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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
Sep 13
Oh my, what do we have here? An ultra-budget eMachines T1100 from the early 2000s? Why.. yes! And it's even in nice shape! Let's explore it a bit, and see if we can make it do something useful. Time for a 🧵 Image
On the front of the machine, we can see that it proudly proclaims its model number. And its previous owner proudly updated the specs after a memory upgrade 😂. CD-RW, AGP graphics, 56K modem, 256MB memory, 20GB HDD, and.. a 1.0 GHz Celeron, really, what more do you need? 😂 Image
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I'll tell you what more we need... ALL OF THE DOCS! Clearly this WAS a proud owner. What a time capsule! Image
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Read 18 tweets
RetroTech Chris Profile picture
Sep 13
I have one more ISA sound card that I have been meaning to test, and it's kindof neat! Let's get it tested, time for a 🧵! Image
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First, here's the card. It's a Labway Labsound A00 card, with a Yamaha YMF719 (OPL3-SA3) chip! Now THAT's neat. Image
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Before I got to installing and configuring the card, I wanted to check the base address of my network card. It's set to 280h, to hopefully avoid any resource conflicts. Image
Read 10 tweets
RetroTech Chris Profile picture
Sep 8
Last week, I started some ISA sound card testing. Being the retro masochist I am, I picked up an IBM MWave-based sound card at our local swap meet a few weeks back. During our last testing session, I couldn't get this to work. Will we succeed today? Let's find out! 🧵 time! Image
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So, first, let's say this much: the MWave concept was cool with its use of a DSP. I benefitted from this back in the day when I upgraded my Dad's Thinkpad 755CX modem from 14.4 to 28.8 with a software upgrade! It knocked out sound when the modem was in use, but, well... ok 😂 Image
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Alright, enough of that. So, first thing I had to do was move my NE2000 compatible network card to a new IOBASE of 0x280. That freed up 0x300 for the MWave card's MIDI. Image
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Read 12 tweets
RetroTech Chris Profile picture
Sep 8
I picked up four hard drives from the free table at our Northern Virginia meetup today. I am sure they are ALL going to work perfectly (foreshadowing). Let's talk about it briefly in a 🧵 here! Image
First, let's go with the Western Digital Caviar drive. I popped it in the Kehtron desktop PC I had. Funny enough, that system already has a Caviar 22500, so on bootup, we see "twins" 😂 Image
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So, yeah, okay, I tried formatting the drive. And things didn't go so well. I was going to grab my SpinRite 6.1 disk for fun, but recalled that it doesn't run on a 486. Oh well, this drive is toast anyway. Pour one out for it.
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Read 6 tweets
RetroTech Chris Profile picture
Sep 7
I did a component swap on the Enlight siblings today. I also went down a rabbit hole that I would never have anticipated doing, but it turned out well. Let's compare these cases, look at the components swapped, and the diversion I took, in a 🧵 here! Image
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First, let's compare the front panels. Pretty similar, except the USB headers on the new one. Image
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Next, we have the 5.25" drive install mechanism. The "new" case is toolless, and the "old" case requires rails. Which... well, people tend to lose. The toolless install is a LITTLE rough around the edges, but it works! Image
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Read 18 tweets
RetroTech Chris Profile picture
Sep 6
I've gotten a few items in the mail over the past few days. Let's test them out, and also improve the aesthetics of the re-enlightened PC. Time for a 🧵 Image
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First, we have this Sony CDU701 32X IDE drive. I put it in the retr0brite bin in the wee hours of the morning, and when I checked it out when I woke up, it looked great! Since it tests out good, it is going in this PC for good! Image
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Next we have this Acer 650P-047 50X drive. Unfortunately, it is flaky... it even opens and closes the drive door incorrectly when I try to open it. This was an eBay purchase, so back it goes! Image
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Read 7 tweets

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