GUS Daily Digest            Fri, 21 Jan 94  0:07         Volume 10: Issue  21 

Today's Topics:
					  [RFI] OPTI 495SLC Chipset
					  CDROM pass-thru connector
						   GUS and windows
					   GUS Daily Digest V10 #20
							GUS in Austria
					GUS Midi adapter by mail-order
							GUS ModPlayers
			   LMSI CROM & Gus Daughterboard Under OS/2
						MegaEm and the MT-32.
							MIDI ftp sites
						 OS2: Gravis SPEAKS!
							   Patches
							PC-Mag article
							   phone #
				 Rebel Assault + Gravis Joystick Pro
			   Reply to Faster Memory and Memory Prices

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, 21 Jan 1994 00:18:35 -40962758 (EET)
From: Janne Korkkula <jk@snafu.muncca.fi>
Subject: [RFI] OPTI 495SLC Chipset

	I'm "Really-Soon-Now(TM)" going to upgrade my 386/40 motherboard
	to a 486DX2/66 one. One of the boards I've been offered has the
	OPTI 495SLC chipset. (I don't know whether or not the 82C206 chip
	is on it and the boards haven't arrived to the retailer yet so
	I can't check.)

	If there's anyone out there with this chipset, could he/she
	mail me or the list with any comments? I definitely won't take
	the risk if someone won't tell me it has a fully functional
	DMA-controller, NMI etc.. 

	Thanks in advance..

-- 
Janne Korkkula           #  Krogiuksentie 8B     #  E-mail: jk@muncca.fi 
Tel. +358-0-458-2260     #  00340 Helsinki       #  IRC Nick: JK
Fax. +358-0-458-2559     #  F I N L A N D        #  Finger/mail 4 PGP2.2 key

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

Date: Thu, 20 Jan 1994 11:17:48 -0400 (EDT)
From: Kids run for the nutritious taste of Sampo <JKS4675@ritvax.isc.rit.edu>
Subject: CDROM pass-thru connector

	I know this has been asked about a thousand times, but I
don't have the urge to sort thru 5M of old digests...

	Concerning an audio pass thru cable on the GUS, what
pins are what? I picked up a texel CDROM- it came with two
cables, but one didn't fit and the other didn't get any
sound out of the gus. 

	Please e-mail, this one's already been beaten into
the ground. Thanks!!

Jeff
**************************************************************
* "A strong and simple beat    *    Jeffrey  K.  Salzmann,   *
*  That you can dance to..."   *    Rochester Institute of   *
*                              *    Technology, College of   *
*        -N. Peart             *    Science, MS & Eng.       *
*                              *  JKS4675@RITVAX.ISC.RIT.EDU *
**************************************************************

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

Date: Thu, 20 Jan 94 12:23:12 GMT
From: C.S.Wood@newcastle.ac.uk
Subject: GUS and windows

Has anyone out there had trouble with the windows software, in particular, the graphics being corrupted?

On patchman, they keyboard down the bottom is all corrupted, and sound converter is virually impossible to use - but still does work if you can work out where the buttons are.

I could just about live with the above, but things have just got worse.
Now some programs refuse to run - but not all the time.
Even more worrying is the fact that it seems to be affecting Borland TC++ 3.1 that I also have installed. It will now only load if you have also got some ultrasound software running (eg mixer). Otherwise, I get the hourglass for 2 seconds, then the pointer comes back, and no windows open.

The only thing that I can think of is that all the above software use Borland's library BWCC.DLL. There seem to be different versions of this for different bits of software - does anyone know if it is likely that it is these files that are the problem?

Infact, does anyone have any ideas AT ALL about what I can do to fix things?

The only solution I can see at the moment is to strip everything down and reinstall - not much fun.

