GUS Daily Digest            Tue, 13 Dec 94  9:37 PST     Volume 17: Issue  13 

Today's Topics:
							Digital audio
					  End of the Windoze Probs.
						 FPS Football Pro '95
				  GUS Daily Digest V17 #11 (2 msgs)
				  GUS Daily Digest V17 #12 (2 msgs)
					MS Sound System Compatibility?
			   Noisy cards: anti-interference barriers?
				 Off Board Parity Errors in Windows.
					  Peanuts School and the GUS
						 Previous digests plz
			  Reading Audio directly (digitally) from CD
			   Setup changes autoexec.bat to all caps??
					Subject: GUS Customer service

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, 13 Dec 1994 09:20:52 +0100 (MET)
From: Dick Verweij <hpverwei@cs.ruu.nl>
Subject: Digital audio

I made a program to transfer cdrom audio directly to harddisk.
Below you can find a list of working drives.

Main purpose is to download CD digital audio data straight from your
CDROM to your HARDDISK. Without any SAMPLING ERRORS/HISS/DESTORTION.
In FULL 16BIT, 44100 HZ STEREO SOUND. NO NEED FOR A SOUNDCARD!!
With synchronized read/write to eliminate errors.

UPLOADED TO:
FTP: archive.epas.utoronto.ca
DIR: /pub/pc/ultrasound/submit
FILE: cdinfo14.zip

DRIVES WITH SUCCESS:

cdrom drive [SONY CDU33A]
driver name [SLCD.SYS version 1.71a]
MSCDEX version [2.22]

cdrom drive [ MATSUSHITA / CREATIVE]
driver name [SBCD.SYS]
MSCDEX version [2.23]

cdrom drive [Panasonic CR-562-B]
driver name [ CDMKE.SYS]
MSCDEX version [2.23]

/* must confirmed by more users cdrom drive [Philips CM-206]
driver name (*.sys) [DD260.SYS Version 1.41]
MSCDEX version [2.23] */

cdrom drive [SONY CDU-55E]
driver name [ATAPI.SYS v2.17a]
MSCDEX version [2.23]


NO SUCCES:
cdrom drive [SOME MITSUMI FX Series]
Error: Sector not found errors, also with other cdda-readers!
cdrom drive [SOME NEC series]
Error: General failures. (Sorry still vague)
cdrom drive [SOME TEAC series]
Error: Read faults (hardware ??)
cdrom drive [SOME TOSHIBA series]
Error: General failures

(the last drives have all 3x or 4x speed, so that could be it?)

-- 
DickyDick
email: hpverwei@cs.ruu.nl  
ONLY A DICK MAKES IT POSSIBLE

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

Date: Mon, 12 Dec 1994 20:50:45 -0600 (CST)
From: Left Tackle <tackle@tyrell.net>
Subject: End of the Windoze Probs.

Well, I finally solved all my Windows setup problems with the version 
mismatch.  Thanks to all those who gave me advice on this.  (especially 
jfulmer)  Anyway, here's what I did, in case anybody's interested...

First, I went into my system.ini and took out every single mention of 
Gravis, including all the drivers.  Then I deleted the GRVSULTR.386 and 
ULTRASND.DRV files from my windows/system directory.  I then completely 
deleted my ultrasnd directory, and did a fresh install of the 3.53 
install disks.  Ran windows, and it actually worked.  Spiff, huh? :)

On a different note, does anybody have any good (preferably non-crippled) 
DOS sample editors?  Gold Wave works great, but damn, it runs SLOW on my 
computer...

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

Date: Mon, 12 Dec 94 20:42:00 -0500
From: richard.morey@factory.com (Richard Morey)
Subject: FPS Football Pro '95

Hello -

		Has anyone gotten their Ultrasound to work with Front Page
Sports Football Pro '95 ?? The game has native GUS support, but accoding
to Sierra/Dynamix tech support the driver Gravis supplied is no good..
has oneone gottena patch / fix for this game that works ?

		Please help me!! I bought this game with the belief it would
work with the GUS.. I can get choppy digital audio using MEGAEM but I'd
like to get clean sound..

		Reply to RICHARD.MOREY@FACTORY.COM

Thanks!
			 

