Ultrasound Daily Digest     Tue, 17 Nov 92       Volume 1 : Issue  22 

Today's Topics:
				  Adlib compatability - works for me
					comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard.gus
							  DRUMS.....
						  GUS'ing Under OS/2
						 GUS coexists with SB
					  GUS review for GAME BYTES 
						   more midi files
					 My experiences with the GUS
						 My problems with GUS
				 One of the first GUS Supported games
				Please don't quote the entire digest!
								USS 8 

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						  Digest back issues, mirror of request server

People responsible:       David DeBry, Adam Iles, Thomas Wong, Chris Yuzik,
			  and many others who should be thanked often. :)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Mon, 16 Nov 92 10:44:41 CST
From: ken@batman.austin.ibm.com (Ken Goach)
Message-Id: <9211161644.AA10928@batman.austin.ibm.com>
Subject: Adlib compatability - works for me
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

> I managed to get every feature of both cards to function together except
> the SB's Adlib compatibility.  Games that drive the SB as an SB work fine
> with my GUS/SB setup, but those that use the SB as an Adlib card do not
> detect Adlib compatibility.

I got "So you want to be a hero" to work with the Adlib specified in
the game's INSTALL program. I was running SBOS with no flags at all,
BTW. Funny, but when I specified the Sound/Gameblaster as my music
card, I got no sound! But I told the game to do Adlib music, and
with SBOS I get sound. I haven't tried anything really wild, like
specifying music for Adlib and sound effects for SB on Wolf 3-D, but
that sounds like it might be a good test to try.

Ken (ken@austin.ibm.com)

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

Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 10:27:21 -0500 (EST)
From: Morgan Stair <Morgan_Stair@dl5000.bc.edu>
Message-Id: <Pine.3.03.9211161020.D21305-b100000@dlws9.bc.edu>
Subject: comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard.gus
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

> If all the discussion on the mailing list is posted to the news, what
> is the point of having a list at all? Just kill the list and start
> reading news instead.

We just need to make sure Gravis gets a mail copy of all articles
posted to the newsgroup, and has an email address they can send to for
making posts.

> > I am not sure how many subscribers you have for the mailing list, but
> > if it's a significant number we could always look at trying to start a
> > new news group (say comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard.gus) that would be
> > gatewayed to the mailing list.  This would also ensure that people who
> > reply to the digest via news will have their response included in the
> > next digest.
> 
>    Hmm... If this happens, other people would start asking for their
> own newsgroup [ie: comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard.pas, etc] and as a 
> result, the messages on comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard will trickle down..
> not that I'm against it.. I'm all for it..  

I agree.  I have little or no interest in the majority of messages
posted to c.s.i.p.s.  I read messages concerning GUS and SB primarily.
It would be nice to have our own sub-group.  If other cards have
enough traffic to justify an new subgroup also, then they SHOULD get
their own.

Where do we go about requesting a new group?

***************************************
* Morgan Stair <Morgan@DL5000.BC.EDU> *
* BC / Institute for Space Research   *
* (617)552-8783                       *
***************************************

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

Date: Mon, 16 Nov 92 09:58:25 -0500
From: ylee@norton.uwaterloo.ca
Message-Id: <9211161458.AA27625@norton.uwaterloo.ca>
Subject: DRUMS.....
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

Hi Francis,

Yes I've only modified DRUMDLL.C and left the rest ( DRUM.C & DRUMFILE ) alone.
You said you have installed ver1.21 disks and still don't get full drum sounds,
it must be either 1) you still have older windows driver although the version 
number hasn't changed on the driver 2) you have not installed all patches.
This is just my assumption. 

BTW, I do get percussion sounds from KBMIDI by setting channel to either 10 or
16 ( that are general midi percussion channels ). They are quite nice ( drum 
sound with new patches ). ..

A word about my modifications: I don't have much time so all the changes I've 
made is minimal ( just enough to get it to work ) so there will be many 
problems with these two programs. If there are, don't blame the original 
author, send any comments to me...Oh, I did not create .prj file for drums.c
I just used command line make using makefiles that came with source code.

