HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: hesprich@seas.gwu.edu (David G. Hesprich)
Subject: Re: Why the MS Sound card has potential (was: Problems with new PAS16 Windows drivers (1.42))
Organization: George Washington University
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 17:43:57 GMT

>>On the subject of tech support:  When I had a Sound Blaster, the tech. support
>>at CL sucked too.  Sound cards are not simple devices, they are a learning
>>experience chock full of FRUSTRATION AND WASTED TIME.  However, the results
>>are worth it.

>This, I think, is why Microsoft's new sound card, even though it isn't MPC
>compliant (and doesn't have Adlib/Soundblaster compatibility), may have a
>real chance of doing well in the market.  From various reports, I've heard

Ummm, are you listening to what your saying?  Not MPC compiliant?  Not
Soundblaster compatible?  Oh, so you're saying that not only is it worthless
for the "industry standard" that Microsoft helped push through, but it
doen't support the board that 99% of the sound software on the market supports
nearly exclusively?

First off, the MPC standard is extremely poor - underpowered is only one of its
problems.  Second, after MPC, Microsoft now wants the Microsoft "not only do
we not follow our own standards standard, but we want another weak standard
standardized."

Do I buy it - I think not!  True, Microsoft has courteous employees.  True,
they have a large tech support dept. (they _HAVE_ to, how many products are
they supporting?) However, how long did it take you to get tech support for 
DOS 5?  Windows?  Visual Basic?  C?  Quick Basic?  Word for Windows?  I can
go on...  When I needed tech support, I could never get through...  so
polite abundant techs. don't mean much for me.

On the bottom line:  If what you are saying is tru, it just doesn't add up to
 be a good product or competative in either features or price.

-DH.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard
From: ptran@sciborg.uwaterloo.ca (Phat H Tran)
Subject: Re: GUS SB emulation
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 00:51:46 GMT

In article <c60a-lj.722065923@danube.Berkeley.EDU> c60a-lj@danube.Berkeley.EDU (LAB ASSISTANT) writes:
>
>Well, it looks like its time to upgrade the old ThunderBoard to something 
>better -- I'm pretty sold on getting the GUS -- but the quesrion of the hour 
>is:  Just how well does the SB TSR work?? 
>

Depeding on the game, the SB TSR can work very well or not at all.  I
haven't tried very many games, but so far, Falcon 3.0 works 'Okay' with
it (music only slightly worse than a true SB, and digitized voices much
worse), and Stunt Island works great (music sounds better from the GUS
than from the SB).

>Yeah, yeah, I've read all the other posts, but can someone who actually has
>one PLEASE tell me if it is SB compatible.  I mean, my thunderboard may be
>crap -- but it sounds awesome when I play WIng Commander, and I've never 
>played a game that supported SB or Adlib that my Thunderboard didn't work
>on.  
>

I've moved up to the Ultrasound without giving up perfect SB compatibility
by keeping both cards in my machine.

Phat.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard,comp.music,alt.binaries.sounds.d,alt.sb.programmer,comp.sys.ibm.pc
From: geoff@fulcrum.oz.au (Geoff Halprin)
Subject: Re: More on MODEDIT/crippleware
Organization: The Fulcrum Consulting Group
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 1992 04:13:25 GMT

grahj@gagme.chi.il.us (jim graham) writes:

>first, and before I say anything else, just remember this:  when you
>evaluate shareware, you evaluate it based on what you see in front of
>you, not what some file claims you'll get if you pay the money.  if
>what you see in front of you isn't what you need, or if it has bugs
>(like failing to save work that you've done, etc.), then do what just
>about everyone else does --- dump it from your disk and forget about it.

Fine, as long as "failing to save work" is not just a feature they've disabled
in the unregistered version. If it is, then you're playing pretty fast and 
loose with definitions by calling it a "bug".


							Steve
From: ghartzog@terapin.com (Garrett Hartzog)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard
Subject: PAS-16 Patches
Date: 20 Nov 92 20:48:10 PST
Organization: BBS

does anyone know where I can get some better patches for my PAS-16? The ones
included in TAPIMV2.COM are allright but there has to be better ones out there?
If someone can tell me where to get some, I'd be very greatful. Please e-mail
me if you can as I can't read this newsgroup that often.

