RetroTech Chris Profile picture
Mar 2, 2024 13 tweets 6 min read Read on X
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

Oct 21
Okay, time to explore the Compaq Presario 2200 that I brought back from Dallas! Like all of these, this one is a bit of a mixed bag. Let's have a look in a 🧵 here! Image
So, first, like 100% of these I have seen, the plastics in the front are very brittle. This front panel has previously been glued on, you can see some glue residue here and there! Image
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Here's the back of the PC. Nope, these systems do not have PCI expansion, and have one "weird" 8 bit ISA expansion slot for a modem! Image
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Oct 21
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Next, we have this card here, I think it's an Nvidia card. Foolishly, I thought it was PCI, but it's PCI Express. I have no use for this! It'll go on the free table at the next event I attend, whatever that is! Image
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Oct 19
Stopped by the Time Rift Arcade before heading to the airport. I'll show some of the games I played in a 🧵 Image
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First game was California Speed, at which I am terrible. Played a few boards of tetris too. I didn't play the NES or SNES but did grab a picture of the setup! Image
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Read 5 tweets
Oct 18
Some other pictures. Someone selling a complete Atari 5200 for $250.. tempted 😂 Image
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Virtual Boy. Homebrew system too! Image
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Macs for sale. PCs too. And look at that nice PC case! Image
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Oct 17
Shopping Geekenspiel's website is always a fun experience for me! I decided to put some of these stickers to immediate use! First, the Dell Precision 220 Workstation now has a proper Dual Pentium III sticker. I placed a few more too! 🧵 Image
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Oct 12
The Compaq Deskpro 6000 is back up and running with a new hard drive. Of course, I hit a few issues along the way, some unrelated to the HDD replacement. Let's talk about them briefly in a 🧵 here! Image
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To get started, I decided to use the Dell Precision Workstation 220 to help with transferring data from the failing HDD to the new one since it was on the desk and is more accessible than the Compaq. We can see we have three HDDs detected (Dell, old Compaq, new Compaq). Good! Image
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Here is the old Compaq HDD (not original to the system) and the new HDD that we will be installing, side by side. On the left, we have a Maxtor Fireball 3 (20GB), and on the right we have a Seagate ST320413A (20GB). The Seagate will replace the Maxtor. Image
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