your card isn't detected using dosinit you cannot use config. I don't have any experience with those other tools, maybe I should take a look at them in case I ever need to. I ended up just disabling every onboard device in the bios of the motherboard and reserving IRQs 5 and 9 and DMA 1 and 5 and that did the trick.

I'm considereing making a recording of Jane's AH-64D Longbow (base theme) using the ALS100 I have to compare to the one in this thread here. A List of DOS Games with 16-Bit Sound

I recived the same card couple of weeks ago for my IBM 386. Great card, very low noise level and unisound compatible. No sound bugs. Real OPL sound. I really like the feature of pc speaker input from bus (IBM 386 has no pins for external pc speaker.). Amplified pc speaker sound has its own charm, on some older games i now often prefere pc speaker.

But... there is always some BUT. This card intitialises fine with alsinit or unisound. But no sound after init. Sound will be available only after i run alsconfig, no need to change mixer levels or change interrupts etc. Just run it and exit immediately. Since i really like this card, i have added alsconfig to autoexec.bat. It is quite annoing is to exit every time this app, but i havent found other solution to this problem yet. Any suggestions?

psychofox wrote on 2021-11-03, 06:37:

I recived the same card couple of weeks ago for my IBM 386. Great card, very low noise level and unisound compatible. No sound bugs. Real OPL sound. I really like the feature of pc speaker input from bus (IBM 386 has no pins for external pc speaker.). Amplified pc speaker sound has its own charm, on some older games i now often prefere pc speaker.

But... there is always some BUT. This card intitialises fine with alsinit or unisound. But no sound after init. Sound will be available only after i run alsconfig, no need to change mixer levels or change interrupts etc. Just run it and exit immediately. Since i really like this card, i have added alsconfig to autoexec.bat. It is quite annoing is to exit every time this app, but i havent found other solution to this problem yet. Any suggestions?

just making sure
when you run ALSCONFIG and you save the settings the program creates an ALS.INI in the ALSCONFIG directory
let's assume that said directory is the default C:\ALSOUND
so you need this line for ALSINIT to use this config: ALSINIT C:\ALSOUND
this does not work for you?

keropi wrote on 2021-11-03, 07:24:

just making sure when you run ALSCONFIG and you save the settings the program creates an ALS.INI in the ALSCONFIG directory let […]
Show full quote

just making sure
when you run ALSCONFIG and you save the settings the program creates an ALS.INI in the ALSCONFIG directory
let's assume that said directory is the default C:\ALSOUND
so you need this line for ALSINIT to use this config: ALSINIT C:\ALSOUND
this does not work for you?

Yes, alsconfig added this line to autoexec and i havent modified it. Can you tell, what is this [Mute] section on als.ini file?

Is there alternative mixer or init apps available, that work with ALS100 chipset?

Edit: driver package version seems to be v 2.0 (readme.txt), is there newer driver available?

psychofox wrote on 2021-11-03, 07:56:

Yes, alsconfig added this line to autoexec and i havent modified it. Can you tell, what is this [Mute] section on als.ini file?

Is there alternative mixer or init apps available, that work with ALS100 chipset?

Edit: driver package version seems to be v 2.0 (readme.txt), is there newer driver available?

[Mute] section seems to be the values when you press the MUTE button in some app , no idea really - it's all zeroes as expected from a mute function
Latest Unisound also supports ALS100 , maybe give that a test?

No luck with unisound. It detects card, sets sound levels but real master is very low, i can barely hear some sounds with headphones.

Dang.... I am all out of ideas 🙁

How many here I wonder use wireless mice 😀
Wireless mice are notorious for sending interference into sound.
An extension cable helps but nothing better than a wired mouse to ps2 port because theres also an adapter from usb to ps2 but not suitable for wireless.
There is also PCI / PCI-E noise suppression boards on ebay if they are studied then the home engineer can come up with their own solution perhaps also for ISA

keropi wrote on 2021-11-03, 21:51:

Dang.... I am all out of ideas 🙁

No problem, i can live with it, i just need to hit ESC on every boot. 😀
My wild guess is, that this card was originally sold with specific driver package and software. There is probably some mute "switch" that needs to be triggered on init.

zapbuzz wrote on 2021-11-03, 22:25:

There is also PCI / PCI-E noise suppression boards on ebay if they are studied then the home engineer can come up with their own solution perhaps also for ISA

I doubt that would be useful . Have a look at an earlier discussion on the subject .
PCI Power Filter Card - Linus Tech Tips Video

darry wrote on 2021-11-04, 19:35:

zapbuzz wrote on 2021-11-03, 22:25:

There is also PCI / PCI-E noise suppression boards on ebay if they are studied then the home engineer can come up with their own solution perhaps also for ISA

I doubt that would be useful . Have a look at an earlier discussion on the subject .
PCI Power Filter Card - Linus Tech Tips Video

Yeah I did but thats not a retro computer and thats why i am willing to get one and test now.
they came out for late 90's and earlier 2000's pc's and not for conboard audio
I have an old aptiva with shocking chipset sound so i'll use it on that and try pci audio again (it had a hum).
they need to be plugged in next to audio card.

