Ultrasound Daily Digest     Mon, 29 Mar 93       Volume 2 : Issue  84 

Today's Topics:
							FTP SITE ADMIN
						  GMOS Mailing List
					   honesty vs salesmanship
						   IRC discussions
				Miditest.exe: MIDI port tester on epas
							  More GMOS
						   mt32.zip on epas
					 Ultrasound Daily Digest V...
					Ultrasound Daily Digest V2 #83
					   Zone 66 - Parity Errors

	Information about the UltraSound Daily Digest (such as
mail addresses, request servers, ftp sites, etc., etc.) can be found
at the end of the Digest.

	*** HEY!!! *** 

	Before you ask a question, *** READ THE FAQ ***.  It's
available on the request server and the ftp sites, or check the
newsgroup archives.

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

Date: Sun, 28 Mar 93 20:03:36 MST
From: ddebry@itchy (Dave DeBry)
Message-Id: <9303290303.AA05811@itchy>
Subject: FTP SITE ADMIN
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

	The digests up through v02i83 have been uploaded to epas.

	Remember that we go to v03 on April 1st (no joke! :) .


-- 
Dave  ddebry@ debry@   \ "All this has been removed for the last 48 hours
DeBry dsd.    peruvian. | and I have a doctor prodding the angry swelling
	  es.     cs.utah.  | on my porch."
	  com     edu      /  

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

Date: Sun, 28 Mar 93 19:40:08 MST
From: ddebry@itchy (Dave DeBry)
Message-Id: <9303290240.AA05404@itchy>
Subject: GMOS Mailing List
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

	There has been a lot of volume about the "GMOS" concept
lately, with a potential for a lot more.  So, I've created a GMOS
mailing list.  It's a reflector, but like the other reflectors, it may
become a digest if the readership and volume go up enough.

	Mail to:  gmos-request%itchy@dsd.es.com  to subscribe.

-- 
Dave  ddebry@ debry@   \ 
DeBry dsd.    peruvian. | "They sent the chicken bone to the lab.  It
	  es.     cs.utah.  |  came back 'chicken bone'."
	  com     edu      / 

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

Date: 29 Mar 1993 16:01:28 +1000
From: PHTH1@cc.newcastle.edu.au
Message-Id: <01GWDWRMO7HU9LYKE9@cc.newcastle.edu.au>
Subject: honesty vs salesmanship
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

Regarding the line, "being overly critical of a $150 sound card"...

Thank you to the Gravis rep for all that information. It is most useful,
and also very encouraging to have official representation on the public
network. As far as the quoted remark is concerned, I for one am far more
impressed by honesty than propaganda. The fact that you guys are prepared
to (a) face up to the problems, and (b) do something about them, inspires
far more confidence in me than the typical line, "Our product is the 
absolute best, it has no problems, it will never break, it works with
everything" etc. etc. etc.

Thanks again for a great sound card, and for the after-sales support.

Tony

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

Date: Sun, 28 Mar 93 09:41:22 +0200
From: Shmuel Gazit <keeper@ccsg.tau.ac.il>
Message-Id: <9303280741.AA12464@ccsg.tau.ac.il>
Subject: IRC discussions
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

Hello GUSers !

I've seen some ppl here talking about a discussion in a Newsgroup.
While this can be nice, I want to suggest another idea - since many
of us are on internet, why not use IRC (Internet Relay Chat system)
for online discussions ? we are on different time zones, thats true,
but I'm sure it can help in developing and just chatting..
If u don't know how to get on the system, ask somebody who knows
how to connect (your Admin, someone at the CC, etc..)
if u do enter, and look for a channel - enter #GUS 

c u all there :)
/Shmulik.

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

Date: Sun, 28 Mar 93 23:52:02 WET
From: dp@hydra.carleton.CA (Dave Perry VE3IFB)
Message-Id: <9303290452.AA09055@hydra.carleton.CA>
Subject: Miditest.exe: MIDI port tester on epas
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

I have put miditest.zip on archive.epas.utoronto.ca.  This is a program
to monitor the midi input.  I know something like this already exists,
but I could only find one for Windows, not DOS.  This program runs in a
DOS session, which is handy when you aren't sure whether your Windows
installation is correct.

Enjoy.

Dave Perry
dp@hydra.carleton.ca

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

Date: 29 Mar 1993 01:17:16 +0800
From: TC <SH7126146@NTUVAX.NTU.AC.SG>
Message-Id: <01GWD22SBOG2A9LIX1@NTUVAX.NTU.AC.SG>
Subject: More GMOS
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

 
> Actually it doesn't even require the cooperation of the conpanies.  I am
> sure there are more than a few hackers out there, who could decipher the
> GM instructions in games, and make a "patch" for such games to remap the
> whole game to 1meg worth of patches.
 
