GUS Daily Digest            Sat, 14 May 94  9:37 PST     Volume 13: Issue  13 

Today's Topics:
	 (still) Line-in problem, "PARITY ERROR", and others (2 msgs)
							 Doom muting
							 Gravis Tech
				  GUS Daily Digest V13 #12 (3 msgs)
						HELP!! (with MICROSM)
				   Please explain the rev numbers.
						 Strangesoldering...

Standard Info:
	- Meta-info about the GUS can be found at the end of the Digest.
	- Before you ask a question, please READ THE FAQ.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 13 May 94 14:35:56 CDT
From: cardona@rwasic23.aud.alcatel.com (Gabe Cardona)
Subject: Re: (still) Line-in problem, "PARITY ERROR", and others

>Help!!
>PROBLEM 3
>---------
>More importantly, I still have the:
>PARITY ERROR ????
>SYSTEM HALTED
>happen occasionally. Seems to only occur when I have the GUS and LAPC1 in
>the system simultaneously.  Pull out the LAPC, and I haven't seen it with
>the GUS/SBP combo.


I had similar problems when I first installed my GUS in my system.  It turned
out that my POWER SUPPLY was either old and about to give out, or it was 
overloaded from all the cards I have (all my expansion slots are used).

I measured the voltage on the motherboard and it measured 4.8 volts.  In the
installation instructions that came with the motherboard it states that
"eratic behavior can occur if the power supply voltage dips bellow 4.95
volts".  I kept trying this and that for about 3 days but the erratic
behavior didn't stop.  I was debating whether to replace the power
supply when it decided to go out and the decision was made for me.

I got a new, slightly larger power supply and now my system works normally.

If I were you, I would measure the voltage on the motherboard and verify
that it is at least 4.9 to 5.0 volts.  If it is to low it can definetly
cause timing problems in your system.

>PROBLEM 2
>---------
>I can't get the right digitized sounds in Doom with IRQ 11 or higher. 
>Works fine on 5 (SBPro on 7, LAPC takes 2/9?).  Is this symptomatic of
>something?


DOOM only recognizes low IRQ's for the digitized sounds (?<10), so you 
will have to use one of the lower IRQ's.

Hope this helps.....


Gabe Cardona

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 13 May 1994 16:51:15 -0500 (CDT)
From: vic@cd.com (Vic Serbe x237)
Subject: Re: (still) Line-in problem, "PARITY ERROR", and others

Dave writes:
>
> Date: Thu, 12 May 1994 14:55:26 -0600
> From: masten@beta.lanl.gov
> Subject: (still) Line-in problem, "PARITY ERROR", and others
> 
> Help!!
> 
> I've received some suggestions, thanks.  But nothing has worked so far. 
> About to hit the 30-day on the GUS, and unless I can get it working
> peacefully with the LAPC-1...well only one of them can be returned  :-(
> 
> Works fine on 5 (SBPro on 7, LAPC takes 2/9?).  Is this symptomatic of

> 
> PROBLEM 3
> ---------
> More importantly, I still have the:
> PARITY ERROR ????
> SYSTEM HALTED
> happen occasionally. Seems to only occur when I have the GUS and LAPC1 in
> the system simultaneously.  Pull out the LAPC, and I haven't seen it with
> the GUS/SBP combo.

I also had a problem where I'd get the same error, but only when I
tried to use my MIDI card at IRQ 2/9.  I don't know why, as my video
card, too has this disabled.  Maybe that interrupt really isn't free...
even when you don't have an EGA card installed.  My MusicQuest MIDI
card looks the same as a LAPC (basically, a "smart" MPU-401) only the
sounds are actually out in my Roland D110 external unit.  I set my MQ card
to IRQ 5, and I was fine.  The weird thing, is that it didn't happen all
the time.

> Also, I've had it all of a sudden lose the CMOS info (HD codes, etc).  Has
> happened about 6 times.  Again, only when the GUS and LAPC were in the box.
> This is scary.

I've never seen this.  Lucky you.  ;-)

> 486dx2/66, 8MB RAM, Diamond SS Pro VLB (recently disabled its IRQ2 option,
> though it hadn't cused any probs with the LAPC), Contaq chipset.  No SCSI,
> just IDE, CD-rom connected to the SBPro, DOS 6.2.

Boy, I have a very similar card (CL542x VLB) in a 2/66 system, too.  This
is kinda' weird.  Maybe try another IRQ besides 2/9 on the LAPC?  It
should support the double digit IRQs.

> Am I just snake-bit?

