From: dabl2@nlm.nih.gov (Don A.B. Lindbergh)
Subject: Re: AHA1542B and Sound Blaster Pro Problem
Keywords: SCSI SB Pro, 1542B, SCSI
Organization: National Library of Medicine
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 92 15:30:34 GMT

In article <2424@nic.cerf.net> wegrzyn@nic.cerf.net (Chuck Wegrzyn) writes:
>I am sorry you are having so many problems with the 1542B. The
>system I run has the 1542B, Maxtor and CDC drives, the Pioneer
>Dual Media Optical drive, a NEC CDR-84 CDROM player and the
>Archive 2150S tape drive. I have had a Soundblaster Pro in the
>box, and have replaced it with a MediaVision board. The mother
>board I use is an EISA 486/33 from Micronics. All I can say is
>that I have had no problems with playing audio through the
>sound boards -- none what so ever.
>

Right. Someone told me yesterday that EISA machines may not exhibit the
kinds of problems I'm rightly/wrongly attributing to bus mastering and
audio cards using dma.  He has a Soundblaster Pro also, and has identical
problems to mine.  He has an ISA machine like mine. (I have a 486/33).

>Furthermore, I run Windows 3.1 with QEMM and ASPI4DOS and, other
>than not being able to load ASPI34DOS into high memory I've
>had to do nothing "secret" or "special" to my setup. Of course,
>I had to run the QEMM fixup for Windows, but that was nothing
>special.

That's true.  One could say it's not all that special
I believe it inserts one or more of:

virtualhdirq=false
systemrombreakpoint(?)=false

I confess I don't really know what either of these do.

The second time I installed Win 3.1 I noticed it installed three lines it
hadn't before:

32bitdiskaccess=off
device=*int13
device=*wdctrl


There are other issues like using /db=x (diskbuffers option for QEMM) which
some claim is necessary (perhaps for use with Windows).  One problem, it seems
to me, is that there isn't one place where all this stuff is discussed and/or
documented.  It all comes from various sources like readme's and it seems to
me, word of mouth on discussion groups.  I suppose this could be a complaint
made about many things, ie 'why isn't it all spelled out on one piece of paper?
But it does seem like Adaptec could include some instructions along these lines
detailing and explaining all these things that seem to come up over and over
on both usenet groups and their own BBS.  (can someone say FAQ, the greatest
invention of usenet!  I see posts all the time for one on comp.periphs.scsi,
I don't think there is one, and most of those folks seem like experts to me,
ie, why would they need one? boy I bet I get some mail on this, bring it on
I'm a learner not a fighter :)

 I realize scsi isn't plug and play
yet, but why not work towards clearing up the mysteries?  It's pretty clear
many many people have questions, I'm trying to learn and understand all I can,
I knew that the 1542B was an advanced card capapble of very good performance
and demanded a little extra know how.  I feel I have put in a pretty good
effort to try and suss all the 'gotchas' I'd like to see a little effort from
Adaptec to make clear some of these issues in a way and language not 
necessarily intended for folks who already know alot about scsi, which is the
way I basically see most of their documentation.  They seem to assume the
reader is already aware of many of the things they discuss.  I would like to
be more in the know, I imagine there are appropriate places to start learning
about scsi other than Adaptec's documentation.  I basically started by reading
comp.periphs.scsi  Maybe I have my head screwed on backwards I dunno :)


>
>While I can complain about the Adaptec BBS, I find having Roy Neese
>on the Internet very helpful and nice to have around. Perhaps
>Adaptec will either deal with end users at some time or get
>better distributors for their stuff. But that is another story...
>
>Chuck Wegrzyn

Oh I agree completely, Roy has been nothing but helpful and it is really nice
to have him around.

--Don
dabl2@lhc.nlm.nih.gov