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RetroTech Chris Profile picture
@RetroTechChris
Mar 2, 2024 • 13 tweets • 6 min read • Read on X
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A few weeks back, we talked about PCI sound card compatibility in Windows 3.1x. And then I went and purchased an Aureal Vortex AU8820 sound card for like $10 bucks. Let's find out how well it works in DOS, Windows 3.11, and a few other OSes in a thread here!



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First, you'll be pleased to know that this sound card works with Hannah Montana Linux. Okay, enough of that already... for now 😂. Gosh, that color scheme is beyond atrocious and hurts my eyes. Image
How about Windows XP? Yep, detected and good to go! Image
Okay, off to Windows for Workgroups 3.11. Install was a cinch, but.. all I get in the program group is an uninstaller? Really?? No mixer? Yeah.. more on that in a minute.

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Things are looking good in the MIDI mapper, nothing to do there! All set. Image
If we look at installed drivers, we'll see there is a mixer. It just has no GUI. Fortunately, we can control the sound settings via system.ini. Under [Config\MixerSettings], I just changed all values from 32767 to 65535 to give "full volume" everywhere!

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Oh, and for the drivers, for the interested, I downloaded them from here! vogons.org/viewtopic.php?…
Alright, how about DOS? Fortunately there is a TSR you can use to make things work, included in the drivers above. However, it will probably lock up with newer systems. You can pull the "asp4dos" file from Win9x drivers to fix it though, details here: vogons.org/viewtopic.php?…
So, running asp4dos from the command line, we can see the card get detected. PRO TIP: If you install the Win3.1 drivers, you'd best take asp4dos out of autoexec.bat before you reboot, or replace it under the C:\WINDOWS directory before you do if you have a newer system! Image
So, for the most part, we are done. But there are two more problems to solve. The first is setting audio levels. I think with a vortex.ini file, this can be done with the asp4dos driver. But that was giving me trouble. So I downloaded SBMIX and it worked perfectly! Image
The next problem? If you run Win3.1x, the real mode DOS driver will uninstall. So after you exit Win3.1x, you need to reload it again. See this post I made today on Vogons that talks about the fix I used with a batch file! vogons.org/viewtopic.php?…
Anyway, there you have it. Now we can do fun things like play MIDI, MP3, and WAV files in Win3.x... using a PCI sound card. Thanks for following along! I'll leave you with a post I just did where we play an MP3!
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More from @RetroTechChris

RetroTech Chris Profile picture
Jul 8
I got my $50 HP LaserJet 6L in the mail today, and here it is. Let's have a closer look... oh.. wait a minute... oh no. Yea, not good. Let's talk about it, and some fun I had with it, and my NEW PLAN, in a 🧵 here Image
So, yes, the plastics on this printer were brittle, and it unfortunately wasn't shipped well. As soon as I saw the box, and the size of the box, I thought we might be in trouble. And, yes, we were. Just look at all of those glorious plastic pieces. Image
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Here's even more breakage. The front "bar" that connects the two sides together. And this internal mechanism too. Yea, this thing is cooked. Image
Read 6 tweets
RetroTech Chris Profile picture
Jul 6
I think it's time to consolidate a few more retro PCs 😅. Going to start with my Tandy 1000 TX which already has a new owner! I did a little bit of consolidation into my 1000 SX in preps for sending it packing. Let's talk about it briefly in a 🧵 here! Image
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My 1000 SX had an XTIDE card in it, but the 1000 TX had a Silicon Valley ADP50 "hard card" with a 540 MB HDD. I decided to move that over to the 1000 SX. It takes up a fair amount of space, fortunately my 8 bit ISA network card is tiny 😂 Image
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This leaves us with a multi I/O card (the 1000 SX doesn't have an onboard serial port), 286xpress processor upgrade, ADP50 "hard card", 8 bit Ethernet card, and 8 bit SCSI card for the Bernoulli box. Sadly, no space for the ISA2USB adapter, so it comes out. Image
Read 6 tweets
RetroTech Chris Profile picture
Jul 1
I got some 20MB Bernoulli disks in the mail today. Some of them are Tandy branded! Let's check them out and see how many will actually work... time for a 🧵 Image
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For the first disk, I decided to try one of the "older logo" Iomega disks. And... well... good old General Error decided to visit. This means that the disk has too many bad sectors to recover... and, yes, each disk does have reserved sectors, I covered that in a past post! Image
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Which past post was that, RetroTechChris? I thought you'd never ask. If you are curious about how reserved tracks work on a Bernoulli disk, here you go!
Read 10 tweets
RetroTech Chris Profile picture
Jun 29
I have a few things to test! A CD-ROM drive and an ATI All In Wonder Pro video card. Let's explore these in a 🧵 there! Image
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First, the CD-ROM drive. It's a Universal Buslink Corporation drive, never heard of it! Unfortunately, it powers on, the light lights up, and, well, that's about it. Image
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I thought I would do a teardown on it. Wow, this is a VERY cheaply assembled drive. Guess I am not surprised by that. And that MT1516E chip? It gets HOT!!! Well, these drives are a dime a dozen, so gonna call it. Image
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Read 6 tweets
RetroTech Chris Profile picture
Jun 29
Let's test out this recent acquisition of mine, a Xircom Credit Card Modem 56T (PCMCIA). I'm not optimistic, more on that in a minute. Time for a 🧵 Image
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First, some context. I picked this up at L&Y Electronics last week since I was excited to see a PCMCIA card that actually had a dongle that hadn't been lost! I paid $10 for it, despite what you see:
As I noted in the first post, I'm not optimistic. The connector is pretty shot. Furthermore, while it might not make a difference, this connector is designed for the "phone line" connection as opposed to the "modem" connection. See this "complete" example for reference. Image
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Read 10 tweets
RetroTech Chris Profile picture
Jun 27
I've been meaning to make it back to the ReStore to pick up an item or two. And I wasn't disappointed! Looking forward to setting up some home automation, and checking out this ATI All in Wonder card. What else did I find? Time for a 🧵 Image
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The Altec Lansing subwoofer was still there, but we know the story on that from before, so I left it. I don't have compatible speakers. Image
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A media shredder and an uninteresting Lenovo PC Image
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Read 6 tweets

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