- Yuri -

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

Date: Mon, 16 Nov 92 11:26:59 EST
From: BARRYM@TOROLAB2.VNET.IBM.COM
Message-Id: <9211161643.AA05151@orca.es.com>
Subject: GUS'ing Under OS/2
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

Hi y'all.  This is my first Newsletter append, so be gentle with me!  (g)

Tips for OS/2 users w.r.t GUS

1) Install the board's utilities while booted under DOS.  The config program
   trashed itself in a VDM on my system.  Reboot and you can use the board.
2) Couldn't get Stellar7 to run.  Anyone else?  Tried with -o2 option, but
   it majorly slowed down the system.  No speech with it.
3) I have tested it with Accolade's The Games : Winter Challenge (!) and
   Sierra's Robin Hood (Excellent!)
4) USS8 doesn't run under OS/2.  I'll keep trying.
5) They're planning/writing OS/2 drivers  (Right, Gravis? (nudge) Please make
   them PM apps!  Please make MMPM drivers!  Please make them soon!  (g) )
6) It's a happy camper with my Roland SCC-1.

BTW, I got 6 256kb*4 70 ns chips for around 40 CDN in downtown Toronto.
(Computronics on Queen, in case anyone's interested.  Of course, I have no
interests in this shop and this is not supposed to be an ad for them.)

Happy GUS'ing...
Barry Marshall - BARRYM@TOROLAB2.VNET.IBM.COM
(These views are mine, not IBM's.)

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

Date: Mon, 16 Nov 92 15:35:18 EST
From: Phat H Tran <ptran@sciborg.uwaterloo.ca>
Message-Id: <9211162035.AA02985@sciborg.uwaterloo.ca>
Subject: GUS coexists with SB
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

I've finally made my GUS and SB work together fully.  My SB is on address
220h, using DMA channel 1, and IRQ 5, while my GUS is sitting at 230, using
DMA channel 3, IRQ 11 for itself, and IRQ 12 for MIDI.  As is, all GUS and
SB-specific software recognize both cards as they are set up (test-sbc
returns no errors.  playcmf does play.  etc.), but programs that expect
an Adlib card do not detect the SB as being Adlib-compatible.  Falcon 3.0,
for example, plays FM music through the Adlib ports, even if you select
Soundblaster in its configuration screen.  As a result, I get no FM music
from Falcon 3.0, only the digitized sounds.  However, I've found that if
I run SBOS, and then uninstall it with SBOS -f, the game will detect an
Adlib and will pump its FM soundtrack.  

So, apparently the GUS can coexist with the SB...  Present owners of SB's
can upgrade to one excellent soundboard and still use the old one to run
older software without fussing with SBOS.

Phat.

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

Date: Mon, 16 Nov 92 10:48:09 -0500
From: "What the World needs now..." <dantonio@magick.tay2.dec.com>
Message-Id: <9211161548.AA17582@magick.tay2.dec.com>
Subject: GUS review for GAME BYTES 
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

>   Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games
>   From: ross@kaos.b11.ingr.com (Ross Erickson)
>   Subject: GAME BYTES REVIEWS WANTED!! UPDATED.
>   Keywords: game bytes magazine
>   Reply-To: ross@kaos.b11.ingr.com

Please get in touch with Ross before writing a review for GameBytes. I've
already mentioned writing a GUS review, but he's been known to take
multiple reviews for hot products so get it touch if you're interested..

DDA

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

Date: Mon, 16 Nov 92 23:19:55 -0500
From: ylee@norton.uwaterloo.ca
Message-Id: <9211170419.AA02141@norton.uwaterloo.ca>
Subject: more midi files
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

Hi all,

I've uploaded 3 more MIDI files to epas.utoronto.ca...
These are sequenced for GS synthesizers which conform to general MIDI that
Ultrasound supports. Acker-gs.zip is a MIDI file converted from a .MOD file
and sounds interesting...of course it sounds better than .MOD file...
Try all three, they are quite nice....Anyway, these files are downloaded
from Power Windows BBS ( 205-881-8619 ) so if this number is local to you,
you should check it out since it has tons(?) of GS MIDI files...too
bad it's not local to me...

