GUS Daily Digest            Sat, 30 Oct 93  0:07 MDT     Volume 7: Issue  29  

Today's Topics:
						  16 bit DMA channel
							   Coaster
						   Dune 2 problems
					Dune and SBOS, ummm, and NHLPA
						ground loop eliminator
						  GUS Compatibility
					   GUS Daily Digest V7 #25
					   GUS Daily Digest V7 #27
				   GUS Game Support Petition [long]
					  GUS MAX??? [ Watch Out!? ]
								Harry
					  Lost files/NHL Hockey/OS2
				Return to Zork: Divide error solution?
						  Sealteam with SBOS
							 Shadowcaster
					So I decided to buy a GUS....
							Volume on GUS

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, 29 Oct 1993 16:04:13 -0300 (EDT)
From: "K.S. Holly" <u8843389@muss.cis.mcmaster.ca>
Subject: 16 bit DMA channel

I hope this doesn't sound too foolish but what is the major NOTICEABLE
difference in using a 16 bit DMA channel as opposed to an 8 bit channel.

16 bit channels are numbered 5-8 and above are they not?

Kevin

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

Date: Thu, 28 Oct 1993 23:57:51 -0700
From: dross@ultrix4.csubak.edu (Dean Ross-Smith)
Subject: Coaster

Ok folks, let's give a big collective Raspberry to the people at Disney.
I bought Coaster (build your own roller coaster then zip up'n down as fast as
you want) last week and cant get any digital sound out of it.  It supports 
the disney sound thingy and SB.  I tried SBOS and got FM music.  If I enable
digital sound, the machine locks hard (reset button) half way thru running a track .
Disney said that they never could get the GUS to work and that Coaster works
with all other SB compatible cards.

Can anyone help?  This looks to be a fun program to play with.

Oh yeah!  Buy Silverball!  It's great sounding w/native GUS support!

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

Date: Fri, 29 Oct 93 02:16:16 EDT
From: "gizzy" <gizzy@aol.com>
Subject: Dune 2 problems

I am having problems getting the Dune 2 AIL patch to work with the Miles
drivers.  More specifically, I can't get the digitized speech.  
The music works fine, but when the speaking parts come up, all 
I here is some clicking and light static.  My GUS has 1 meg 
memory, and I all my drivers are loaded high so I have about 
630k of lower memory free.  Also, I am usuing Ultramid V1.02.
Oh, and one more thing, one time, I actually got digitized 
speech (I don't know what I did RIGHT that time!), and the 
speech was very slow and drawn out, like playing a record at 
the wrong speed.

Well, any help would be greatly appreciated!

Jeff Ow

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

Date: Fri, 29 Oct 1993 09:35:00 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Two weeks left..." <JKS4675@ritvax.isc.rit.edu>
Subject: Dune and SBOS, ummm, and NHLPA

1) Dune (I assume you mean Dune I) does not have any digital audio (unless the
CD ROM does) so there's no way SBOS will get any.

2) Did anybody get NHLPA to work with any version of SBOS?

Jeff

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

Date: Fri, 29 Oct 1993 17:35:15 +1000
From: David Vu <ccdvu@cc.uq.oz.au>
Subject: ground loop eliminator

Hello GUSers,

There was a mention of this Ground Loop Eliminator that you 'd use
between a line out and an amp to eliminate ground noise.
My local Tandy doesn't know what it is and I doubt if other electronics
shops know about it.  So what is the device, how does it work, and
how to construct one - I've got my soldering iron ready :-)

-David-

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

Date: Fri, 29 Oct 1993 14:48:34 -0700 (PDT)
From: Vincent Poy <hippo@sfsuvax1.sfsu.edu>
Subject: GUS Compatibility

Has anyone here ran into any problem with a 486/386 System using a GUS
with eithera BioStar or Forex Chipset? Like are there any types of
compatibility problems with the GUS? Thanks!