Thanks in advance,


Chris

-- 
+---------------------------------------+---------------------------+
|  Smoke me a kipper, Skipper,          |  Chris Wood               |
|  I'll be back for breakfast...        |  C.S.Wood@Newcastle.ac.uk |
|              ;-)                      |                           |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
 

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

Date: Thu, 20 Jan 1994 17:01:36 -0500 (EST)
From: Phat H Tran <ptran@sciborg.uwaterloo.ca>
Subject: Re: GUS Daily Digest V10 #20

> Date: Wed, 19 Jan 1994 12:22:29 +0800 (PST)
> From: Francis Li <fli@nermal.santarosa.edu>
> Subject: !!Attention: GUS & Rebel Assault!!
> 
> If you haven't heard already, if you're having slowdowns and pauses with
> Rebel Assaut with the GUS, its because of their sound driver.  For some
> reason, their sound driver for the GUS slows down the game on some
> machines (like mine).  The solution is to run the game with NO MEMORY
> MANAGER, just the CD-ROM drivers, the GUS's SET parameters, and use SBOS
> with Rebel Assault on Sound Blaster.  Works for me!

Something else that might work is placing your GUS on an 8-bit DMA channel
if it's currently on a 16-bit one for Rebel Assault.

> Date: Wed, 19 Jan 94 16:32:14 GMT
> From: Hauxwell James S BSc 1 Mod Comp 93-94 <J.Hauxwell@teesside.ac.uk>
> Subject: .MID files
> 
> I puchased my GUS about 2 weeks ago and I am looking for ftp sites
> with .MID files on them,  I only have the ones given away with the card
> and would like to see what else it can do.
> 
>   I have been into the MIDI directory on archive.epas.utoronto.ca
> but it was completely empty

Look on the wuarchive.wustl.edu mirror of Epas (/systems/msdos/ultrasound,
I think) for MIDI/MOD/etc. files which have been deleted off Epas due to
dwindling drive space.  Note that several of the MIDI files you'll find
are not arranged for GM, and thus will not play correctly on the GUS
without reworking.  Most, however, are sequenced for GM synths.

The best way to play MIDI files on the GUS is through the new Windows
driver with Linear Volume enabled, and around 24 - 28 active voices. 

> Date: Wed, 19 Jan 1994 23:12:50 -0600 (CST)
> From: Fitzgerald Jr Steele <fjsteele@icaen.uiowa.edu>
> Subject: DRAM chips
> 
> 1)  Is it ok to get a faster chip?  They sold 70ns chips for the same
> price.  Would the faster chip give better performance?

Yes, it's okay.  No, they won't improve performance.

> Date: Wed, 19 Jan 1994 11:48:31 -0500
> From: "Michael Grant Wilson" <Mcq@oti.on.ca>
> Subject: MegaEm and the MT-32.
> 
> Is the MT-32 support from MegaEm supposed to include downloaded sounds?
>     If so: any guesses why I can't get it to happen for me?
>     If not: is there some reason why this wasn't included?

Mega-Em doesn't support MT-32 sound effects generated by custom manipulation
of its LA synth.  Why not?  Because the GUS doesn't have an LA synth chip.
Sound effects on the MT-32 aren't just samples, but are built from combining
waveforms and samples, so the straight sample playback on the GUS won't be
able to reproduce them.  In fact, no other card that's "MT-32 compatible"
can.  Even Roland's own cards, such as the SCC-1, do not support MT-32
custom sounds.

> Date: Wed, 19 Jan 1994 07:13:50 -0800 (PST)
> From: mikebat@netcom.com (Mike Batchelor)
> Subject: Re: MOD Sample sizes
> 
> Not the GUS Server once wrote...
> $  
> $  ------------------------------
> $  
> $  Date: Tue, 18 Jan 1994 16:39:45 -0500 (EST)
> $  From: Phat H Tran <ptran@sciborg.uwaterloo.ca>
> $  Subject: Re: GUS Daily Digest V10 #18
> $  
> $  Some GUS MOD players are, unfortunately, braindead and do not use
> $  memory very wisely and cannot play MODs that exceed available
> $  conventional memory.
> 
> They are ALL braindead, in my mind, since none of the GUS players can play
> a MOD whose samples exceed available GUS memory.  You're stuck with MODs

I don't think that this is much to gripe about as there are not too many 
MODs that are over or near 1 MB in size.

> So on-board RAM is not all a bed of roses.  I've yet to hear if it is even
> POSSIBLE to play samples in "CPU-intensive" mode straight out of main
> system memory, let alone seen an app that could do it.

Play a MOD in Windows using WinMod Pro or the like.  The MOD will be stored 
in main memory, and be mixed in software.  Watch your system come to a crawl 
as this occurs, though.  So, it's certainly possible to play MODs the CPU
intensive way on the GUS, but I would rather not play a MOD at all than play 
it this way.