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

Date: Tue, 13 Dec 1994 00:54:12 -0330
From: Aaron Cameron <acameron@europa.cs.mun.ca>
Subject: Re: GUS Daily Digest V17 #11

On Sun, 11 Dec 1994, GUS Server wrote:

> LET'S STOP SPREADING THIS CRAP!  YOU DON'T GET A VIRUS BY READING THIS 
> MESSAGE!!!!

Well, actually, it's not impossible for mail to be destructive.  
Actually, it's pretty damn easy.  In fact, I could send somebody a 
message that would cause their terminal screens to garble and become 
unreadable just by putting about 15-20 specific standard characters as 
the subject of my message.  Anybody using pine or a simmilar unix mail 
reader would not be able to read their mail AT ALL, untill they manually 
removed the code from their mail spool (which can take a LONG time to 
find if you're looking for 1 small line of characters among 3 back issues 
of the GUS digest with IDIOTS quoting the whole digest over and over and 
over...).  Anyways, the moral of this post is to show that Unix, though a 
great multi-user platform, has more loopholes and security holes in it 
that 20 pounds of swiss cheese.  Don't worry, though, people.  I doubt 
anything serious is happening, but don't think that it's IMPOSSIBLE!!  

Cheers
AC

PS...  he who speaks before he thinks must then pry his foot out of his 
mouth with a crowbar.

/---------------------------------------------------------------------------\
|        ***              *****               WELCOME TO MY WORLD!          |
|       *****          ***********            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~          |
|      **   **       *****      ***         It's really not that bad...     |
|     ***   ***      ****                   once you get used to it!        |
|    ***********     ****                                                   |
|   *************    *****      ***    ---------> Aaron Cameron <---------  |
|  ****       ****     ***********     Memorial University of Newfoundland  |
| *****       *****       *****        ---> acameron@europa.cs.mun.ca <---  |
|     I take no responsibility for ANYTHING, even if it IS my fault!        |
\---------------------------------------------------------------------------/

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

Date: Tue, 13 Dec 1994 03:53:09 -0700 (MST)
From: KKAHN@cc.weber.edu
Subject: Re: GUS Daily Digest V17 #11

I upgraded to windows 3.11 which is a new release from microsoft.  I guess
it's just updated drivers and stuff for ver 3.1 which has been around for 
some time now.  It only cost $7.90 with microsofts special $25 off coupon.

Anway, since installing it, my gus max won't record any sounds to hard disk.
When I try to use WAve to record to hard disk, it just records silence..
Everything else seems to be working just fine..  

any clues anyone.????

KKAHN@cc.weber.edu

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

Date: Mon, 12 Dec 1994 16:33:31 -0500
From: akwong@bme.synapse.net (Adrian Kwong)
Subject: Re: GUS Daily Digest V17 #12

>Subject: CDRom recording-Rom recording

>I'm working on a project where We're trying to give a
>soundcard (we're using a MAX) a digital line-in, but at the
>moment this is giving us big problems. (damn integrated
>chips) Now I wanna know how many CD-Rom players have the
>possibility to record audio directly on a HD using a program
>like CDGrab Pro. I know the mitsumi drives can't. My own
>CD-Rom (a philips CM206) is giving big trouble too (general
>failure on command read long), but how about the Matsushita
>drives for example or the Panasonics, Sony and Trust.
>I'd like to hear from people what drive they have and if
>they're able to record in the way described above.

I have a Panasonic CR-562.  I have had great success using a program called
CDINFO version 1.4.  However, I have had some problems with using Telarc
Digital CD's.  I think some of them are recorded in 18-bit.  I have
successfully read in the title track to the Chiller CD (Erich Kunzel and the
Cincinatti Pops Orchestra) and playing back the digital recording on the GUS
is absolutely PHENOMENAL!  It however, had a few errors, but I think the
errors occurred in the Thunder cracks, so you never really "hear" the glitches.