Cheers,

Vince

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

Date: Fri, 29 Oct 1993 08:08:00 +0000
From: gus-general@dsd.ES.COM
Subject: GUS Daily Digest V7 #25

GUS Daily Digest            Tue, 26 Oct 93  0:07 MDT     Volume 7: Issue  25  

Today's Topics:
				  Dram, Mikes and Headphone control
							 Dram Upgrade
						 Ground loop isolator
			 GUS, new Mitsumi drive and audio connection
							 Gus/Dual Joy
					  GUS / Windows / MS Arcade
					   GUS Daily Digest V7 #22
					   GUS Daily Digest V7 #23
				   GUS Daily Digest V7 #24 (2 msgs)
				   GUS Game Support Grading Matrix
				 GUS Support Petition [very long...]
								 help
						   mono microphones
							OPTi question
						Problems with ultramid
						   Registered User
							  SBOS 3.60?
							SBOS version ?
								 SF2
				   Silverball registration card!!!!
		  Terminator Rampage Setup (How can I make it work)
					   Which SCSI card to buy?
						  Why not Ultramid?

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.

 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
Re: headphone volume control...
And in case you didn't catch it yesterday, you can apparently *buy* such
a thing from Radio Shlack in the U.S. for five bucks. I would be a little
reluctant to use this as a speaker control, as the (newer) GUS's are
capable of 4W/ch. into 8 ohms, enough to toast your control.            
That's what L-PADs are for (balanced load).

(I don't think it's avail. in the Canadian R.S. catalog...)

I'm looking into a part number for a ground loop isolator. A good
place to get one (mail order) is MCM electronics in Centerville, Ohio.
They have a 1-800 #, decent prices, etc. I'll post some numbers when
I find my catalog (damn, I know it's around here _somewhere_!) If any
of you tekkies come up with a R.S. part number (Can., U.S., U.K., etc.)
pleeze post it for those interested.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
 
I got my Ground Loop Isolator at radio shack, cat no. 270-054...I was
suprised when I hooked it up, I didn't realize I had so much noise! About
$12 can getcha one.

Tim

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

From: Phat H Tran <ptran@sciborg.uwaterloo.ca>
Subject: Re: GUS Daily Digest V7 #24

> Date: Sun, 24 Oct 1993 07:26:25 -0600 (CST)
> From: E33GLASSER@sask.usask.ca
> Subject: new uploads
> 
> I also uploaded a 3D sound demo from Europe called GUS3DEMO.ZIP.
>

This new 3D demo is better than the others that I've tried.  Although
I still have trouble locating the sources, running the demo in 
non-interactive mode using headphones did give me the impression of
being swamped by an assortment of gear, and a bird.

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

Date: Mon, 25 Oct 93 7:16:04 PDT
From: mikebat@netcom.com (Mike Batchelor)
Subject: Re: GUS Daily Digest V7 #24

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

Date: Mon, 25 Oct 1993 16:22:00 -0700 (PDT)
From: roberts@brahms.amd.com (Dave Roberts)
Subject: GUS Support Petition [very long...]

I am a very satisfied GUS owner who has been reading the digest since
I got my GUS in February.  During my time of reading, I have watched
with interest as various email campaigns have been proposed to the
game companies to voice support for the GUS.  I know that often times
all that happened was that a bunch of product support people working
for the companies got ticked off.  In the best cases, people got
prewritten form letters back.  Like you, I would like to see the GUS
supported in more games.  I think that voicing our support for the GUS
is a very good idea, but we can't be as haphazard about it as we've
been in the past.

BACKGROUND:
-----------

Although email is easy for us to write and just about every
interesting company is connected to it via either the Internet,
Compuserve, or some other online subscriber service, very rarely do
the top executives/decision makers read the email that comes in
through those publicly known addresses.  If we're lucky, we're
alarming the support people enough to make them bring it up at the
next team meeting.  From there it might get escalated to someone who
cares.  Rarely does it make it to a decision maker and may in fact be
counter productive because we GUS owners end up being labeled as a
"vocal minority," and nothing more.

Being a semiconductor marketing person, I look at this situation as
equivalent to getting a design win with a chip.  Right now, Creative
Labs owns the socket on the board and we want in too.  This is a
strategic decision for all of the game companies because they are
going to have to expend perhaps considerable resources writing,
testing, and supporting the GUS, should they choose to include it.
They may have to possibly delay schedules of products already in the
works.  This is not a decision that a single software engineer or
support person can make.  This has to be driven from the top, down to
the bottom.  We have to change the minds of the decision makers and
make them see that the GUS offers a very wonderful future for gaming
products.