Later,

Yuri

** yuri.lee@canrem.com
** ylee@sunee.uwaterloo.ca

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

Date: Mon, 16 Nov 92 11:50:36 -0500
From: "What the World needs now..." <dantonio@magick.tay2.dec.com>
Message-Id: <9211161650.AA17720@magick.tay2.dec.com>
Subject: My experiences with the GUS
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

On Friday last, my eagerly awaited GUS showed up! Oh boy, thought I, time
for some fun, testing out this marvel of modern sound technology!

The installation went ok, although I had to put the card right next to my
Diamond SpeedStar Plus. It hasn't made any difference that I noticed, a
tribute to either Gravis, Diamond or both.

BTW, my board has 256K of 100ns memory. Not if it matters...I'll up
upgrading it to 1meg tomorrow.

Then I ran SETUP. It told me to select the address, IRQs, DMA, etc., but
QEMM barfed everytime I hit the arrow keys. Yuck! So I rebooted without
QEMM and got all the nifty sounds. My CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT are on a
different drive from the ULTRASND directory which confused the SETUP
program immensely, however I was able to edit the changes by hand into
AUTOEXEC.BAT.

So I reboot, and fire up the mididemo, anxious to finally hear this puppy
in action. No such luck, it's silent! Since I was using DMA 7 and there had
been reported problems with SOME Opti chipsets and 16bit DMA.  So I try DMA
1. And then DMA 3. And then IRQ7. Nothing. The sound of silence.

Into Windows to try things there. I set up the drivers, reboot and get a
bit of my Startup WAV and then Windows complains about not being able to
access drive D: (SCSI drive) and hangs. Oh boy.

This finally prompted a call to Gravis and sure enough, the Adaptec SCSI
controller was using IRQ11. Once I reset the GF1 IRQ to 5, it would play
the midi files. Loudly...Windows plays the WAV files, softly. What's going
on with the volume here? The Mixer applet is set to full volume.

Ok, let's give SBOS a try. I run it, get the (in)famous "S B O S Installed"
voice. Try Wing Commander. It sounds kinda awful, but doesn't seem to run
any slower. I tried SBOS -o2 and the sound was better, but still different
from the SoundBlaster. Ok, let's give Wing Commander II a shot. Locks up my
machine after the 'Expanded Memory detected' message. No matter what/how I
setup SBOS, I get the same thing. Hmmm.

The AMAZON demo was next. It took SBOS -o2 to get any sound at all and boy,
was the sound loud. And not really correct, either. I went to load a saved
game, hit [ to soften the sound; lockup. This is getting annoying. I'm
gonna try the < > key substitution that was mentioned on the list.

All right, the heck with the games for now, let's try MOD players. MODPLAY
comes up, let's me select a MOD file and hangs. Doesn't matter what I do
with SBOS. WOWII works, in that the graphics come up, the counter counts to
16 (one buffer full?) and stops. No sound, but at least it doesn't hang the
machine. Into Windows we go to try 2 Windows-based MOD players. Winmod
works on some MODs, get a General Protection Fault on others. WinMod Pro,
if set to stereo, produces no sound whatsoever. Otherwise, it's the same
deal as Winmod. Some MODs work, some cause GPFs. And yes, it's the same
one's in each case. One wierdness about WinMod Pro is that it has a volume
control. If it's set to ANYTHING other than full, the GUS shuts up for the
rest of the Windows session! Even the Ending WAV won't play. If I use the
Mixer applet, though I can adjust the volume all I want. Again, the WAVs
play softer than the MODs.

Next comes OS/2 2.0. Since the Windows driver REQIURES Enhanced mode, I
didn't even try it under WINOS2 since that runs in Standard mode. Instead I
tried the midi files in a DOS box. Nothing. No sound at all.
Sigh...However, using DMA 1 or 3 it worked like a charm. But DMA 7 was
right out. I was able to have Tocatta.mid playing while I was using
DKBTrace to raytrace a scene! Ya gotta love true multitasking...Heh, heh,
heh.

