Ultrasound Daily Digest     Wed Jun 30 00:07     Volume 4: Issue  29  

Today's Topics:
          800 number to check my registration, GUS and OS/2
                        AIL drivers and WGH3.
                       Best place to get a GUS
                            files on Epas
                   Flight Simulator V4 / SBOS 2.08
               Gusspeak anouncement  (gus talk program)
                        GUS talker anouncement
                   new super dooper whizz bang card
                        Recording on the GUS?
                      SBOS 2.0B10 and Flashback.
                            The Syndicate
                 Ultima Underworld I and Miles driver
               Ultrasound Daily Digest V4 #28 (2 msgs)

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: Tue, 29 Jun 93 06:46:16 EDT
From: nemo@vnet.IBM.COM
Subject: 800 number to check my registration, GUS and OS/2
Message-ID: <9306291052.AA03757@orca.es.com>

Hiya,
Could somebody re-post or email me the 800 number so I can check my
registration?  I have the number 1-800-663-8558 but when I dial it, I get a
recording saying that it cannot be reached.

I'm in Toronto and still haven't received my disks.  Anybody in the same
predicament here?

Also, has anyone gotten the GUS to work with OS/2 2.1 MMPM/2?  I installed the
MMPM/2 once, using the SoundBlaster (not Pro) setting, and it did not
work.  I'm planning to set aside an afternoon to get it to work, but is this
possible?  Has anyone done it yet?

Nemo "still waiting patiently for the upgrade disks" De Furia

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

Date: Tue, 29 Jun 93 12:50 EDT
From: "Matthew E. Bernold" <MEB117@PSUVM.PSU.EDU>
Subject: AIL drivers and WGH3.
Message-ID: <9306291653.AA08521@orca.es.com>

I know that the AIL drivers are not guaranteed to work with all games out
there, but I thought that someone might want to know this.  I have been able
to isolate some specific circumstances that the AIL digi driver will fail
with Wayne Gretsky Hockey 3.

First of all, if you try using the digi and midi drivers, the game dies in
the intro (at least for me).  I am therefore forced to set the game for
the pcspeaker which uses digital effects and no music.  I have nearly no
lockups from the game, but the digital effects seem to cut out and come
back every once in a while.  It seemed odd that I always seemed to notice
the lack of sound at a face-off, so I payed closer attention and found out
that one of the things that causes the sound to cut out is the referee's
whistle.  Right after the whistle sounds, there is no further sound until
either a goal is scored (at which time the sound comes back) or the start
of the next period (sound comes back as well).

I tried an experiment.  I found the sound file that made the whistle sound
(WHISTLE.VOC) and removed it from the /wgh3/sound directory.  When I ran
the game again, the whistle sound was gone (of course) but the sounds did
NOT cut out.  All other sounds continued.  There is at least one other
sound that causes this problem (one of the crowd noises) but I have not
had the time to isolate the file yet (I found the first one at 2 in the
morning.  :-)

For those of you who have the game, you might try what I described above,
and you might get sound for longer than you are.  I will post the other
filenames that are making trouble as soon as I find them.

For Gravis/Forte, I think you might want to look at why certain sound files
are causing problems for your drivers.  I will do some more experiments with
my copy and post my results here.

       Matthew E. Bernold             MEB117@PSUVM.PSU.EDU
         <<APOCALYPSE>>               meb117@wilbur.cac.psu.edu

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

Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1993 12:44:52 -0500 (EDT)
From: lingy@rpi.edu (Danzig)
Subject: Best place to get a GUS
Message-ID: <m0oAinc-000Ez1C@danzig.its.rpi.edu>

Can anyone here please tell me where is the best place to get a GUS?
Thanks.

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

Date: Tue, 29 Jun 93 20:10 PDT
From: Jason Lin                            <IZZYVU9@MVS.OAC.UCLA.EDU>
Subject: files on Epas
Message-ID: <9306300310.AA17692@orca.es.com>

Can the owner of Epas rename all GUS files that has underline character or
number as the first character in their names to something else?  My FTP remote
system can not recognize file name that has under character.  Use '-' instead
will be fine..      Thanks..
-=Jason Lin=-

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

Date: Tue, 29 Jun 93 09:32:29 BST
From: ahewett@mround.bt.co.uk (Andy Hewett)
Subject: Flight Simulator V4 / SBOS 2.08
Message-ID: <9306290832.AA09233@essex.mround.bt.co.uk>

Thanks to all who mailed me direct in response to my earlier post about
getting FS4 and the SGA upgrade to work with SBOS.