WHAT WE NEED TO DO:
-------------------

Okay, let's realize that Gravis and Forte are already working pretty
hard on just this very problem.  As consumers, what we need to do is
create the pull.  Of course, that's what we've already been trying to
do, but it hasn't been coordinated.

I propose that we write a petition to the executives of the various
game companies that we are interested in.  This petition will start
off with a cover letter of why we think the GUS is a valuable
soundcard to support.  It will have attached the names of every GUS
owner that can be found (see below).  It should be sent on paper
through the standard postal service.

Second, we need to keep score.  That is, we need to lay off the
companies that have announced GUS support and reward them with our
purchase money.  We also need to know who is not performing up to our
expectations so that we can stay away from their products if we feel
so inclinded.  To this end, we need to keep a list of game companies
that we care about.  We need to make public their responses to the
petition sent to them and "score" them on their current progress.  I
can envision this list being posted to the GUS digest every two weeks
or so as we update it.

Finally, I don't think we should accept help from Gravis for this
venture.  I want Gravis to be able to look a game company executive in
the face and say with a straight face that they neither organized this
nor instigated it.  This is from us users, not a simple ploy by a card
manufacturer to get its hardware supported in future releases.

THE COVER LETTER:
-----------------

The following is the cover letter that I propose we send.  Feel free
to comment on it and suggest things.  Note that it's pretty long right
now, so I don't want to keep adding things that aren't really
specific.  Think before suggesting something randomly.


Dear [xxx],

On the following pages of this letter are the names of Advanced Gravis
Ultrasound sound-board owners.  We are writing to you to educate you
about what the Gravis Ultrasound is, what it offers to the computer
entertainment industry, and to encourage your support for this
hardware in all your future titles.  This letter was not written by
Advanced Gravis, nor written at their request.

First off, what is the Ultrasound?  Simply put, the Ultrasound is the
lowest cost, great sounding sound board on the market today.  The
price of the Ultrasound is lower than many older technology FM-based
sound boards (the Creative Labs Sound Blaster, Sound Blaster Pro,
Sound Blaster 16, Media Vision Pro Audio Spectrum, etc.), yet the
Ultrasound's sound quality is much higher.

The reason for the Ultrasound's great sound is that it uses newer
wavetable synthesis technology rather than older FM technology.
Wavetable synthesis uses samples of real instruments to recreate
music, as opposed to FM's mimicking of instruments.  What this means
in simple terms is that an Ultrasound will play the sound of a real
sampled piano while an FM-based card will play a Nintendo-sounding
interpretation of a piano.  The difference between the two, in terms
of sound quality, is very great and all sound board manufacturers are
now rushing to produce wavetable synthesis cards in order to keep up.

Now, given that wavetable technology is far superior to FM technology
in sound quality, what distinguishes the Ultrasound from the other
wavetable-based cards coming to market?  Two things: cost and RAM.

In terms of cost, the Ultrasound is very inexpensive compared to the
other cards it competes with.  On the street, the Ultrasound sells for
between $120 and $150 (US).  In comparison, Creative Labs Wave Blaster
(a wavetable synthesis daughter-board for the Sound Blaster 16) costs
$240 and requires a Sound Blaster 16 to attach to (another $210),
bringing the total to $450.  Now, other wavetable-based cards are less
expensive than the Creative Labs option but still more expensive than
the Ultrasound (in the $180 range for a ViVa Maestro 16, Aria-based
card).  In spite of this, they still don't have the sound quality of
the Ultrasound.

The second distinguishing feature of the Ultrasound is the fact that
it uses RAM to hold its samples.  Many of the other wavetable-based
cards store their samples in ROM.  The Ultrasound stores the samples
on disk and then uploads them to the card when they are needed.  There
are two advantages of this method over ROM-based cards.  First,
samples can be changed.  For instance, if an owner of the card doesn't
like the violin sample, she is free to replace it with another that
someone else (perhaps even she) created.  With ROM cards this is not
possible.  The second advantage to using RAM to store the samples is
that only the samples actually used for a given application have to
reside on the card when the application is being used.  To keep costs
down and yet store all the needed General MIDI instruments in a ROM,
many other wavetable cards use lower quality 8 or 12-bit samples
usually totalling one megabyte or less.  The Ultrasound ships with
over five megabytes of high quality, 16-bit instruments samples on
disk.