> Date: Wed, 19 Jan 94 10:41:03 GMT
> From: "D.Morris" (SST Student) <DanielM@teesside.ac.uk>
> Subject: PRO 2000
> 
> Hello,
> 
> This may not be the right place to ask this, so if not please redirect me.
> 
> I am planning to buy a Gravis Ultrasound and I have seen an advert for a Gravis
> PRO 2000 board. What's the difference/is there a Spec Sheet available for it 
> somewhere. This board retails at #210 compared to #140 for GUS {pounds sterling}
> here in UK.

Someone mentioned on the newsgroup that the Pro 2000 is merely a GUS 
packaged with some games.

> Date: Wed, 19 Jan 1994 11:43:56 +0000 (GMT)
> From: Mark Charsley <wa94002@ox.ac.uk>
> Subject: What's GUS MAX
> 
> The subject line says it all, what is this GUS MAX thing that gets 
> mentioned here, and will it be possible to upgrade a normal GUS to it?

The Max is basically a GUS with a SCSI interface and 16-bit recording
built onboard.  You can't upgrade a GUS to a MAX since you can physically
only install either a SCSI daughtercard or a 16-bit recording daughtercard
onto a base GUS but not both.

Phat.

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

Date: Thu, 20 Jan 1994 16:29:30 +0100 (MET)
From: Stefan Divijak <divi@sztma.tu-graz.ac.at>
Subject: GUS in Austria

Hi out there !

In GUS Daily Digest #19 someone wrote about the GUS' availability in Germany
for about DM 330.- which is about ATS 2310.- .
But there's in fact a source for getting it at the much lower price,  of ATS 1990.-
- you may purchase it at No Internal Everlasting Daily Elderly Recipients May be All
You'll Ever Read. Got it ? (I just don't want to write down the store's name here...).

Stefan Divjak <divi@sztma.tu-graz.ac.at>

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

Date: Thu, 20 Jan 94 14:21:23 IST
From: Michael Cohen <P85016@VM.BIU.AC.IL>
Subject: GUS Midi adapter by mail-order

Hi
Can someone please email me some names, addresses and telephone numbers
of mail-order places in the US  which sell the GUS MIDI adapter.
(Please include the prices.)
Thanks

Michael Cohen                  Bitnet:   P85016@BARILVM
Computers center               Internet: P85016@VM.BIU.AC.IL
Bar Ilan University
Ramat Gan
Israel

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

Date: Thu, 20 Jan 1994 20:47:55 -0800 (PST)
From: Sam Mannaberg <mannab@hotsun.nersc.gov>
Subject: GUS ModPlayers

I have DMP and Metal.  I'm looking for the any GUS mod player other than
these and the ftp site they are on.  Many thanks.

 .Samuel..

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

Date: Thu, 20 Jan 1994 21:21:28 -0600 (CST)
From: Josh Hildebrand <ren@ghostwheel.bga.com>
Subject: LMSI CROM & Gus Daughterboard Under OS/2

I need your help.. I just got a LMSI CM205 CDRom drive.  I got the LMSI
cdrom GUS daughtercard.  It works just wonderful under DOS.  However, I like
good OS's, so could someone tell me how to get the drive working under
OS/2?  I'm not familiar with the CD-ROM drivers for OS/2.. and I have absolutely
no idea if one exists for the GUS daughtercard.

Please help.. email, digest, whatever it takes..  I read the digest!
-- 
ren@bga.com

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

Date: Fri, 21 Jan 1994 15:01:39 +1030 (CST)
From: Gavin <SCARMAN@hfrd.dsto.gov.au>
Subject: Re: MegaEm and the MT-32.

>Is the MT-32 support from MegaEm supposed to include downloaded sounds?

No. Megaem is  a great program but it cannot emulate the Linear Arithmetic 
Synthesis that the MT32 uses. What you can do is to replace the offending 
patches in your ultramid.ini with explosions/whatever. These sfx can usually be 
ripped from the SB sfx file that the particular game uses, and then converted to 
patches.

>I realize that ram is limited, but on a 1Meg gus I'd probably be happy
>to have the 768K patch set loaded and have 256K of ram for downloading.

It's not a question of size. The new sounds are loaded into the MT32 with sysexs 
with info like envelope/filter/waveform/pcm parameters, not raw sounds.