I've got it going, after a fashion. The fix is to make the Soundblaster
and Ultrasound interrupts the same (7 on my machine).  No SBOS switches
are needed.

I now get "reasonable" sound, except for a regular soft scratching/popping
noise that comes out on the right channel only. Whenever the sound is
changing, ie: engine speed increasing, the simulation also slows to a
crawl (on a 486/33!).

My questions now are (anyone from GRAVIS reading this ?):

1. Is it "safe" to make these two interrupts the same ? I don't want to
introduce unwanted effects into playmidi or windoze. I'd rather junk FS4
in that case.

2. Is the speed slowdown due to FS4 or SBOS ? I'd be interested to hear
from any FS4/SB "pilots" on this.

Cheers,
Andy Hewett

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

Date: Tue, 29 Jun 93 13:13:01 CDT
From: eason@ncrnd3.StPaul.NCR.COM (Dale Eason)
Subject: Gusspeak anouncement  (gus talk program)
Message-ID: <9306291813.AA29369@ncrnd3.StPaul.NCR.COM>

I tried to upload a program that uses the GUS to speak english words.  Epas
was full so I am sending this notice about it and if someone wants it I will
try to email it to them.  The uuencoded file is 282713 big.  Don't ask me to
break it up I don't have the tools or time.  If you can't receive email this
big then wait until the archive can accept it, sorry.

Gusspeak a talk program for Gravis Ultrasound.  6-29-93

Gusspeak is a program that uses the GUS to speak engligh words from
computer keyboard input or by reading a text file.  I took the code I found
at garfield.catt.ncsu.edu /pub/speak ftp site modified it and the phonemes for
the GUS.  Most people can only understand it if they know what it is going to
say.  So it is not very usefull.  Maybe someone can use it as a starting point
for improvements.

Some of the pronunciation rules seem to have errors in them.  They were
developed in 1976 at Naval Research Laboratory, Wahingtion, DC.  You can find
these in the file english.c.  There are 41 phoneme samples that I found at
the ftp site.  I used SOX and my own sample editor to modifiy them for the
GUS.

I have included the source and the original readme file in the zip file.

Have fun.

Dale.eason@stpaul.ncr.com

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

Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1993 16:00:05 GMT
From: dale.eason@stpaul.ncr.com (Dale Eason)
Subject: GUS talker anouncement
Message-ID: <dale.eason.60.741369605@stpaul.ncr.com>

ReprintFrom: comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard

I tried to put the following text and the gusspeak.zip file on epas but
it is full.  I will try again when it has some room.  In the mean time if
someone is interested I will try to uuencode it to them.

Dale

Gusspeak a talk program for Gravis Ultrasound.  6-29-93

Gusspeak is a program that uses the GUS to speak engligh words from
computer keyboard input or by reading a text file.  I took the code I found
at garfield.catt.ncsu.edu /pub/speak ftp site modified it and the phonemes for
the GUS.  Most people can only understand it if they know what it is going to
say.  So it is not very usefull.  Maybe someone can use it as a starting point
for improvements.

Some of the pronunciation rules seem to have errors in them.  They were
developed in 1976 at Naval Research Laboratory, Wahingtion, DC.  You can find
these in the file english.c.  There are 41 phoneme samples that I found at
the ftp site.  I used SOX and my own sample editor to modifiy them for the
GUS.

I have included the source and the original readme file.

Have fun.

Dale.eason@stpaul.ncr.com
dale.eason@.stpaul.ncr.com

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

Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1993 23:06:20 +0800 (WST)
From: Adam Boyt <aboyt@tartarus.uwa.edu.au>
Subject: new super dooper whizz bang card
Message-ID: <199306291506.XAA15943@tartarus>

Just thought everyone might like to know, John Smith just told me that a
new super ultrasound card is coming out.  It will be released around
christmas time - from what he said I think it is going to have features
like up to 8 Meg of ram, buit in midi, 16 bit sampling, scsi etc (you get
the idea).  I'm not sure whether they are going to fix(remove) the 256k
limit to the size of a patch - imagine a 1 meg patch!!

Bye

Adam Boyt (Ferrous)

aboyt@tartarus.uwa.edu.au

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

Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1993 10:28:36 +22311151 (CDT)
From: read@utpapa.ph.utexas.edu (Dave Read)
Subject: Recording on the GUS?
Message-ID: <9306291528.AA27606@utpapa.ph.utexas.edu>

I would like some advice from other GUS users about recording stuff on
the GUS.  I have tried USS8, but hate it...it's unbelievably flaky.
When it works, it works well (I don't hear the scratches & pops that
other people complain about, merely a continuous low-level hissing
noise).  However, it seems to work only about 20% of the times I try.
Often it refuses to work at all; despite repeated attempts with every
configuration imaginable, the "Vu" meters don't even twitch for the
"loudest" input I can find! :(  Does anyone out there know what USS8's
problem is?