zapbuzz wrote on 2021-11-05, 00:45:

Yeah I did but thats not a retro computer and thats why i am willing to get one and test now. they came out for late 90's and ea […]
Show full quote

darry wrote on 2021-11-04, 19:35:

zapbuzz wrote on 2021-11-03, 22:25:

There is also PCI / PCI-E noise suppression boards on ebay if they are studied then the home engineer can come up with their own solution perhaps also for ISA

I doubt that would be useful . Have a look at an earlier discussion on the subject .
PCI Power Filter Card - Linus Tech Tips Video

Yeah I did but thats not a retro computer and thats why i am willing to get one and test now.
they came out for late 90's and earlier 2000's pc's and not for conboard audio
I have an old aptiva with shocking chipset sound so i'll use it on that and try pci audio again (it had a hum).
they need to be plugged in next to audio card.

I don't really see how an add-in ISA or PCI card would help with sound card noise in a retro PC for the same reasons as those discussed in the thread about the PCI-E version.

That said, good luck if you do decide to test one and please do share your results (especially if you can do an A-B comparison using an external recorder or recording using another PC) and photos of the card .

Quick confirmation for me, anyone. Does this CMI8330 Audio Excel emulate soundblaster 16 like the sb live does, or is it a "real" sb16 clone?
Im thinking about combining one with an awe32 and sb live(as mixer only) combo.

theominousmrv wrote on 2021-12-07, 16:34:

Quick confirmation for me, anyone. Does this CMI8330 Audio Excel emulate soundblaster 16 like the sb live does, or is it a "real" sb16 clone?
Im thinking about combining one with an awe32 and sb live(as mixer only) combo.

CMI8330 does not have to emulate things like a SB-Live, because the CMI8330 is on the ISA bus already, like a classic Sound Blaster or any other DOS-era sound card. The PCI SB-Live has to emulate being on an ISA bus.

gerwin wrote on 2021-12-07, 16:45:

theominousmrv wrote on 2021-12-07, 16:34:

Quick confirmation for me, anyone. Does this CMI8330 Audio Excel emulate soundblaster 16 like the sb live does, or is it a "real" sb16 clone?
Im thinking about combining one with an awe32 and sb live(as mixer only) combo.

CMI8330 does not have to emulate things like a SB-Live, because the CMI8330 is on the ISA bus already, like a classic Sound Blaster or any other DOS-era sound card. The PCI SB-Live has to emulate being on an ISA bus.

Thank you very much! I didnt realise the emulation was to emulate being on an ISA bus. but that makes sense.

Stiletto wrote on 2019-01-30, 18:38:

Thomas_GER, I don't know what's in gerwin's collection because VOGONSDrivers is down, but look in s100dm2.zip for some pinouts and more info. We need to convert this to PDF (which I've done partially) but I haven't managed to insert the pages the way the README.TXT suggests yet.

Haha, I should've known it came from here 😀 I was looking at Jensma's ALS100 PC104 card and noticed the documentation attached. I also then noticed the missing the schematics and I figured out how to get those out of the original framemaker documents. The path has to be "c:\maker4\s100dm" for the .doc files / .ps files for the .ps files to be included, but those are only included in the printout, not the previews.

I couldn't figure out the letter / half page formatting so just put the .ps links each into their own A4 .pdf file, which still needs rotating clockwise but eh, good enough to read now. Then I printed the documents from my win98se VM into postscript format, moved that out of the VM and used GhostScript to convert them into PDFs.

Warlord wrote on 2021-09-23, 18:05:

Finally I snagged a ALS100 non plus last night out of curiosity. Also not able to find any matching pictures of that exact card […]
Show full quote

Finally I snagged a ALS100 non plus last night out of curiosity. Also not able to find any matching pictures of that exact card online. In general though just the ALS100 non plus sees to have become a rare card. I waited months to see one pop up, and checking sold listings maybe 1-2 have sold all year. Which makes this card more rare than a gravis ultrasound.

This card has a sticker on the back that says ASOUND Plus, but notice closely on the front silkscreened is AS003. Has a ALS100 chip. The other ASOUND PLus cards says AS004 and notonly have different layouts and a plus chip. It also have very late batch number on the chip I think is what that number is, with super fake OPL3.

The Layout of the card looks decent, I wonder if this is the magical sound card I've been waiting for.

Sellers picture.

I just bought a card that is identical to this, minus the bent pins. Need to wait at least 3-4 weeks for it to arrive though. 🙁 I've been looking for an ALS100 (nonplus) for a decent price on and off for about a decade though, and this is the first time I've actually found one. My current retro gaming PC is running an SB Vibra16 which is a pain in the ass, so I'm hoping going back to the soundcard I grew up with will make things better.

Edit: almost identical

This card has few issues :
* no way to bypass the speaker amp so it will be too loud and also quite noisy because of it
* no proper voltage regulator for analog side, only a zener based shunt so expect digital noises etc. in the output. There is a spot for a 7805 and this can fix at least this problem.