I can't answer any of your questions I'm sorry but I'll shamelessly ask one of my own - what's the XL stand for (extra large??) and what's the difference b/w this and a standard 'studio'?

Regarding the lack of sound in DOS mode - I had trouble with my Studio when using an incorrect version of MVSOUND.SYS and PAS.EXE. Perhaps try the version I loaded into Vogon Drivers and see if you have any luck - it's an older version than the most current, but solved a couple of problems I was having.

I'd love to get my hands on the manual for the Studio, or even just a Spectrum for that matter. And one day, if the stars are aligned, I'm hoping to find a complete boxed PAS16.

Good luck with yours.

bristlehog wrote:

1) It's got a SCSI connector but I see no any messages from SCSI BIOS during boot up. Doesn't it support boot from SCSI devices?

SCSI on sound cards do not have a BIOS and are not bootable. They were made to connect CD-ROM's. You only need the appropriate DOS driver in your config.sys to activate it.

badmojo wrote:

I can't answer any of your questions I'm sorry but I'll shamelessly ask one of my own - what's the XL stand for (extra large??) and what's the difference b/w this and a standard 'studio'?

If by 'standard studio' you mean 650-0060 (IXW-PAR) card, then:

650-0097 cards

- have daughterboard headers (misplaced)
- have SCSI CD connectors (National Semiconductor control chip)
- don't require -5v rail
- have one output jack (OUT)
- based on MVA-508B mixer chip

650-0060 cards

- have no daughterboard header
- have SCSI CD connectors - different versions use Zilog, Logic or National Semiconductor control chips
- require -5v rail to operate
- have two output jacks (OUT and SPKR)
- seem to be based on MVA-508 mixer chips

Maybe there are other differences, I've got no 650-0060 yet.

badmojo wrote:

I'd love to get my hands on the manual for the Studio, or even just a Spectrum for that matter. And one day, if the stars are aligned, I'm hoping to find a complete boxed PAS16.

Meanwhile in Florida

Yes mine's a 'standard' 650-0060 - doesn't sound like I'm missing out on anything then.

Wow, I really need to improve my eBay seach skills. Thas for the link, I bought it!

Seems I've made a mistake: 650-0097 cards are SCSI only, hence the FCC ID: IXW-SCSI 1-1

But there is another series of PA Studio: 650-0082 (IXW-LMSI2)

- LMSI CD connector
- 3 pin CD-audio header instead of 5-pin on 650-0097 and 650-0060
- no daughterboard headers, but two suspicious 20-pin connectors (while 650-0060 features one suspicious 20-pin connector)
- based on MVA-508B mixer chip

By the way, does anyone know the difference between Zilog, Logic and National Semiconductor SCSI control chips? Common sense suggests that NS ones are installed on some of latest MediaVision cards and thus could be more speedy or capable.

badmojo wrote:

Regarding the lack of sound in DOS mode - I had trouble with my Studio when using an incorrect version of MVSOUND.SYS and PAS.EXE. Perhaps try the version I loaded into Vogon Drivers and see if you have any luck - it's an older version than the most current, but solved a couple of problems I was having.

I used your version of drivers and it helped. Now I have both PCM sound and OPL music in DOS. Also, there's a PROAS.EXE info utility in your package. It reports PCB revision 3.4.5. Same with 650-0082, it works and reports 3.4.5 revision. What revision does your IXW-PAR report?

bristlehog wrote:

1) It's got a SCSI connector but I see no any messages from SCSI BIOS during boot up. Doesn't it support boot from SCSI devices?

vetz wrote:

SCSI on sound cards do not have a BIOS and are not bootable. They were made to connect CD-ROM's.

Adaptec manufactured two SCSI+sound boards that have onboard BIOS chips and are bootable, FYI.

As far as the PAS goes, for CD-ROM support, you'll want to include the TSLCDR.SYS driver (with parameters) in your CONFIG.SYS file, as vetz mentioned.

Beyond that, the SCSI interface will support a number of removable and non-removable disk devices just fine as well, via Trantor's TSCSI.SYS driver, or Adaptec's ASPIDISK.SYS driver, as long as the Trantor-based MAMV1.SYS ASPI driver is first loaded.

bristlehog wrote:

2) There's a 5-pin connector called J5...What's its purpose?

It's the CD-ROM audio connector. The cable that you have sounds like it may correspond to either a Texel, NEC, Toshiba, or Sanyo drive.

bristlehog wrote:

By the way, does anyone know the difference between Zilog, Logic and National Semiconductor SCSI control chips?

They're all just second-sourced NCR 5380 variants. Media Vision didn't improve the SCSI capabilities of the PAS16 line until the introduction of the NCR SCSI-II (53C406A) chipset with the "3D" cards.

Then it's NEC cable I got. It has 829-0007L sticker on it. I doubt I can use it with standard CD drives unless I rebuild it to fit 4-pin CD connectors.

bristlehog wrote:

Then it's NEC cable I got. It has 829-0007L sticker on it. I doubt I can use it with standard CD drives unless I rebuild it to fit 4-pin CD connectors.

Did you make any progress on this? Mine has the same connector so I'm going to have to build something - shouldn't be too hard. Based on the diagrams provided by Cloudschatze, only pins 2, 3, and 4 are used on the Studio, so I just need to find a 3 pin plug that fits and hack it on to an existing audio cable.

I think I'll just take a generic 4-pin cable and rewire it according too NEC scheme.

badmojo wrote:

Regarding the lack of sound in DOS mode - I had trouble with my Studio when using an incorrect version of MVSOUND.SYS and PAS.EXE. Perhaps try the version I loaded into Vogon Drivers and see if you have any luck - it's an older version than the most current, but solved a couple of problems I was having.

Here's my Pro Audio Studio 16. It seems as though it is the same as yours. Do the DOS drivers you uploaded work with the 650-0060? Do you just make some install floppies from the folders and do a full install?

Hey Guys -

I recently acquired a PA Studio XL SCSI card. Has anyone played around with the MPU-401 emulation?

I attached a wavetable daughterboard for MIDI. It "works"... but, I'm getting a lot of hanging notes. Is anyone else experiencing the same thing? Or am I doing something wrong?

-Brian

bbuchholtz wrote on 2021-12-13, 15:35:

I recently acquired a PA Studio XL SCSI card. Has anyone played around with the MPU-401 emulation?

I attached a wavetable daughterboard for MIDI. It "works"... but, I'm getting a lot of hanging notes. Is anyone else experiencing the same thing? Or am I doing something wrong?

It's not just you - it's a deficiency of the PAS16 chipset.

I've wondered if there might be a software workaround though. These issues presumably manifest as the various driver routines exhaust their MPU busy/wait timeout duration. Depending on the routine, this would either result in the the MIDI byte being dropped/discarded, or sent to the MPU while it's in an unready state. Increasing the timeout might be a valid solution, or simply performing an infinite busy/wait loop instead, with potential game slowdown being the trade-off in either case.

Which game is giving you the most trouble, or has the most reproducible behavior?

Hey Cloudschatze -

Thank you for your reply!

My tests have not yet been extensive. So far, I've tested only with Doom. I'll try some other programs and games.

I'm intrigued by your software workaround idea. Would this be in the form of a game patch? Or more of a driver?

I've recently revisited C/C++ programming for DOS. I've been learning about how to directly interact with the ISA bus. So, I'm very interested in hearing about your idea 😉

-Brian