I wonder why no one caught the reference to option (3) which I mentioned
should allow GMOS to determine the patch changes during a particular
run. For example, you run 'GMOS -cxwing.cfg' and GMOS will collect any
MIDI patch change information throughout this particular session and
save it to a .cfg file. It can then load this file later to load the
required patches. Of course, this is not fail safe. A program might need
more than 1MB worth of patches throughout the whole run. Thus, dynamic
loading will STILL have to be supported.
 
This way we won't see people posting 'does anyone have a patch map for
so-and-so game?'. They can do it themselves.
 
> Also, as far as dynamic patch loading goes, this would take some pretty
> smart coding, or else how would the GMOS know which patches to clear to
> make room for the new patches.  The one used least frequently?  The largest
 
You have to trade off something for this dynamic loading method. The
simplest way would be in terms of the oldest patch that has not been
accessed (this means it assumes that the program no longer needs that
patch since it has not used it for a long time).
 
The problems with this is mainly in management of the GUS memory.
Allocating and deallocating patches dynamically creates "holes" in the
memory map of the GUS, and since a patch has to be sequential, either we
have to 1) move the patches around in the GUS's memory, or 2)
preallocate certain number of slots (configurable, eg via 'GMOS -b32'
for 32K max for each patch) for patches.
 
.tc

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

Date: 28 Mar 93  0:01 -0800
From: Thomas Wong <twong@civil.ubc.ca>
Message-Id: <3321*twong@civil.ubc.ca>
Subject: mt32.zip on epas
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

Yup. I made a booboo. I have now moved mt32.zip from ....sound/patches/util
to .....sound/midi/files. Thanks for catching that. I haven't made the
change on wuarchive yet though.

If you find any errors on the ftp sites, please either post it or let
me know. Thanks.


Thomas.

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

Date: Sun, 28 Mar 93 13:58:41 EST
From: pccmoddan@aol.com
Message-Id: <9303281358.tn10481@aol.com>
Subject: Ultrasound Daily Digest V...
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

John Smith wrote:
> I know that a lot of people have said that its OK to put both a 
> GUS and SB in the same machine. I also know that some people 
> have had some success doing just that.  However, it is really 
> not a good idea. There are some very solid hardware reasons NOT 
> to do this. Even though you can move the I/O address and IRQ that 
> SBOS uses so that it will not conflict with the SB, you cannot 
> move the DMA channel. SBOS and the SB both use DMA channel > 1. 

I use both an SB Pro (set to Irq 7, address 220, and DMA channel 1) and a GUS
(set to Irqs 5 and 11, address 240 and DMA channel 3) in the same machine (a
486DX-33 (with an >opti< chipset) with absolutely no problems, including when
testing software with SBOS.
(When SBOS is run software completely ignores the SB Pro and detects SBOS as 
an SB perfectly). But this would not apply to most people. However, if all
that conflicts is SBOS and the SB, what is the problem? Almost anyone with
both a GUS and and SB in the same machine would not be using SBOS at all, so
it seems they wouldn't have any problems, just as I haven't. I've talked to
many more people who are running both in the same machine with no problems
than people who tried and had problems. Short of having hardware SB emulation
on the GUS, there's no better way to run SB software. 

- Dan Nicholson

________________________________________________________
Dan Nicholson    -    PCkS Associates - (908)964-8066 - ModDan
							  553 Thoreau Terr. 
							  Union, NJ 07083
________________________________________________________
			   
				   Support RAM based wavetable synthesis.
________________________________________________________

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

Date: 28-MAR-1993 13:41:01.41
From: Richard Wyckoff <RWYCKOFF@EAGLE.WESLEYAN.EDU>
Message-Id: <01GWCEV265IO8Y5QQE@EAGLE.WESLEYAN.EDU>
Subject: Ultrasound Daily Digest V2 #83
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

[A word about Xwing, again...]
> From: Eric N. Liao <liaoe@aero.org>
> Subject: GMOS

> Anyway, next time I run X-Wing, I will try the MPU-401 setting.
> Also, I found that John Smith's solution to game slowdown during digitized sfx
> works perfectly.  
	I find this a little ironic, considering that I (and others) posted
this solution long before John got around to it...well, it's "John Smith's
solution" now, I guess :)  [actually, I got one supportive email when I posted
it, so I'm not *really* complaining.]