Prob'ly.  These are 'puters, ya know.  8-)

-- 
Vic Serbe (vic@cd.com), Applications Engineer
Central Data Corp. - Makers of the scsiTerminal Server
800/482-0315 or (+1) 217/359-8010 (FAX-6904)

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 13 May 1994 12:21:50 -0700 (PDT)
From: Dylan Nicolle <dnicolle@tcsgi.mhs.mendocino.k12.ca.us>
Subject: Doom muting

I have this strange problem with my GUS 768K GUS and Doom 1.2
About every 10th sound that gets played, it gets muted. The music is 
fine, but iit bugs me to have a shotgun make no noise on one shot, and 
then let  out a rip-roaring bang on the next shot. I have tried using both 
8-bit and 16-bit DMA and IRQ settings, and the problem appears on both.
Monsters are a problem when I can't hear them around the corner, and 
doors that open without a sound make it hard not to get surprised by 8 imps.

-+-+-+-+-
Congratulations iD! With DOOM, you have
made grown men afraid of the dark again!

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 13 May 94 22:29:31 -0500
From: jfulmer@databank.com (John Fulmer)
Subject: Gravis Tech

Oh, BTW. I send an enquiry to Gravis at tech1@gravis.com about a week ago.
I just got a nice note from them saying that they were looking into my concern.

Just thought that I would say that Gravis DOES read their E-Mail, It just 
may take them a while to answer.....


jf
*--------------------------------------------------------------------*
|John Fulmer(jfulmer@databank.com)|      "I find it in-ter-es-ting,  *
|Micom Computer Systems           |       A noun's a person, place,  *
|Lawrence, Ks.                    |              or thing..."        *
*--------------------------------------------------------------------*

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 13 May 1994 17:25:19 +0100 (GDT)
From: dustin@ed.gse.utah.edu
Subject: Re: GUS Daily Digest V13 #12

Someone wrote:
> 
> No, no you're missing my point ENTIRELY.  I'm SICK of having to settle 
> for Sound Blaster music, which is why I'm so unhappy with the GUS.  The 
> 
> What I want is 100% wavetable synthesis with NO MORE CRAPPY CHEESY FM, 
> but without any headaches either.  It's not too much to ask.  Really, it 

Oh, I see. You are irritated like the rest of us with the SB crap. I 
agree completetly that FM sucks. You're unhapppy with the GUS because 
nobody supports it. That's never been a big concern with me because I 
don't game too much. I use it to compose MIDI stuff. I've never had 
problems with MIDI in windows (except building the interface itself. Now 
OS/2, that's another story....). 

About the "I'm glad that it uses drivers, that would make it more 
compatible with other OS" remark:

What I mean is that if you create a programming interface to hardware 
that is generic, it is more likely that different low-level software will 
be able to use it efficiently. I don't have much experience with SB or 
GUS low level programming (or interface cards in general) but I do have 
experience with microprocessor design/ interfacing. I guess I was 
generalizing from one to the other. 

Well, I digress, and I've gone into the GUS Programmer's Digest realm...

Actually, IBM PC's will be replaced with fault-tolerant asynchronous 
computers soon (I wish), so all of this was moot.

Asynchronously,
Dustin


--------------------------(Short .sig)---------------------------------
Dustin Caldwell                                 dustin@ed.gse.utah.edu
Computer Engineering         Japanese proverb: saru demo ki kara taoru.
 ----------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 13 May 1994 18:35:18 -0600 (MDT)
From: Operation Stardust <dchow@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca>
Subject: Re: GUS Daily Digest V13 #12

> 
> Date: Thu, 12 May 1994 14:55:26 -0600
> From: masten@beta.lanl.gov
> Subject: (still) Line-in problem, "PARITY ERROR", and others
> 
> Help!!
> PROBLEM 2
> ---------
> I can't get the right digitized sounds in Doom with IRQ 11 or higher. 
> Works fine on 5 (SBPro on 7, LAPC takes 2/9?).  Is this symptomatic of
> something?

  I thought in the dox, it said specifically that DOOM would NOT work with
a IRQ higher than 7.  So you should set it as 7 or less.  But I _think_ someone
created a hack to bypass that problem, check the ftp sites.....


-- 
	   \\  //                  Don Chow                      \\  //
		\\//            dchow@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca             \\//
		//\\                                                  //\\
	   //  \\      Card Carrying Member of the G.A.T.B.      //  \\

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 14 May 1994 03:36:37 -0400 (EDT)
From: Phat H Tran <ptran@sciborg.uwaterloo.ca>
Subject: Re: GUS Daily Digest V13 #12

> Date: Thu, 12 May 1994 14:55:26 -0600
> From: masten@beta.lanl.gov
> Subject: (still) Line-in problem, "PARITY ERROR", and others
> 
> Help!!
> 
> I've received some suggestions, thanks.  But nothing has worked so far. 
> About to hit the 30-day on the GUS, and unless I can get it working
> peacefully with the LAPC-1...well only one of them can be returned  :-(
> 
> PROBLEM 1
> ---------
> I can't get any sound from my SBPro connected to the line-in of the GUS in
> DOS.  Yes, I've got "ULTRINIT -L" in the AUTOEXEC.  [ULTRINIT -L -O, no
> difference]  Software is 3.11 (ultrinit is 2.18).  