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

Date: Thu, 20 Jan 1994 07:33:52 -0800 (PST)
From: mikebat@netcom.com (Mike Batchelor)
Subject: Re: MIDI ftp sites

Not the GUS Server once wrote...
$  
$  ------------------------------
$  
$  Date: Wed, 19 Jan 94 16:32:14 GMT
$  From: Hauxwell James S BSc 1 Mod Comp 93-94 <J.Hauxwell@teesside.ac.uk>
$  Subject: .MID files
$  
$  I puchased my GUS about 2 weeks ago and I am looking for ftp sites
$  with .MID files on them,  I only have the ones given away with the card
$  and would like to see what else it can do.
$  
$   I have been into the MIDI directory on archive.epas.utoronto.ca
$  but it was completely empty


Try wuarchive.wustl.edu (I forget the dir they are kept in), and
ftp.cs.ruu.nl in /pub/MIDI


-- 
Mike Batchelor      |
mikebat@netcom.com  |                  This space for rent
mikebat@qdeck.com   |

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

Date: Thu, 20 Jan 94 07:30:00 BST
From: f.graham@genie.geis.com
Subject: OS2: Gravis SPEAKS!

				   ----* Pause for Refreshment *----
 We interrupt this idle chat to bring you Yet Another Refreshing Post from
the Gravis rep on Genie.
 
Ah, but what comes first? Yep, _my_ ramblings...(hey, come back here!).
 It's weird how we get such great feedback on Genie and _none_ here lately.
There's obviously a lot more people here than on Genie, though we're also
picking up a lot of converts on Genie. I guess, a lot of GUS has happenned
since no one's stuck with answering the plethora of similar queries this
digest (unavoidably) gets, and except for news, we're doing fine ourselves...
 
OK, I posted that you guys were grumbling over the lack of news on the OS2
drivers, this is his response (dim lights, raise curtains; drum roll,
and...Action!);
  --------- (snip, snip) -------------
 Category 1,  Topic 6
 Message 230       Wed Jan 19, 1994
 GRAVIS [Adv Gravis]          at 00:48 EST
 
A couple of posts today....
 
First off, with all of you disgruntled OS/2 owners out there...
 
I am not sure what you would like me to reply back to your posts with. I
wish too, the OS/2 drivers were completed by now as well. They are under
 development however.  I know this is not the answer you are looking for, but
thats the honest truth.  We have had a couple of people working on them for
some time. We have only in the last couple of months however, been able to
find someone whose only task was to work on the OS/2 drivers.  Before, the
persons working on them were sidelined with other projects. Now it is not
for me to say what projects take priority over other ones, but I do know,
and can guarantee there is someone on staff who is working on OS/2 drivers
with no other sidelines. They will be done, but I cannot guarantee a time
right at this point.  We are a small company, and do have limited resources,
and although that is not much of an excuse, that is the reason why. We have
done as much as possible in the last 12 months, including UltraMid, Windows
drivers, new install disks, MegaEm, Developer Support, SDK, Patch Maker
Lite, SBOS just to name a few. We have not been sitting around doing
nothing. We are committed on providing the tools for everyone, including
OS/2 users, but sometimes other things take priority. If this seems unfair,
then I apologize on behalf of Gravis, but the drivers are coming.
 
Now, with regards to 32 bit drivers, the good news is that Jayeson finished
 them up last week. We are making them available to all of the software
 developers including SSI, MAXIS, NEW WORLD COMPUTING (just to name a few) so
 they can incorporate them into games getting released. We are also hard at
 work patching recent releases. Jayeson finished patching today the game
 ShadowCaster from Origin. We will release this patch tomorrow.
 
Jayeson will also speak to Sierra, and help them modify their driver sets
for their latest games including QG4. I'll keep ya posted.
 
Bryan
  --------- (snip, snip) -------------
 
Savor that news for a moment.......OK, now my questions;
 1) what is the full path to epas submit directory? I only have email access
and need to put in a ftp request to Genie sysop for the Master of Orion AIL
drivers that Jerry Gamache kindly coaxed out.
 2) When was the faq last updated? Got mine in August '93...
 3) Could someone point me to a good games digest, and how to get a topic
list or otherwise subscribe to it? Email's fine, thanx.
 