Anyway, that's it for now. If anyone has any more info about SBOS settings,
MOD players, Wing Commander II, etc, let us know!

DDA

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

Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 12:46:27 -0800 (PST)
From: Mark Harrison <harrison@lclark.edu>
Message-Id: <Pine.3.03.9211161227.A5081-b100000@sun>
Subject: My problems with GUS
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

Well, I sent a message a couple of days ago about the setup program
crashing.  Here is a quick update for anyone else having problems. 
According to Gravis tech support, some computers (mine probably included)
have some screwed up 16-bit DMA channels.  Setup checks these and that is
why it keeps crashing.  They are working on a new version that won't check
for the DMA channels, that should work on all computers.

I also got the final answer about setting up the enviroment varibles.  I
figured out the ULTRASND varible on my own, but the BLASTER one wasn't
included anywhere.

Now after setting up the BLASTER varible, I still can't get Wolfenstien
working right.  I didn't have very much time to play around, so it could
be some confilcts somewhere else.  Is there any other hints other that
what's included in the readme file (sbos -o2)?

I'm also having problems with Carmen Sandiego.  That's the CD-ROM version.
I can play the game just fine, but when I just about have the case solved,
I get strange errors.  A sound will be repeated endlessly.  (Running feet
for example.  I guess the theif was just too quick :-)  Other than that,
it works great.  I just can't ever finish a case.  I havn't tried it with
the new BLASTER setup, but I'm not sure that will help.

Also, I can't get Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Dective (CD-ROM) to start up
at all.  As I said, I havn't had a chance to play with the settings and
the BLASTER varible, so I may figure that one out by myself.

Any suggestions for any of these three games?

=============================================================================
Mark Harrison           |  "We are the Priests, of the Temples of Syrinx
harrison@sun.lclark.edu |   Our great computers fill the hallowed halls."
			  -- Me     |                                    -- Rush
=============================================================================

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

Date: Mon, 16 Nov 92 16:45:24 -0600
From: Michael J Stumpf <mjs7529@tamsun.tamu.edu>
Message-Id: <9211162245.AA01166@tamsun.tamu.edu>
Subject: One of the first GUS Supported games
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

I believe I've found one of the first games to support the ultrasound to an
incredible potential: Star Control 2.

Check this out in a store!
I've not heard sound like this since I heard roland quality.. be sure you 
listen to it on a good stereo system, though.



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

Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 19:45:30 -0600 (CST)
From: "Alan S. Estenson" <este0005@student.tc.umn.edu>
Message-Id: <Pine.2.4.9211161918.A22217@student.tc.umn.edu>
Subject: Please don't quote the entire digest!
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

PLEASE people, do not quote the entire digest when posting a reply for
inclusion in the next digest.  It's getting annoying!!!

(This is NOT a flame, just a request.)

Alan S. Estenson
--
"Yield to temptation; it may not pass your way again."

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

Date: Mon, 16 Nov 92 10:48:26 CST
From: ken@batman.austin.ibm.com (Ken Goach)
Message-Id: <9211161648.AA10942@batman.austin.ibm.com>
Subject: USS 8 
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

I saw a note from you in the digest:

>  + USS 8.  Could record sound from my mic.

I can't get this to work. I open USS 8 and everything is fine.
I can play back sound files just fine. I cannot get things to
work when I have anything plugged into the line in. I plugged
in my CD player and tried to record, and when I pushed the
Sample (I think that's the button) and Mono buttons, USS 8
just locked up on me and I had to reboot my machine. I repeated
this problem several times.

What's your secret?! 

ken@austin.ibm.com (not ken@batman.....)

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

Date: Mon, 16 Nov 92 10:47:33 -0500
From: edwong@acs.bu.edu (Edward Wong)
Message-Id: <9211161547.AA122255@acs.bu.edu>
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

can someone mail me the BBS number for gravis?