You need the both -l -o switches (not sure of the case matters) for
Ultrinit.  Also, keep in mind that sbos, ultramid, mega-em, loadpats, 
etc. will all disable the line-in unless you run them with the -l 
switch as well (the -o switch is not necessary with them).  GUS apps
do not preserve the mixer state.

> PROBLEM 2
> ---------
> I can't get the right digitized sounds in Doom with IRQ 11 or higher. 
> Works fine on 5 (SBPro on 7, LAPC takes 2/9?).  Is this symptomatic of
> something?

This is because the DOS extender that DOOM uses does not support
high IRQs.  This is a Rational DOS4GW problem, not a GUS problem.
However, DOOM 1.2 uses a version of DOS4GW that does seem to support
the high IRQs, at least on some machines.

> PROBLEM 3
> ---------
> More importantly, I still have the:
> PARITY ERROR ????
> SYSTEM HALTED
> happen occasionally. Seems to only occur when I have the GUS and LAPC1 in
> the system simultaneously.  Pull out the LAPC, and I haven't seen it with
> the GUS/SBP combo.

See if this problem will go away with the next release of the GUS
drivers (which should be RSN as the MAX just shipped with them).

> PROBLEM 4
> ---------
> Also, I've had it all of a sudden lose the CMOS info (HD codes, etc).  Has
> happened about 6 times.  Again, only when the GUS and LAPC were in the box.
> This is scary.

This is likely a consequence of Problem 3.

> Date: Thu, 12 May 1994 18:41:44 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Juan Carlos Leon <jleon@chaph.usc.edu>
> Subject: Does your GUS rev 2.2 has these hardware anomalies?
> 
> Hi, I just got a 2.2 GUS for my brother (I have a 2.4).  It does look a bit
> different, more components.  But I'm quite concerned with some anomalies in
> the soldered components.  I would like to know from anybody of you who has
> a 2.2 board if this is what your board also has or if not, which are the
> correct values:
> 
> - At top edge of the card:
>   C13, C14, C15 & C16 not only have a capacitor but a 2.2K resistor
>   in series with the capacitors.  The abnormal thing here is that there
>   are no places for the resistors.  It's like one leg of the capacitor
>   is soldered in one trace, one leg of the resistor is at the other
>   trace and the other leg of each component are soldered on the "air".
[etc.]

The 2.2 GUS was a very early revision with some last-minute hand-
soldered fixes, so the things you see should be normal.

> Date: Fri, 13 May 1994 23:19:13 +1000 (EST)
> From: "Marshall / John Leonard (ISE)" <u888430@student.canberra.edu.au>
> Subject: Doom, this and that
> 
> A quick Doom question: the sound effects for the Gus are great, but my 
> system swaps the left and right channels around, defeating the 
> advantage of having stereo sound. I hear imps to the left when they are 
> really to the right.  Can anybody help me out?  (BTW no, my speakers 
> *aren't* reversed!) 

They must be!  Load up GUSMOD and play with the panning of the voices
to see if the problem is peculiar to DOOM or is global.

> Date: Fri, 13 May 1994 13:59:02 +1000
> From: Dennis Mills <dcm@mlb.dmt.csiro.au>
> Subject: Megaem questions
> 
> I have a 768k GUS and I noticed that when using GM music in megaem (eg:
> in X-Wing) high numbered patches were defaulting to patch 0, presumably
> because there wasn't enough memory to hold them all. Fair enough, so
> I use emuset -f22 to load them in at 22kHz and now they all seem to
> work fine. Only thing is, I notice that emuset reports "loading GM
> patch set for 768k - 8 bits 22kHz" or somesuch. Is it really loading
> them at 8 bits? How do I make it load patches at 16 bits if so?

If you needed to use the -22 switch to load the patches you wanted, 
then why would you want to load the patches at 16-bit resolution
as that would mean you'd be back to where you started in terms of
number of patches loaded?  Besides, Mega-Em doesn't support loading
patches at 16-bit for the reason that you can't only fit 1/2 as
many patches into a certain amount of GUS memory at 16-bit as you
can at 8-bit resolution.  Furthermore, 8-bit samples on the GUS don't
sound all that much worse than 16-bit samples.  Play your favourite MIDI
file with the -8 switch (which causes that patches to be loaded at 8-bit
resolution instead of 16-bit) and see for yourself.