Now that I've explained what the Ultrasound is, I'd like to explain
what it offers you, the entertainment industry.  In past years,
publishers have often included support for the high-end Roland SCC-1
or MT-32 sound boards in their games.  Often, this was simply so the
composers could hear what their music was supposed to sound like
before they "derated" it to work on a Sound Blaster.  Additionally, it
gave the game an ideal "demo mode" which was often used at trade shows
and retail stores to show off the game.  In great proportion, however,
most purchasers of the software went back home and actually used the
software with a poor-sounding Sound Blaster.  The Ultrasound allows
the mass market to all have the sound quality of a high-end Roland
sound board.

The Ultrasound also offers software writers and composers two
technical benefitts: hardware mixing and freedom from the General MIDI
instrument set.

The Ultrasound mixes samples in hardware.  This allows multiple,
overlapping sound effects to be played without having to devote
possibly critical CPU time to mixing the samples in software.  This
allows a dramatic environment to be created for the consumer without
slowing the software down to a crawl.  Consumers are tiring of
in-order, one-at-a-time sound effects, and the Ultrasound is the
easiest and most dramatic route to an immersive aural environment
consisting of many simultaneous sources of sound.

Finally, because RAM is used to store instrument samples, if a
composer wants to change the samples for whatever reason they are
easily uploaded.  This frees composers from the shackles of the
General MIDI instrument set and allows many different styles of music
to be incorporated in the software.

The following list of people (representative of all Ultrasound
owners) think that having inexpensive, high quality sound for their
software is important.  We urge you to consider the Advanced Gravis
Ultrasound the vechicle to make this goal a reality.

The Ultrasound is already shipping and no action is required other
than you adding the support to your future releases.  This is not a
difficult process as the board is easy to program and software
development kits are readily available from Gravis (for free).  Gravis
has even written John Mile's Audio Interface Library (AIL) drivers for
the Ultrasound that can simply be included with your releases for
instant Ultrasound support (if your sound system uses the Miles AIL
system).  Some companies are even releasing patches and drivers for
their sound systems to support their older releases.

Thank you for your time.  We appreciate your support, we'll be
watching, and we'll be voting with our pocket books.  Many other
companies such as Sierra On-Line, Strategic Simulations, Maxis, and
Activision have announced their support of the Ultrasound.  We hope
that you'll join them.

Sincerely,

Dave Roberts
Speaking for:

[numerous GUS owners' names]

ACTION ITEMS:
-------------

I'll volunteer to do the leg work here.  I'll accept help from other
people who wish to help out. :-) Please let me know.  Since this is a
petition, what's required of you individually is relatively little if
you just want to participate.  All I need is a very short email
message from you telling me some information.  See below for all the
details.

Before you do anything, please read all of these and then respond.
Since I could be getting at least hundreds of responses, I'll be using
some sort of electronic processing to help me with this.  Because of
this, you'll need to respond in an appropriate format that I'll
describe below.

1. I need a list of game companies that you care about.  In fact,
don't limit yourself to game companies.  Any company that writes
software that needs explicit GUS support should be targeted.  Note,
please limit yourself to the more major companies.  We don't want to
be sending petitions to every garage outfit everywhere.

To start off, I have collected the following list.  Please write me
and send me more names.  Note, some of these companies have already
said that they will be supporting the GUS.  I want to track these as
well, so if there are others that I've left off, please send those to
me.  This list will be use to both track the progress of the various
companies and form the basis of who gets sent the petition.

Access Software, Inc.
Accolade
Activision
Apogee
Dynamix                                   
Electronic Arts
Epic Megagames
ID Software
Interplay
LucasArts                                 
Maxis
MicroProse                                
Mindcraft
New World Computing
Origin Systems                            
Sierra On-Line
Sir-Tech                                  
Spectrum HoloByte
Strategic Simulations, Inc.               
Strategic Studies Group
Three-Sixty Pacific
Virgin


2. For each of the above companies, I need standard surface mail
addresses of their headquarters.  Additionally, I need names of either
presidents, vice-presidents, or major decision makers.  You'll have to
go off your knowledge of this and I'll be relying on people who work
either in this industry or live in the fringe to help with this.