Garrett Hartzog
ghartzog@terapin.com
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard
From: rpayne@nyx.cs.du.edu (Richard Payne)
Subject: Windows Wav Files
Organization: Nyx, Public Access Unix @ U. of Denver Math/CS dept.
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 92 23:57:07 GMT



if any body nows of any good ftp sites to get windows .wav files please
could they mail me

Thanks Richard
Mail Address is rjp1@ukc.ac.uk
From: moriarty@tc.fluke.COM (Jeff Meyer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard
Subject: Re: Problems with new PAS16 Windows drivers (1.42)
Date: 23 Nov 92 19:37:27 GMT
Article-I.D.: tc.1992Nov23.193727.15890
Reply-To: moriarty@tc.fluke.COM (Jeff Meyer)
Organization: The John Fluke Mfg. Co.  /a.k.a. The Gizmonics Institute/

I was on the MediaVision Board last Thursday night, and after a number of
reported problems with the new drivers, they have taken them off the
download section until further notice.

                           "I'm dreading the reviews, I can tell you that."
---
                                        Moriarty, aka Jeff Meyer
INTERNET:     moriarty@tc.fluke.COM
Manual UUCP:  {uunet, uw-beaver, sun, microsoft}!fluke!moriarty
CREDO:        You gotta be Cruel to be Kind...
                 **>> Keep circulating the tapes <<**
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard
From: icarus@lascar.puc.cl (Edo. Jimenez IIC)
Subject: Wolfenstein and PAS 16 HELP!
Organization: Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL5
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 16:43:51 GMT


 Hello, everybody....
 I was playing Wolfenstein but with my soundcard, is not playing all
sounds, sometimes the sounds of the doors is lost, I have test it

changing the dma to 1 and irq 5, but it doesnt solve the problem,
if somebody can help me I ll be gratefull 

 Thanks in Advance.

 
ICARUS@LASCAR.PUC.CL
From: pcunnell@micrognosis.co.uk (Paul Cunnell)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard
Subject: GUS daily digest problems.
Date: 19 Nov 92 14:09:01 GMT
Organization: Micrognosis, London, UK.

I have tried a number of times to get onto the Gravis mailing list
(ultrasound-request@dsd.es.com), but I don't seem to be getting any
response. Well to be accurate I've had 3 replies from the request
daemon saying 'you are now on the list', but have only managed to
receive one edition of the digest (on 12th November). 

Has anyone else had this problem ? And if David DeBry is reading this
is there anything you can do ? Many thanks in advance.

While I'm here, there *are* a few questions I have re: the Ultrasound
card (I bought one a couple of days ago).

1. Has anyone got hold of the 'extra' set of instrument patches that
   you get for free when sending back the registration card ? 

2. If so, are they an improvement on the original set ? (my discs 
   were marked rev. 1.2)

3. Is anyone using the Ultrasound in conjunction with Sequencer
   software ? If so, which one ? (I have a demo version of Master
   Trax Pro, which only seems to be able to get a piano sound
   out of the card. This may be my ignorance of how to set up
   the Windows driver and midi mapper though).

4. I got the instructions for the 'roll your own' midi interface,
   but am somewhat confused - the pinouts on the schematic are not
   correct for the HP 6N138 opto-isolator in the 8 pin package,
   as far as I can see. Does ths diagram refer to the standard 6 pin
   DIL opto package ? i.e.:


               +-----------+
            1 [|__   +-----|] 6    (I know this isn't pretty, but
               |\/ \ |     |        you get the idea)
               |-- \ |  c__|
            2 [|     |_|/  |] 5
               |      b|\  |
               |        e| |
            3 [|         +-|] 4
               +-----------+


Any answers to this lot would be much appreciated. 

Cheers,

Paul.


-- 
Paul Cunnell (pcunnell@micrognosis.co.uk) 
Micrognosis, 63 Queen Victoria Street, London, EC4N 4UD, UK +44 71 815 5294 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"It is truly amazing what you can do without hardware docs or source code.
Absolutely astounding. I can't believe I've wasted so much of my life doing
this." Theo de Raadt (deraadt@newt.cuc.ab.ca) 
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard
From: jl52800@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (The Incredible Mr.Wong)
Subject: Samples for Modedit?
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 1992 09:25:29 GMT

Is there any program out there whose specific purpose in it's electronic life
is to convert .VOC or .WAV files to .SAM files to be used for Modedit? I'm
getting tired of using Scopetrax to amigify .VOC files....