Does anybody else have any success with 18 bit or 20 bit recording?  (ie,
Sony GOLD disk recordings)
---
===========================================================================
Adrian Kwong              akwong@bme.synapse.net               613-726-6762
Bald Mountain Ent.        ak605@freenet.carleton.ca         Ottawa, Ontario
					<insert your infamous quote here!>
===========================================================================

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

Date: Mon, 12 Dec 1994 22:08:47 -0800 (PST)
From: gdaswani@orion.csci.csusb.edu (George Daswani)
Subject: Re: GUS Daily Digest V17 #12

> 
> Date: Mon, 12 Dec 94 14:06:30 MET
> From: <martinus@morra.et.tudelft.nl> (Martijn de Jong)
> Subject: CDRom recording-Rom recording
> 
> Hi Gussers,
> 
> A while ago there was a discussion on the digest about
> recording data from Audio-Cd's directly through the databus
> on your harddisk. It made it possible to record stereo 16
> bit without having a soundcard. 
> I'm working on a project where We're trying to give a
> soundcard (we're using a MAX) a digital line-in, but at the
> moment this is giving us big problems. (damn integrated
> chips) Now I wanna know how many CD-Rom players have the
> possibility to record audio directly on a HD using a program
> like CDGrab Pro. I know the mitsumi drives can't. My own
> CD-Rom (a philips CM206) is giving big trouble too (general
> failure on command read long), but how about the Matsushita
> drives for example or the Panasonics, Sony and Trust.
> I'd like to hear from people what drive they have and if
> they're able to record in the way described above.
> 
> Thanks in advance,
> 
> Martinus.
> 

Hello there Martinus.  

There's only two manufacturers of CDROM drivers that I know that this
feature works on..  One of them  is Matsushita.  (Panasonic).  Both
the CR-562B and the CR-563 (double speeds) can grab the data from the
CD through the bus.  Actually there's a public domain program called
CDGRAB or something like that that let's you grab it and save it as
a wave file..  The other manufacturer that I know of is Toshiba.
This feauture should work on the 3501 and 4501.  I have tested
the Panasonic drives myself so I'm sure it works..


If you are going to get a panasonic, I suggest grabbing CD-GRAB also
from an ftp site somewhere..  IF you can't find it, then e-mail me.

Lates..
George Daswani

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

Date: Mon, 12 Dec 1994 13:59:08 -0500 (EST)
From: "Christopher M. DiPierro" <cdipierr@wam.umd.edu>
Subject: MS Sound System Compatibility?

Is the GUS or the GUSMax officially compatible with the MS Sound System?  
I had someone email me asking, and if it is I would like to put it in the 
FAQ.  Thanks for any info...

 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chris DiPierro: cdipierr@wam.umd.edu   | Major(s): CS && ??ASTR??
University of Maryland at College Park | CS && Space == cool == -270 C
Gravis Ultrasound (GUS) FAQ Maintainer | Current GUS FAQ is: v2.02 [94/11/16]
To quote IBM: "Think"                  | http://www.wam.umd.edu/~cdipierr/
 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Date: Mon, 12 Dec 1994 12:33:34 MST
From: "Dean C. Johnson" <JOHNSODC@caedm.et.byu.edu>
Subject: Re: Noisy cards: anti-interference barriers?

> Date: Sat, 10 Dec 1994 19:25:40 -0500
> From: fta@wbb.com
> Subject: Noisy cards: anti-interference barriers?
> 
>        Anyways, this still means that my GUS Max is two slots away from
> the video/ide interface so harddrive accesses occasionally give me a
> popping noise.  Some of that constant static-like noise may also be due
> to the video card.  Is there any way to cure this?  Some kind of a
> barrier available that I can put between my cards?
> 
>        I can live with this problem (scratching noises whenever I move
> my mouse is much more annoying), but any suggestions would be
> appreciated (and should probably be submitted to the FAQ as well).

Here is a possible solution that I HAVE NOT TRIED MYSELF, but read 
someone's post about it a long time ago, and it seems plausable.
Put a couple of layers of aluminum foil inside a SEALED anti-static 
plastic bag. ( the tinted plastic bags that circuit boards come in.) 
Then place it between you GUS and the interferace source as a barrier.

If someone does this, let me know if it works.

-Dean

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

Date: Tue, 13 Dec 1994 16:51:54 +0000 (GMT)
From: "Robin W. Glover" <R.W.Glover@reading.ac.uk>
Subject: Off Board Parity Errors in Windows.