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

Date: Mon, 16 Nov 92 10:43:50 PST
From: biggles@berlioz.nsc.com (Winston Worrell)
Message-Id: <9211161843.AA20827@berlioz.nsc.com>
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

What about us people with no ftp access? Is there mail server at these sites.

If you are going to post these things to the net,could you also post them
to somewhere that has a mailserver and the instructions required to
get it from the mailserver. Its very fustrating hearing about stuff and
not being able to get it.

New ultrasound disks? New drivers? Could we have this stuff in the GUS
mailserver?

PLEASE!!!!!!!(with sugar in top).

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

Date: Mon, 16 Nov 92 11:30:32 -0500
From: tai@eclipse.sheridanc.on.ca (Francis Tai)
Message-Id: <9211161630.AA05720@eclipse.sheridanc.on.ca>
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

----------------------------------------------------------------------
> Date: Fri, 13 Nov 92 13:10:32 -0500
> From: ylee@norton.uwaterloo.ca
> Subject: New drivers
>
> Hi all.
>
> I just downloaded new set of ultrasound disks from epas and installed windows
> drivers, midiplay program and new patches. Well...New windows driver does not
> solve the patch loading problem and on top of that, my modified KBMIDI doesn't
> work anymore either. The patch set if not yet complete but complete set of
> percussion patches are very NICE! New windows driver includes MIDI port driver
> but wave mapper stays the same. Both synth and wave driver still has version
> no. 1 as before but synth driver also adds pitch bending capability ( although
> it sounds weird most of time )
>
> Can someone confirm all these. I'd like to know if I'm missing something.
>
> - yuri
>
> ylee@sunee.uwaterloo.ca
>
[Reply:]

	 I've downloaded the v1.21 driver sets from epas and installed over
the old version [v1.1]. And when I've ran the mididemo.bat programs,
there was about half of the sound modules didn't work with the new
driver when it was working with the old one.. I've rebooted the system
to check if it was any other TSRs I've loaded before but it wasn't.. (I
think the error was error #0.. Can't find patch.. I've got to double
check..) I think I'll just nuke the \ultrasnd directory and re-install
the drivers so I can do a clean install....  Hmm.. It's veeeeeery, 
veeeeeery strange problem..  Maybe it's something that I've done...

Francis

> ------------------------------
> Date: Fri, 13 Nov 92 12:14:57 CST
> From: ken@batman.austin.ibm.com (Ken Goach)
> Subject: Response on GUS for music use
>
> chrisw <chrisw@leland.stanford.edu> wrote:
>
> -[Few lines deleted]- 
>
> >2)  Assuming I can plug in a keyboard, how do I set up sounds, midi channels
>
> Do this in Windows 3.1. The MIDI patch table, all that can be done in
> Windows. I had Cakewalk working last night with the GUS.
>
   Hmm.. I've have problems playing .WRK or .MID files with CakeWalk
Pro.. with version 1.1 or 1.21 drivers.. Donno why... Maybe Chris Y. Can
shed some light into this or anyone can help??..

> The big problem is that with the current version of the software, you
> have to load a sequence in the Media Player first, then in Windows
> to get the patches to load correctly. But more on that in another note.
>
> Again, Gravis told me that they want this fixed before Christmas. They
> will also be doing more testing with various sequencer programs. In
> addition to the MIDI stuff, a newer, better SBOS is supposed to go
> out too.
>
> Ken

   I hope Gravis can fix this problem [With Windows and the SBOS] 
and Maybe add a .MOD/or any other sound file Player??! [Hint!! Hint!!]

Francis

 --------------------------------------------------------------------
| Francis Tai               | Internet: tai@eclipse.sheridanc.on.ca  | 
| 3rD Year Systems Analyst  |       OR: francis.tai@canrem.com       |
| Sheridan College          |----------------------------------------| 
| Brampton, Ontario, Canada | Toronto: Home Of The World Champs Jays |
 --------------------------------------------------------------------

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

End of Ultrasound Daily Digest V1 #22
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