Mr.Wong

Xref: sparky comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard:4011 alt.sb.programmer:478 alt.binaries.sounds.d:2167
From: ay-a@minster.york.ac.uk
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard,alt.sb.programmer,alt.binaries.sounds.d
Subject: The Tetra Compositor
Date: 19 Nov 92 20:48:07 GMT
Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of York, England


A lot of discussion goes on about the various MOD editors available from
FTP sites and the like (Screamtracker, ModPlay etc).  I've used them all
and none of them can match the range of features and sound quality
provided by the commercial digital music composer the Tetra Compositor.

As well as producing higher quality output, incorporating a fully 
featured sample editor and supporting the Soundblaster Pro for stereo
output (I wish I knew how it sounded!) it runs without any problems on
machines as lowly as the XT.

Although commercial, it can compete pricewise with fully registered
versions of shareware editors.  I picked up my copy for 50 pounds.

I suspect that many of you will have a demo of it as one came with version
two of the Soundblaster card (TDEMO.COM).

I heartily recommend this product.  However, it does suffer from a few
bugs and I'm hoping that anyone else with a copy will be able to help
me out.  I'm currently using v1.00 and the problems I've experienced are:

1)  The inability to load some MOD files.  With some MOD files Tetra stops
    reading them in before the end of the file.  This leads to corrupted
    instruments and complete loss the the song itself.
    
2)  The inability to save in MOD format.  Does anyone have an NST--->MOD
    converter (and indeed, vice versa).
    
    
Many thanks in advance for any assistance I may receive.


Alistair Young.




=============================================================
#     Alistair Young,         #                             #
#     Langwith College,       #  ay-a@minster.york.ac.uk    #
#     University of York,     #                             #
#     Heslington,             #==============================
#     York,                   #
#     YO1 5DD                 #
===============================
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard
From: ptran@sciborg.uwaterloo.ca (Phat H Tran)
Subject: Re: The GUS and software...
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 23:56:53 GMT

In article <0qTcuB2w164w@bowker.com> moddan@bowker.com (Daniel Nicholson  ) writes:
>
>I agree that limiting music on the GUS to MOD format would be a waste, IF it 
>were standalone music in a music player or editor. However, when writing 
>games it is entirely unpractical to support the GUS using all 32 channels; 
>most people are listening to the music with Soundblasters and other simple 
>DAC devices, and there is just no way to play music created for 32 channels 
>on 1. Don't underestimate the MOD format. In the game (Star Control II) 4 
>channels of the US are for music, and four for sound effects. The results 
>are fantastic. 
>       - Dan Nicholson (PCkS)

So, in stereo mode, the GUS would still have 8 unused channels left.  
How about using them to enhance the main channels by, for example, 
simulating surround sound?  "Stereo" panning on the GUS, as is on any
other soundcard, I think, is limited to just adjusting the balance for
each channel, without taking into account the various phase shifts and
time delays that our brain uses to infer the position of audio sources.
The fact that the sound of a horn blowing on your right reaches your
right ear a fraction of a second before your left is an important clue
that helps the brain determine where the sound is coming from.  Why not
simulate this time delay in software?  I really want to see the GUS
used to its full potential!

Phat.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard
Subject: mod vs wav - sounds?
From: gwertzma@husc10.harvard.edu (James Gwertzman)
Date: 22 Nov 92 00:14:02 GMT

I have some questions - I know what wav files are,
but what are some of the other formats I've heard about. Like
what are mod files? If I just want sounds to use in Windows, what format
should I look for - wav files?

Also are there programs to transfer back and forth between formats?

Finally, what are some good ftp sites for sounds?

James Gwertzman
gwertzma@husc.harvard.edu

-- 
James Gwertzman	                 :                  It's all in my .plan
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard
From: gkirikos@epas.utoronto.ca (George Kirikos)
Subject: Re: GUS ftp site please
Organization: University of Toronto - EPAS
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1992 22:59:20 GMT

In article <By4r94.9LE@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca> ylee@norton.uwaterloo.ca (Yuri Lee) writes:
>In article <1992Nov21.164904.21437@daffy.cs.wisc.edu> mak@snake10.cs.wisc.edu (Wing Mak) writes:
>>I would like to know the ftp site where I can get the discussion digest, patches
>>and information files for the GUS, somebody posted the site address not long
>>ago but I have lost it. Can somebody out there please give me a pointer to
>>that site in U.of Toronto again?
>
>The address is 'eps.utoronto.ca'
                 ^^^

Actually, the address is epas.utoronto.ca (my site!).