Hi,
	I've recently re-installed my system, having re-partitioned for 
Linux, and I now get 'OFF BOARD PARITY ERROR AT 0000:0002' when starting 
Recording Session if my external MIDI keyboard is switched on. If I 
switch the keyboard off, and then start Session, then switch back on 
again, I can record and play fine (both to synth and keyboard), but then 
if I close Session it crashes. Once again, if I switch the keyboard off 
before  closing, all is well. Now, this never used to happen before, so 
I'm all perplexed. I'm using the 3.56 Install disks, without any exciting 
settings, (I/O=220, IRQ=5,5, DMA=7,7). My midi connector box is a 
home-brewed affair, but has worked fine in the past, and I really don't 
think it's that at fault. I know that the GUS uses NMI for something to 
do with the midi side of things, and presumably traps the NMI most of the 
time, so I suspect that it's failing to trap it during the startup of 
recording session. Anyway, it's all a bit of a pain, not to mention 
perplexing, so any suggestions?

			Cheers. 
				Robin

+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|  Robin Glover               |  Did you really want to talk about     |
|  Department of Meteorology  |  the weather, or were you just trying  |
|  Reading University, UK     |  to make polite conversation?          |
|  swrglovr@reading.ac.uk     |             - Groundhog Day            |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+

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

Date: Tue, 13 Dec 1994 10:49:25 +0100
From: Robert Virding <rv@erix.ericsson.se>
Subject: Peanuts School and the GUS

Peanut's School (correct name for English version?) has finally come
in Swedish. I was planning to buy this for my kids but something I
read on the box made uneasy. It said that a Soundblaster compatible
soundcard was required. I find this very strange seeing it is a
Windows program and would presumably use the Windows sound drivers.

Can anyone help me and tell me what this means? Does it try and hit a
soundblaster directly and not go through the Windows drivers, or what?

Thanks in advance for any help,

	Robert

----------
Robert Virding                                  Email: rv@erix.ericsson.se
Computer Science Laboratory                     Tel: +48 8 727 34 52
Ellemtel Telecommunications Systems Laboratories
Box 1505, S-125 25 DLVSJV, SWEDEN

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

Date: Mon, 12 Dec 1994 14:49 EST
From: 000082937@UCIS.VILL.EDU (LIFE IS A GREAT ADVENTURE)
Subject: Previous digests plz

   Can someone please send me the general/music/sdk digests from 17-09 to
17-11 inclusive.. having the digest so large killed my mail account...
					Thank you,
						Harald van der Kam
					000082937@cats.ucis.vill.edu

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

Date: Mon, 12 Dec 94 23:43 MET
From: hst@mh.nl (Klaas Hemstra)
Subject: Re: Reading Audio directly (digitally) from CD

>I'm working on a project where We're trying to give a
>soundcard (we're using a MAX) a digital line-in, but at the
>moment this is giving us big problems. (damn integrated
>chips) Now I wanna know how many CD-Rom players have the
>possibility to record audio directly on a HD using a program
>like CDGrab Pro. I know the mitsumi drives can't. My own
>CD-Rom (a philips CM206) is giving big trouble too (general
>failure on command read long), but how about the Matsushita
>drives for example or the Panasonics, Sony and Trust.
>I'd like to hear from people what drive they have and if
>they're able to record in the way described above.
>
>Thanks in advance,
>
>Martinus.

Hallo Martinus,

I have written as program called READCDA (improving an original source
from Yeng-Chee Su from Taiwan) that reads Audio data from a CD
directly. It uses the READ LONG driver call.

It has been reported to me to work ok on Matsushita (Panasonic) drives
(562B & 563B) and on some Sony drives (COR334 & CDU33A).
Mitsumi does NOT work, because the READ LONG call does not work
properly (a belgium guy and i are working on fixing it by intergrating
parts of the driver code in the program, IF we will succeed and IF it
is possible to read audio...).

Another program that is available on the net, CDINFO,
has in it's release notes that a Philips CM-206 works ok also
(with driver DD260.SYS version 1.41), next to the Panasonic & Sony
drives. I suppose the program also uses the READ LONG driver call.

Then there are a number of SCSI drives that can read Audio.
The CDDA program works with that ones.