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

Date: Thu, 20 Jan 1994 17:52:03 -0600 (CST)
From: pjohnso2@ua.d.umn.edu
Subject: Patches

  I had a thought... is there any way that perhaps a patch compression 
utility could be written so that when a patch is uploaded to the GUS 
DRAM, it gets squooshed and therefore we could store more patches?
  I realize patch files don't compress well to begin with... but what if 
some compress/decompress routine was embedded in say, MegaEm, Ultramid, 
and other files with a small TSR (if written in assembly, the TSR could 
easily be under 10K, right?).. well, how to play the compressed patches.. 
well, how about the TSR be a SMALL TSR (<1K) that points to a file on the 
hard drive that has extended information about each patch ("extended 
information" = important patch info lost during compression)... and the 
TSR fills in any gaps in the compressed patch.. 
  Sounds like a lot of work, but I'm tired of only having one meg of 
DRAM.  What was the final word on a more memory-capable GUS?  Does it exist?

*Phil

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

Date: Thu, 20 Jan 94 12:16:24 +0100
From: f93-maj@nada.kth.se
Subject: PC-Mag article

Hi there!
I was just briefing thru this weeks PC-magazine (Dec 21 issue) and saw that this
issues J.C.Dvorak (sp?) feature article/page was on the death of FM-based soundboards and the upcoming of Wave table based synthesis; and guess what! He actually picked the GUS as hid soundcard of choice, giving it a vary positive and quite
accurate judgement/short review, not failing to pinpoint the strength of RAM
versus the ROM of Roland RAP-10 and Turtlebach cards...
Like many manufacturer that get's good reviews from him, Gravis could very well
pick _several_ cuts from that article and use in advertising!

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

Date: Thu, 20 Jan 94 15:42:11 -0500
From: davej@ferry.polymer.uakron.edu (Dave Jiang)
Subject: phone #

Does anyone know the phone # for GUS in U.S.? The one listed in the manual is
in Canada, and for me calling there won't solve much problem... 

													David Jiang
  ------------------------------------------------------------------
  email : davej@eby.polymer.uakron.edu        phone:  (513) 435-6227
  usmail: 207 Carters Grove Rd.               FAX  :  (513) 435-6227  
		  Centerville, OH 45459
		  U.S.A.
  ------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Thu, 20 Jan 94 09:47:32 +0000
From: "|\/|artin" <martin@wyvern.bri.hp.com>
Subject: Rebel Assault + Gravis Joystick Pro

First, many thanks to all who replied to my earlier posting about GUS memory.
I now have a 1Mb GUS!

Now, having got my hands on a SCSI CD-ROM drive, I went out and purchased
Rebel Assault.  After playing it with the mouse I then went out and bought
the Gravis Joystick Pro (I can NOT play RA with the mouse!).  However,
no matter how I set up the Pro, using gravutil, joycomp or whatever, RA
seems to "lose" the joystick after about 5 seconds of playing.

When you first get to move the A-Wing, I can get it to move in any direction
using the joystick, but after about 5 seconds, it just crashes into the
wall, I have no control whatever!

The Pro is plugged into my GUS.

Any ideas?

Cheers,

|\/|
--
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| |\/|artin |/\|ard | email: martin@spira.bri.hp.com    Tel: +44 272 228 142 |
|                   | HPDesk: Martin WARD/HPC655        Fax: +44 272 236 169 |
+--------martin%wyvern.bri.hp.com%hplb.hpl.hp.com%uucp-gw-1.pa.dec.com-------+
|Support Systems Europe, Filton Road, Stoke Gifford, Bristol, AVON, BS12 6QZ.|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

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

Date: Thu, 20 Jan 94 10:12:41 MST
From: shannon@physics.Arizona.EDU (Shannon Miller)
Subject: Reply to Faster Memory and Memory Prices

I upgraded by GUS to 1MB as soon as I got it. I went with a local retailer
for memory, and it ran me around $45 to go from 256K to 1MB.

The faster memory, the better! Just make sure it's at least as fast as
the memory the card came with, and make sure that each bank has the same
speed of memory (i.e. each row of two chips must be filled with two
identicle chips). Otherwise, the faster the chip, the better the 
performance!

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

End of GUS Daily Digest V10 #21
*******************************
