From: swkgohw@nuscc.nus.sg (Sir Launcelot Du Lac)
Subject: Re: SB16 Released at Last!
Organization: National University of Singapore
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 02:55:56 GMT

: 	HELLO?  The GUS does MIDI!  With wavetable sounds, built in!  No 

Er....according to some chaps here, the GUS has no prebuilt sounds, but
relies on patches in RAM

: let's see here.  Little software support.  Hmm, oh yes, let's see if this 
: rings any bells - Wing Commander Privateer with SB16 support - oh yeah, I 
: remember seeing that.  Not! StarCon2, that one SURELY supports the SB16, I 
: mean the card was only released 1 month after the game was, and it is, after 
: all, common practice to support unreleased sound cards.  In fact, I remember 
: seeing a whole slew of shareware utilities for the SB16 on wuarchive, just 
: yesterday.  (Note: heavy sarcasm.)
: 
No, my argument is that if General MIDI is going to be a sound option for
all games in the future, then the GUS standard wouldst be irrelevant, as
will the SB standard.  Whether or not both card have MIDI is a different
issue.  

Oh, the SB16 is also fully downward compatible, so at least thou canst
still get to the older games

: 	Hello again.  The PAS16 does hardware emulation.  That's hardware.  

Aye, the PAS16 is using SB technology, the lawsuit by Creative made that
obvious.

: Y'know, those green plastic things ya stick in those slots?  It's NOT 
: software.  It has the complete chips of the MediaVision Thunderboard (

I was referring to having IRQs and stuff being software-controlled and not
through jumper switches.  In all fairness, the SB16 now has its IRQ
setting software controlled (the DMA and Port addresses art still jumper
selectable).  However, so far, there's no problem with the IRQ.  One
wouldn't expect that anyway, 'twould be ridiculous for SB16 to be
incompatible with the SB technology!


: an SB knockoff) built in.  I know people who own them.  And when was the 
: last time you were able to download a hardware upgrade, anyway?  A new 
: version of SBOS for the GUS has already been released, and I've had about 
: 90% success with that. (as opposed to 80% for the old version).  Considering 
: that of those 90% of games that SBOS will emulate SB for, a further 50% will 

I already have about 10 devices and TSRs loaded (and still have 627 KB
free thanks to PCTools RAMBoost!), I don't relish having to put another if
I can help it.

: >Anyway, already gotten my SB16 ASP :):)
: 	Well, congratulations. 

Thank thee :):)

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