Klaas

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

Date: Mon, 12 Dec 1994 21:47 EST
From: HEGUIN@INDSVAX1.INDSTATE.EDU
Subject: Setup changes autoexec.bat to all caps??

  Hello all,
	 I was changing the setup of my GUS card to get DOOM to play real sound
effects instead of small pops for gunshots (I had to change the GUS's IRQ
from 11 to 7) and I noticed that when the setup routine writes to the
autoexec.bat file, it changes ALL the characters in the ENTIRE autoexec.bat
file to ALL CAPS ( <== just like this ). I am using v3.53. Does the setup
still do this for the newer install disks? I can't believe the setup routine
does this stupid and totally unnecessary step. If it affected only the
readability of the file, this would be bad enough; however, I had a line in
my autoexec.bat which sets the default options for the text editor that 
I use. The option 'k0' causes the editor to leave the keyboard repeat rate
alone; the option 'K0' causes the editor to immediately return to the command
line with the error, "option 'K' is undefined".

   It didn't take me very long to track down the problem and the cause, but
this is because I know my machine's setup rather well. I can imagine that
a novice user could get spun around in circles with something like this.

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

Date: Mon, 12 Dec 1994 13:12:57 -0500
From: GravisTech@aol.com
Subject: Subject: GUS Customer service

Francis Li wrote:

>I have e-mailed this problem to tech1@gravis.com, but I don't know when 
>I'll get a response...
>
>>I also had some problem with my GUS and I e-mailed my >>problem to tech,
but I 
>>have not get any answer. Is this customer support Gravis ???
>>(I have solved my problem via usenet news groups).

Tech@gravis.com is our sysop and he get alot of mail in a day.. so much in
fact that he is always behind on it.. therefore if an answer is expected
within a day or so.. I am sorry it is not possible. I on the other hand am
alway "ON THE JOB" so to speak, as my load is not so high, I am able to
answer alot faster...

Gravistech@aol.com
Advanced Gravis Technology

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

Date: Mon, 12 Dec 1994 14:23:49 -0800 (PST)
From: George <gmontem@mercury.sfsu.edu>

> I've compared some (not all!) patches. A lot of the PP3 patches sound
> better than de original ones, but they are usually a *lot* bigger. So I
> also compared the patch sizes and only replaced patches by others that
> were not too big. This is my list of replacements:
> 
>   calliope.pat    36527  19-06-83   6:45
>   cymcrsh1.pat    66185   7-04-83  18:44
>   cymride1.pat    45137   7-04-83  18:47
>   doo.pat        181943  14-06-83   7:05
>   epiano1.pat     68671  14-03-83  21:31
>   fx-fret.pat     13221  14-06-83   4:12
>   hihatcl.pat     27189  14-06-83  13:57
>   homeorg.pat     95217  19-06-83   6:48
>   hrpschrd.pat   248683  14-06-83   4:08
>   kick1.pat       24171  15-06-83  22:14
>   kick2.pat       36849  14-06-83  14:15
>   marcato.pat    156197  21-03-83  11:57
>   ringwhsl.pat    70107  16-06-83   0:05
>   stickrim.pat    22583  14-06-83  13:45
>   voxlead.pat     75297   8-04-83  16:46

Can you also please include which files did these patches come from?  
There are 19 PP3 zip files and I don't want to bother downloading all of 
them just for the patches listed here.  Thanks.

> not a lot bigger (some of them are even smaller). If you have
> suggestions for other replacements (e.g. patches that are not in the PP3
> archive), please mail them to me. I would appreciate it if you could
> tell me where I can find the patches (ftp-site, directory and filename),
> since I don't have direct ftp-access (only ftp-by-mail). I prefer
> patches <100k.

Try the gsdrumXX.zip series and the e_xxxxxx.zip series released by 
Elysium Entertainment (sp?).  Dunno where the files are but check the 
mirrors.

Lastly, can someone please upload the grand piano patch found in the 
UltraSound Experience CD to the epas site.  It's not because I don't want 
to pay $7 bucks for the demo, but I have no access to a CD-ROM drive.  
For those of you who want to know if it's legal to upload it, it is 
okay, according the Advanced Gravis. 

Thanks,
-George

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

End of GUS Daily Digest V17 #13
*******************************