Phat.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 13 May 1994 20:15:12 -0400
From: KWAN  RICHARD SIK YIU <kwanr@ecf.toronto.edu>
Subject: HELP!! (with MICROSM)

	I had just bought a CD-ROM game called MICROSOM. It had serval versions
for different platform e.g. AMIGA ... The game had Ultrasound support, but 
somehow the SFX function caused my machine to crash. The SFX works fine during
the intro, but when the game starts, it hangs up my machine within 2 min. The
game works fine without SFX. Also another problem occured. I have the SB16 in
my machine, but the game only detects GUS and not SB16, and it won't let me use
the SB16 for the SFX.
	MICROSM uses ultramid to get the music and SFX. IS there a new version
of ultramid and the ADVs, the ones that the game comes with is dated 2/20/94.
I hope someone could help me to solve the problem.

Thanks in advance!

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 13 May 94 22:51:35 EDT
From: PaulSS1259@aol.com
Subject: Please explain the rev numbers.

I have seen many versions of software for the GUS go by. What I am trying to
understand is why GUS0039 has later files in it than GUS0041.

Is there some rational to the numbering scheme used for these files?

Thanks.... Paul

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 13 May 94 17:33:57 -0500
From: jfulmer@databank.com (John Fulmer)
Subject: Strangesoldering...

>- At the middle of the card:
>   There's a capacitor soldered on top of U24, between pins 4 & 7.
>   Again there's no traces for this but it's soldered like it was a
>   not planed modification of the board.

This is VERY common in board designs. The capacitor is required, probably 
for noise reduction in the chip. I suspect that the difference between this 
and YOUR board is that some chips and sockets have the cap built in. Don't 
worry about it.

>
>The board works though but I don't know if there's something that I've
>overlooked.  I was tempted to remove those components and solder them as
>they are in my 2.4 card but I guess that's not a wise thing to do since
>the card have some differences.
>
>So, should I worry?  I don't know but this doesn't look like it was done by
>Gravis.

Good thing! You probably would have screwed up his board. #1 rule in 
electonics, if it works, don't mess with it!

chow
*--------------------------------------------------------------------*
|John Fulmer(jfulmer@databank.com)|      "I find it in-ter-es-ting,  *
|Micom Computer Systems           |       A noun's a person, place,  *
|Lawrence, Ks.                    |              or thing..."        *
*--------------------------------------------------------------------*

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 13 May 94 17:24:47 -0500
From: jfulmer@databank.com (John Fulmer)

>PROBLEM 1
>---------
>I can't get any sound from my SBPro connected to the line-in of the GUS in
>DOS.  Yes, I've got "ULTRINIT -L" in the AUTOEXEC.  [ULTRINIT -L -O, no
>difference]  Software is 3.11 (ultrinit is 2.18).  
>
>I've observed:
>It works in Windows (I can play the CD connected to the SBPro thru the GUS
>line-in).  I know the SBPro is working as I can rerout the sound to the
>amp.  So it isn't the cable, SBPro output, or GUS line-in connectors or
>stages.  Ultrasnd is set to 240,5,5,5,5. Moved from default primarily as
>the SBPro is on 220, IRQ7, and wanted 16-bit DMA. Can the GUS IRQ's both on
>5 cause a problem?  Didn't in the past, and I'm running out of IRQ's (see
>below).  I've tried with SB DMA sharing  both on and off.>

Be warned, IRQ 5 or IRQ 7 is usually the Printer LPT1 parallel port. If ou 
want to use IRQ five, you must disable the printer port completely, since 
most I/O cards only allow you to use one or the other for the printer.
Also, make sure you don't have a problem motherboard that uses an OPTI or 
UMC chipset. This can also cause weird problems....

>PROBLEM 2
>---------
>I can't get the right digitized sounds in Doom with IRQ 11 or higher. 
>Works fine on 5 (SBPro on 7, LAPC takes 2/9?).  Is this symptomatic of
>something?

This is just the way of Doom and the dos extender it is using.....

>PROBLEM 4
>---------
>Also, I've had it all of a sudden lose the CMOS info (HD codes, etc).  Has
>happened about 6 times.  Again, only when the GUS and LAPC were in the box.
>This is scary.
>
>486dx2/66, 8MB RAM, Diamond SS Pro VLB (recently disabled its IRQ2 option,
>though it hadn't cused any probs with the LAPC), Contaq chipset.  No SCSI,
>just IDE, CD-rom connected to the SBPro, DOS 6.2.

Right now I would suspect the Diamond board. Some people have problems with 
them, others don't. Personally I don't like them much. I've heard of people 
have problems with them, and not just with the GUS.

jf
*--------------------------------------------------------------------*
|John Fulmer(jfulmer@databank.com)|      "I find it in-ter-es-ting,  *
|Micom Computer Systems           |       A noun's a person, place,  *
|Lawrence, Ks.                    |              or thing..."        *
*--------------------------------------------------------------------*

------------------------------

End of GUS Daily Digest V13 #13
*******************************