+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| George Kirikos                   Internet: gkirikos@epas.utoronto.ca      |
| Toronto, Canada                 Telephone: (416) 537-1756                 |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard,comp.music,alt.binaries.sounds.d,alt.sb.programmer,comp.sys.ibm.pc
From: iam@stiatl.salestech.com (Ian Mercado)
Subject: Re: ULTRASOUND OWNERS, PLEASE HELP!!!!
Organization: Sales Technologies, Inc.
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 17:08:12 GMT

orb@alchemy.tn.cornell.edu (Randolph Turner) writes:

>  I now own a SoundBlaster Pro and have been nothing but happy with it. 
>Support abounds in the shareware and commercial avenues, the price isn't
>unreasonable, and it does the job for everything I need sound for on my 486/33
>clone.  My advice for you potential sound card purchasers is to hold back a
>bit and see for sure that the GUS is welcomed with open arms by developers or
>until the SBOS software reaches an acceptable perfomance level for mainstream
>use (ie. supports most software that supports the SB, and without tradeoffs).

The GUS will easily become the sound-card of the future unless someone else
comes out with one with similar technology for a similar price with (perhaps)
better SB emulation.

Yes, that's my opinion.  I base it on the fact that Gravis is offering a card
for a mere $140 with sound quality equal (superior?) to cards that cost $400.
Cards that everyone agrees sound much better than the SB ever did, I might add.

Get your GUS today!  (If you can find one :-)

Ian
-- 
The system?  33MHz80486with64Kcache16MBof70ns |  Ian Mercado: iam@salestech.com
4x9SIMMS1MBTseng4000videoboard200MB15msIDE     --------------------------------
harddriveCOM1:COM2:LPT1:onstandardportsandinterrupts |   I am NOT a signature
"But it was too slow, so I re-wired it..."           | virus.  Copy me and die!
From: ptran@sciborg.uwaterloo.ca (Phat H Tran)
Subject: Re: ULTRASOUND OWNERS, PLEASE HELP!!!!
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 01:44:25 GMT

In article <1992Nov17.122734.1@wharton.upenn.edu> poe@wharton.upenn.edu writes:
>Hello World.
>
>My friend went out and bought a Gravis Ultrasound as I'm waiting 
>for mine to arrive from EA. From what we've seen so far, the SB
>emulation is _scary_. 
>
>WOLF3D seems to lock up a lot. the manual stated a particular option 
>to load SBOS wiht, but it still locks. The music sounds radically different
>from an SB. Is this normal?
>
>STUNT ISLAND starts ok, but all of the voices/music/sfx are staticky.
>
>I brought over some of the EuroDemos (like UNREAL) to try. Since he 
>uses DR-DOS 6.0, we tried HYSTDEMO (overload). The music was EXTREMELY
>static filled. If I chose a high mixing speed, it came out very garbled
>and slow.
>
>Is all of this normal behavior for the GUS, or does he have a defective 
>card. Will I get these symptoms when my card arrives?
>
>Any information or tips would be greatly appreciated.

Yes, erratic SB emulation is "normal behaviour" for the GUS, but don't
forget that superb wavetable synthesis is as well.  If you have an SB,
you can very likely make it coexist with the Ultrasound and bypass
SBOS altogether.  

I suspect that if Gravis had decided to not even attempt to make the 
Ultrasound SB-compatible, they would be receiving much fewer complaints.
Nobody ever gripes about the MT-32's complete lack of SB emulation.  
But when Gravis releases a $150 soundcard that sounds almost as good as
$500 Rolands, with the potential to sound increasingly better (through
updating of soft patches and drivers), plus the added bonus of
being somewhat SB compatible, the resounding whine has been "the SB
emulation SUCKS!"  Please, let's keep things in perspective.

Phat.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard
From: c60a-nc@danube.berkeley.edu
Subject: Old Soundblaster
Organization: University of California, at Berkeley
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 02:05:46 GMT

Hey!  Does anyone know if the first Soundblasters are upgradeble?
The sampling characteristics of mine leave a lot to be desired.


Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard
From: ptran@sciborg.uwaterloo.ca (Phat H Tran)
Subject: Re: gus / windows problems
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 19:44:32 GMT

In article <1992Nov23.124157.926@comp.lancs.ac.uk> davei@comp.lancs.ac.uk (Mr D Ingles) writes:
>
>I am having a little problem with my gravis with windows. Unless I start
>windows from my c:\ultrasnd directory, Windows throws up error messages
>like :
>
>	error 3 openning acpiano1.pat
>
>It will throw up an error message for each of the patches it can't find.
>
>Has anyone had a similar problem ? Has anyone found a fix ?
>
>If I start windows from my c:\ultrasnd directory, it works fine. The patches
>are held in the directory c:\ultrasnd\midi
>
>Davei (davei@lancaster.ac.uk)

You probably don't have your ULTRADIR environment variable set correctly
in your autoexec.bat  Try putting
	set ULTRADIR=c:\ultrasnd
at the end of your autoexec.  Also, it wouldn't hurt if you added 
c:\ultrasnd to your path statement.

Phat.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard
From: reaper@wixer.cactus.org (Keath Milligan)
Subject: Volume level too low on Sound Blaster samplings
Organization: Real/Time Communications
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 92 20:00:18 GMT

i just got a Sound Blaster that I've been having a lot of fun with.
Unfortunately, when I make recordings from my VCR (using the VCR's audio
output going into one channel of the SB) the volume level of the
resulting .wav is rather low.  I have the "line" volume setting on max
in the Mixer Control panel.  The samples sound Ok but they just aren't
as loud as the ones I've downloaded.

Any clues?  Cheezy VCR?

-- 
oooooo ooo o o  o            Keath Milligan            o  o  ooooo oooo oooooo
oooo oo ooo  o   o   Prometheus Light and Sound, Inc.   o   o  o ooooooooooooo
oooooooo o oo  o         Real/Time Communications        o    o o ooo oooooooo
oooooo oooo ooo  o  internet: reaper@wixer.cactus.org  o   o  o ooo oo ooooooo
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard
From: sulcer@ucsu.Colorado.EDU (PSYCHOTICS R US)
Subject: PAS-16 joystick port and ZELIARD  HELP!!!!
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 06:11:23 GMT


Hello everyone,

I need some help getting my joystick to work with the game Zeliard from
Game Arts.

I have a combination serial/parellel port and game card.  I used to have a
Sound Blaster.  I had the SB joystick port turned off, using the jumper, and
the joystick was plugged into the game card.

Now, I've upgraded to a PAS-16, and the joystick no longer works with Zeliard.
It still works fine with Wolf3d and Prince of Persia and Stunts and everything
else I've tried it with.  All except Zeliard.  

I had the  PAS joystick port turned off with the switch in the CONFIG.SYS. I 
don't have a way to disable the port on the game card.  Out of frustration and
curiosity, I plugged the joystick into the PAS and turned on the port and
tried that.  Again, everything worked fine, but Zeliard.  I didn't think this
would work at all, because I essentially had two joystick ports enabled at the
same time.  

So, there's a description of my problem.  If anyone knows how to help me, short
of replacing my combination serial/parallel/game card with one that just handles
serial/parallel, please help me out.  I got so close to finishing that game,
only to have my joystick quit on me.  ARGH!!

P.S. if it makes a difference, I use the Gravis GamePad as my joystick.


-- 
The Perpetually Happy Order of Raving Lunatics                P.H.O.R.L.

Geoff Sulcer                                  sulcer@ucsu.colorado.edu
recluS ffoeG                                  sulcer@rintintin.colorado.edu
From: edwong@bu.edu (Edward Wong)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard
Subject: Re: Anyone heard Ultrasound & Star Control 2?
Date: 22 Nov 92 04:33:49 GMT
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL5

Where can I get Star Control 2?
Thanks.


--
8)
  _               _     | user's name:  Edward Wong
 |_ |\ \   / /\  |_) |\ | ARPA:     edwong@acs.bu.edu	
 |_ |/  \^/ /==\ | \ |/ | UUCP:     acs.bu.edu!edwong	
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard,comp.music,alt.binaries.sounds.d,alt.sb.programmer,comp.sys.ibm.pc