If it helps, here's the configuration: 486/50 (not clock-doubled),
with 16MB RAM, 400 MB SCSI HD, Future Domain SCSI adapter, Microsoft
Bus Mouse.  I'm using 4MB of my RAM under SMARTDrive...Nice fast disk
access!  I also have 768 Kb mem on the GUS.

Regarding the GUS memory, that seems to work fine; I plugged in 80ns
256x4 memory chips from Hyundai purchased at my local electronics
store (~$6/chip) and everything worked fine.  GUSDRAM tests every byte
as 'OK.'  If you're wondering why I have 768k instead of 1MB, it's 
because I ordered 256k of upgrade memory from Gravis before I found the
chips locally....

On a related note, what software are people out there using for
recording on the GUS?  I basically feel that USS8 sucks...are there
any other shareware/freeware/commercial packages that are better?
In my book right now, "better" = "more stable."

Thanks,
Dave



-- 
Dave Read       (read@utpapa.ph.utexas.edu)         UT-Austin HEP Grad Student 
"...this is one technique to prevent its children from becoming zombies."
		-W. Richard Stevens, in _UNIX_Network_Programming_

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

Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1993 16:58:35 -0300 (ADT)
From: Shadow Of Fear <markus@Info.UMoncton.ca>
Subject: SBOS 2.0B10 and Flashback.
Message-ID: <Pine.3.02.9306291635.A7209-b100000@clement>

	
John Smith,

	Here's a report for SBOS 2.0B10 that was said to fix the music in
Flashback.  I've had Flashback for about a month and never bother about
the music (I don't hear it quite often).  The sound effects, on the other
hand, are part of the game.  They bring the game alive.  And SBOS 2.0B9
was doing an excellent job at it.  And then I replaced it with SBOS 2.0B10.

	The music is much better as you said.  Made my smile. :)  But the
sound effects are now totally screwed up.  Like if the sounds are being
played through a filter or something.  Sorry, but I had to go back to
2.0B9.  I can stand the off-tune music, but can't stand the sound effects
with 2.0B10.

                            Marc Y. Paulin
     /-----------------------------------------------------------------\
     |  Fidonet: 1:255/32.0  Internet: markus@info.umoncton.ca         |
     |           1:255/33.0      Talk: markus@clement.info.umoncton.ca |
     \--------------+------------------------------+-------------------/
                    | Gravis Ultrasound forever!!! |
                    +------------------------------+

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

Date: Tue, 29 Jun 93 10:45:40 MDT
From: bprince@nyx.cs.du.edu (Brian Prince)
Subject: The Syndicate
Message-ID: <9306291645.AA17147@nyx.cs.du.edu>

	I have read in the digest that people have been having problems
with running The Syndicate with sbos.  At first, I also got
no sound (great English huh?  Thats why I study Comp. Sci. :)).
I even got pauses in the intro.  The car would move, stop, then move again,
and it wasn't due to the traffic.  Then I looked at the syndicate.bat file.
It had something like :
	@main > 'sb init stuff here like interupts and such'
	What I did was change the syndicate.bat file to read just
the @main part of the line, then delete the rest of the garbage.  I have
standard settings on my GUS, and with sbos 2.08B (or whatever is on the new
disk set) it works great.  People run around on fire screaming, you
can tell what type of weapons people use, and best yet, you can hear
the time bombs beeping before they go off.
	This game, IMHO is AWESOME! :)
-Brian H. Prince
bprince@zeta.mcs.capital.edu
OAS_AAS_LLS

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

Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1993 20:49:41 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Timothy C. Gion" <gion@chopin.udel.edu>
Subject: Ultima Underworld I and Miles driver
Message-ID: <Pine.3.07.9306292037.A4718-a100000@chopin.udel.edu>

I'm running Ultima Underworld I with the Miles driver.  It sounds great,
but when I start moving, the sound starts skipping.  I tried copying all
the *.pat files to a ram drive, but that didn't help either.  I'm using a
486dx-33, so I don't think my processor is too slow.  Would it help if I
installed more memory in my GUS?  I only have 512K installed right now. 
Thanks in advance. 