3. I need you.  I need names of GUS owners to put on this petition.
To make the point that I/we didn't make this up, I'd also like
paper-mail addresses and email-addresses for each person who responds.
I'd like everyone who reads the GUS digest to add their name to the
list.  I know that this goes out to several hundred direct email
addresses throughout the world and gets relayed onto many BBS's and
FidoNet connections.  I also know that many of you may know people who
own GUSes but don't read the digest.  Please ask them to respond as
well.  If they don't have email, please send it in for them.  Ideally,
I'd like to reproduce an exact copy of Gravis's registration list. :-)

That's all!

RESPONSE FORMAT:
----------------

Please make the subject line of your message contain [GUS petition].
Then, please use the following format for your response.  Put this
stuff first.

NAME: Dave Roberts
EMAIL: david.roberts@amd.com
ADDRESS: 40802 Capa Dr.
ADDRESS: Fremont, CA 95054

[use as many ADDRESS lines as you need]

If you have additional information about various things, put this
*FOLLOWING* your name and address.

XTRA:

Blah, blah...


The system works as follows.  First, I save all the incoming messages
that have [GUS petition] in them into one big file.  I then run a
script on the file to search for all the NAME, EMAIL, and ADDRESS
lines.  As these are found, they are added to the name file.  When the
XTRA line is found, it causes the script to save that individual
message into another file that I read by hand to get any sort of
messages.  If you don't have anything to say other that your name and
address, don't include the XTRA keyword.

That's it.  Start sending those names and addresses in.


Dave Roberts
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
I/O and Network Products Division
david.roberts@amd.com

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

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

Date: 29 Oct 93 13:09:00 EST
From: "VULCAN::WATTERS_C" <WATTERS_C%VULCAN.decnet@gate.hosp.ohio-state.edu>
Subject: Re: GUS Daily Digest V7 #27

I just picked up _Return to Zork_, (this is not a please help post) CD version.
I had a little question about my CD speed (I'm only getting 30k/sec on a drive
rated at 150k/second), and posted it to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.

One of the design team from Infocom/Activision emailed me a response right 
away.  In my reply I thanked Infocom/Activision for Supporting the GUS.
Told them I only bought it because I heard it had GUS support.

RTZ (I do have a sound problem, but it's not a GUS problem, it's my CDrom)
uses the AIL drivers for digital music/sound, or a MIDI and digital sound.

I'm running MIDI for the music, and it sounds just fine.  Some of my digital
sounds break up, but this is due to the CDrom.  When it's not breaking up, 
the sounds are pretty nice.

-Coyt

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

Date: Fri, 29 Oct 1993 14:27:50 -0700 (PDT)
From: roberts@brahms.amd.com (Dave Roberts)
Subject: GUS Game Support Petition [long]

This is being reposted for those that missed it the first time (and
there seem to be many from the numbers of letters that I'm getting
asking for it).  I'm posting this to both the GUS General Digest and
the GUS Music Digest.  I apologize to those readers of the Music
digest that are offended by this.  I know that many of you have
unsubscribed from the GUS General Digest to get away from all the
questions related to games not working.  Unless you use the GUS for
ONLY music, you will probably still be interested in this.  If not,
thanks for your patience.

Dave Roberts
david.roberts@amd.com

================

I am a very satisfied GUS owner who has been reading the digest since
I got my GUS in February.  During my time of reading, I have watched
with interest as various email campaigns have been proposed to the
game companies to voice support for the GUS.  I know that often times
all that happened was that a bunch of product support people working
for the companies got ticked off.  In the best cases, people got
prewritten form letters back.  Like you, I would like to see the GUS
supported in more games.  I think that voicing our support for the GUS
is a very good idea, but we can't be as haphazard about it as we've
been in the past.

BACKGROUND:
===========

Although email is easy for us to write and just about every
interesting company is connected to it via either the Internet,
Compuserve, or some other online subscriber service, very rarely do
the top executives/decision makers read the email that comes in
through those publicly known addresses.  If we're lucky, we're
alarming the support people enough to make them bring it up at the
next team meeting.  From there it might get escalated to someone who
cares.  Rarely does it make it to a decision maker and may in fact be
counter productive because we GUS owners end up being labeled as a
"vocal minority," and nothing more.