> You have to shut off music, and then (at least for me) there
> is no longer that slowdown associated with firing lasers.  I'm not sure why
> so many people are blaming Lucasarts...seems more like a problem with
> Creative Labs to me.  Look, the SB1.5 actually DROPPED the on/board CMS stereo
> chips (buy them separately for $30.)  Like they really cost that much.  This
> gives you an idea of Creative Labs' early products.
	I don't think much of Creative Labs (anymore) but I'm still more
than convinced that the slowdown is due to poor programming, not 'slow DAC'- 
WC II played digitized sound and FM music simultaneously without the HUGE
performance hit in Xwing - it's possible, of course, that they had to use
a crummy digitized sound output routine in order to get the otherwise incredibly
high frame rate, but still...
	Also, while those CMS chips might not have cost $30, they certainly
weren't crap, and it's a real shame that Creative Labs stopped including
them, or we might have had stereo music in games years ago.  I know that
the difference in music in Ultima 6 and Sorcerian with Game Blaster (CMS)
vs Adlib was *very* noticeable, but it's the old lowest common denominator
again. *sigh*


[And now for something completely different - sample noise]
> From: "Loking... Searching" <mcng@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca>
> Subject: Gus Notes and 16 bit Daughter Card and NOISE!!


> Another question regarding sound quality,  I've read some where, I believe from
> Phat, that the GUS is one of the most "quietest" sound cards out there.   Now, i
> f I get the 16 bit record daughterboard, which I would like to very much, will t
> he samples come (%5 tolerance at the most! ) to CD quality..  I know this is adv
> ertise as so.  But the fact is. that There is noise!

> I'd like also to know the final answer to the question of why there is
> noise when recording a NULL signal...  and the solution.

	I'm quite concerned about this issue, too.  I have observed two things
about sample noise: 1) 8-bit samples (.WAV format, mostly) have an enourmous
amount of noise in them.  I have tested this by generating a 16-bit raw sample
in the OS/2 beta of Csound which I am testing, and then using Wave for Windows
to turn it into both an 8-bit and a 16-bit .WAV file.  The 8-bit sample always
sounds like there is a noisy fan recorded in the background; the 16-bit sample
is as clean as you could hope.  I wonder if this is another example of just
plain crappy Microsoft code?  8-bit sound naturally can't reproduce the full
frequency spectrum of a sample, but it shouldn't induce noise.   This may
explain the null sample noise problem.

	Observation 2) When the GUS microphone in is turned ON (as it is
by default) there is a TON of noise all the time.  Now, I have the worst
amplifier in the world, so I can't say for certain if turning OFF the mic
will eliminate all the noise, and I haven't bothered making any recordings
off of CD through the line in, because of this Windows 8-bit .WAV problem
that I've already discussed.  I will say that before I started fooling around
with gusmixer, I could hear video writes and disk writes (even though my video
card is three or four slots away from the GUS) and now I don't.

	My projected solutions, for the arrival of the 16-bit daughtercard:
NEVER use the mic in.  If you are sampling for music or multimedia, you won't 
get acceptable quality through a mic anyway, and you're going to record all 
the background noise that your computer generates (fan, etc) even if you can 
isolate the electronic interference.  If you need voice, tape it in a quiet
room, then run the tape into the line in.  Hopefully, all of this will cut
the noise down to an unnoticeable minimum.  
--
 Multimedia: You mean I could fill up my hard disk annotating spreadsheets 
 with digitized voice when I'd been foolishly conserving space by using text?
 Why didn't *I* think of that!  Bill Gates, my hero!
			   **Richard Wyckoff**RWYCKOFF@EAGLE.WESLEYAN.EDU**

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

Date: Sun, 28 Mar 93 00:17 MST
From: <AUBEN%ASUACVAX.BITNET@VM.USC.EDU>
Message-Id: <9303280718.AA02700@orca.es.com>
Subject: Zone 66 - Parity Errors
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

Has anyone else had trouble running Zone 66?  When I first tried it, it gave me
one of the infamous "off board parity errors" and promptly locked up.  It was on
ly by disabling the parity checking in my CMOS settings that I got it to work.
I just want to find out if there's a valid, but harmless, reason for it, or if
something's actually wrong with the card.  Could this be an example of a 16-bit
DMA problem?  That'll be the next thing I try.

Oh, on the subject of Zone 66, is there any way to shut off the Line In while pl
aying?  I ended up unplugging mine, as the mixers didn't work.

--John

(pccjohnb@aol.com)

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

End of Ultrasound Daily Digest V2 #84
******************************