Tim Gion   AKA  /     \     University of Delaware - Computer Science
               -Merdion- 
                \     / 

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

Date: 29-JUN-1993 14:48:23.20
From: Richard Wyckoff <RWYCKOFF@EAGLE.WESLEYAN.EDU>
Subject: Re: Ultrasound Daily Digest V4 #28
Message-ID: <01GZYDKQHYR494DQXV@EAGLE.WESLEYAN.EDU>

> Date: Mon, 28 Jun 93 14:42:18
> From: gary@minster.york.ac.uk

> OK - let's liven this up a little. The reason I bought a GUS was to experiment
> with good quality sound synthesis. I don't mean playing .MOD files with Gravis's
> patches or having noises of jet fighters passing whilst I play tetris (which,
> incidentaly, I don't play). My interest is in using Linux as a good/high quality
> music and sound workstation.

> 1) direct to disk recorder
> 2) direct from disk playback
> 3) waveform-based sample file editors
> 4) port of c-music (or is it c-sound)
> 5) port of the phase vocoder
> 6) frequency spectrum manipulation tools (a la groucho?)
> 7) MIDI manipulation
	Why don't you forget about Linux?  C-sound has already been ported
to OS/2, and Anthony Green is working on c-music next.  (and I think you
probably want both; c-sound is a software synthesizer, c-music more of a
composition program I think, though I haven't used the latter).
	As for the rest of the items, I'd rather see good quality PC programs
written for a PC OS, rather than a version of UNIX that just happens to be
running on a PC.  Ports of the classic programs you mention elsewhere in
your memo just don't seem to be working out; take the PC version of the 
well-regarded ST sequencer (Cubase? something like that).  It was almost 
universally panned in c.s.i.p.s.
	Furthermore, I wouldn't even embark on such a project until Gravis
finally releases the long-promised 16-bit daughterboard, and by then, who
knows what OS will be most popular, and what drivers Gravis will have written?
	This is a good idea, and the reason that I bought the GUS in the
first place, but I'd rather see a robust, well-written *single* sound package
than a collection of shareware hacks and ports for an OS even less friendly
than DOS.
--
                    This is a UNIX system!  I *know* this!
                     -A bit of realism from Jurassic Park
       **Richard Wyckoff aka RWYCKOFF@EAGLE.WESLEYAN.EDU aka Catullus**

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

Date: Wed, 30 Jun 93 00:22:21 GMT
From: mike@batpad.org (Mike Batchelor)
Subject: Ultrasound Daily Digest V4 #28
Message-ID: <znr741399741k@batpad>

> From: Paul Kokis <scratcher@cix.compulink.co.uk>
> Subject: ULTRAMID won't load high
>
> Anyway, I noticed that my t7g screen update has *really* slowed with
> AIL, and I can't get enough mem free to run t7g past the credits. There
> seems to be no difference in available mem between ULTRAMID and LH
> ULTRAMID. Typing MEM /C shows ULTRAMID eating 54K conventional.

DOS's LH is brain-dead.  If it can't load something high, it 
will load it low and not tell you about it.  Here's the memory 
requirements as given by QEMM's loadhi command (Optimize has no 
trouble loading UltraMID high, given sufficient memory):

[d:\ultrasnd\ail]loadhi /gs ultramid -c
Ultra Sound MIDI and digital sound TSR Ver. 1.00
Copyright (C) 1993 Forte Technologies
All Rights Reserved
LOADHI: 66672 initialization bytes (66K)
LOADHI: 57136 resident bytes (56K)
LOADHI: This program MAY use SQUEEZEF
LOADHI: 0 initialization bytes in Upper Memory (0K)
LOADHI: 0 resident bytes in Upper Memory (0K)

So unless you have at least 66K free high RAM, this puppy ain't 
gonna go high, no way, no how (with EMM386, that is - QEMM can 
shoehorn it in ways Microsoft hasn't even though of yet :)

But enough of the shameless plugs.

> What is going on? I'm considering changing back to sbos, just for an
> easy life!
>
> Paul. Very annoyed!

I am annoyed at the size of this driver as well, and I have no 
trouble loading it high.  It's worse than Netware, but not 
nearly as bad as PCNFS! :)  Of course, I also have Stacker, and 
a FOSSIL, and this and that, and I want to get a CDROM, and....

It needs to use expanded memory REAL BAD, and it ought to also 
use XMS as a fallback for those games that refuse to run in v86 
mode (another thing that annoys me to no end, but don't get me 
started :).

--
    ///////////////////////////////
   //////  Mike Batchelor ////////
  ////// mike@batpad.org ////////
 //// Mar Vista, California ////
///////////////////////////////

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

End of Ultrasound Daily Digest V4 #29
*************************************