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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
Apr 20
Let's explore this AT&T 6300 that I picked up from consignment at VCF East this weekend. It's going to go to a friend soon, but we can at least look at it first! Time for a 🧵 Image
First of all, here it is with the cover removed. What a weird computer!! Two disk drives. Apparently the video card connects the top logic board with the motherboard below. Image
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Let's get the cover back on. First, I removed the degraded foam after it made a mess everywhere. And then I learned that I really need to "pull" the left support a little to put it in place so that the case would latch properly. You can see wear marks where it was "hitting." Image
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Read 12 tweets
RetroTech Chris Profile picture
Apr 19
How about some more exhibit pictures from VCF East? Here we have a cool Commodore / Atari accessor, an Amiga featuring me (😂) and a really cool AT&T Unix system Image
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There was a ham radio exhibit with a Win3.1 computer, and a block game on vintage hardware exhibit!! Image
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@yyzkevin is always up to something cool. His new PCMCIA cards will bring wireless networking, sound, and more to vintage laptops!! Image
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Read 10 tweets
RetroTech Chris Profile picture
Apr 18
Let's have a look at some items I've seen at VCF East consignment. I imagine this will be a 🧵, so here we go! First, a cheap dell laptop. A Google blade, and an expensive IBM AT 😅 Image
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Cisco Aironet 350 cards (I have plenty of these!). Zenith notebook. Some generic PCs Image
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More PCs. Media. Tandy 1000 EX Image
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Read 6 tweets
RetroTech Chris Profile picture
Apr 11
I don't think it's any secret that I collect Compaq LTE 5000 series laptops. Well, yesterday, I got a grail item in the mail: the Compaq MPEG and TV Video Adapter. This allows for MPEG playback as well as video output. Let's explore the MPEG capabilities a bit! Image
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First, why is this a grail item? It's because they are EXTREMELY rare. I do have a few other rare items, including a 3rd party Zip 100 drive, MultiBay Weight Saver (which I use to store spare parts apparently 😂), MultiBay HDD adapter, and laptop dock that takes ISA cards. Image
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Let's take a look at it from a few different angles. We can see it has options for video out and video in, including S-Video, RCA style jacks, and "headphone" style jacks. Wow!!! Image
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Read 13 tweets
RetroTech Chris Profile picture
Apr 10
The time is nigh to discuss a tale of 4 eBay hard drives! We had some shipping perils, some DOA perils, and perhaps finally some success? Let's find out! 🧵time! Image
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So, let's start with the two drives in the first box. While the seller did issue a full refund, he "couldn't possibly imagine" that the drives were damaged in shipment. That makes the one of us 🤣 Image
Starting with the first drive, Western Digital Data Lifeguard found and fixed errors on one of the drives. Great! Image
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Read 11 tweets
RetroTech Chris Profile picture
Apr 5
Okay, let's look at one more retro item today: this ISA to USB interface card with an M-Systems Disk On Chip module! Can we use this little device to boot a computer? Absolutely! We'll test this out on the Pacman PC. Time for a 🧵 Image
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First, where did I get this, and what does it do? I picked this up from AliExpress, and this device basically lets you access USB drives from DOS systems. And it does support boot ROMs like the M-Systems Disk on Chip. We'll be using that today. Image
Let's look at some of the settings. We have a jumper to change the I/O address. Another jumper specifies 16 bit or 8 bit system. And the jumper in the middle? It's a mystery. The back of the board has some writing in Chinese that basically says "this end faces PC rear" Image
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Read 9 tweets

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