Being a semiconductor marketing person, I look at this situation as
equivalent to getting a design win with a chip.  Right now, Creative
Labs owns the socket on the board and we want in too.  This is a
strategic decision for all of the game companies because they are
going to have to expend perhaps considerable resources writing,
testing, and supporting the GUS, should they choose to include it.
They may have to possibly delay schedules of products already in the
works.  This is not a decision that a single software engineer or
support person can make.  This has to be driven from the top, down to
the bottom.  We have to change the minds of the decision makers and
make them see that the GUS offers a very wonderful future for gaming
products.

WHAT WE NEED TO DO:
===================

Okay, let's realize that Gravis and Forte are already working pretty
hard on just this very problem.  As consumers, what we need to do is
create the pull.  Of course, that's what we've already been trying to
do, but it hasn't been coordinated.

I propose that we write a petition to the executives of the various
game companies that we are interested in.  This petition will start
off with a cover letter of why we think the GUS is a valuable
soundcard to support.  It will have attached the names of every GUS
owner that can be found (see below).  It should be sent on paper
through the standard postal service.

Second, we need to keep score.  That is, we need to lay off the
companies that have announced GUS support and reward them with our
purchase money.  We also need to know who is not performing up to our
expectations so that we can stay away from their products if we feel
so inclinded.  To this end, we need to keep a list of game companies
that we care about.  We need to make public their responses to the
petition sent to them and "score" them on their current progress.  I
can envision this list being posted to the GUS digest every two weeks
or so as we update it.

Finally, I don't think we should accept help from Gravis for this
venture.  I want Gravis to be able to look a game company executive in
the face and say with a straight face that they neither organized this
nor instigated it.  This is from us users, not a simple ploy by a card
manufacturer to get its hardware supported in future releases.

THE COVER LETTER:
=================

The following is the cover letter that I propose we send.  Feel free
to comment on it and suggest things.  Note that it's pretty long right
now, so I don't want to keep adding things that aren't really
specific.  Think before suggesting something randomly.

Dear [xxx],

The following pages of this letter list names of Advanced Gravis
Ultrasound sound-board owners.  We are writing to you to tell about
the Gravis Ultrasound, what it offers to the computer entertainment
industry, and to encourage your support for this hardware in all your
future titles.  This letter was not written by Advanced Gravis, nor
written at their request.

First, what is the Ultrasound?  Simply put, the Ultrasound is the best
sounding sound board under $200 on the market today.  Older technology
FM-based sound boards (the Creative Labs Sound Blaster, Sound Blaster
Pro, Sound Blaster 16, Media Vision Pro Audio Spectrum, etc.) can cost
much more than the superior sounding, 16-bit, stereo Ultrasound.

The reason for the Ultrasound's great sound is that it uses newer wave
table synthesis technology rather than older FM technology.  Wave
table synthesis uses samples of real instruments to recreate music, as
opposed to FM's algorithmic approximation of instruments.  What this
means in simple terms is that an Ultrasound will play the sound of a
real sampled piano while an FM-based card will play a poor
Nintendo-sounding interpretation of a piano.  The difference between
the two, in terms of sound quality, is great.  All sound board
manufacturers are now rushing to produce wave table synthesis cards in
order to keep up.

Now, given that wave table technology is far superior to FM technology
in sound quality, what distinguishes the Ultrasound from the other
wave table-based cards coming to market?  Two things: cost and RAM.

In terms of cost, the Ultrasound is very inexpensive compared to the
other cards it competes with.  On the street, the Ultrasound sells for
between $120 and $150 (US).  In comparison, Creative Labs Wave Blaster
(a wave table synthesis daughter-board for the Sound Blaster 16) costs
$240 and requires a Sound Blaster 16 to attach to (another $210),
bringing the total to $450.  Although other wave table-based cards are
less expensive than the Wave Blaster/Sound Blaster 16, they are still
more expensive than the Ultrasound (in the $180 range for a ViVa
Maestro 16, Aria-based card).  In spite of this, they still don't have
the sound quality of the Ultrasound.

The second distinguishing feature of the Ultrasound is the fact that
it uses RAM to hold its samples.  Many of the other wave table-based
cards store their samples in ROM.  The Ultrasound stores the samples
on disk and then uploads them to the card when they are needed.  There
are two advantages of this method over ROM-based cards.  First,
samples can be changed.  For instance, if an owner of the card doesn't
like the violin sample, she is free to replace it with another that
someone else (perhaps even she) created.  With ROM cards this is not
possible.  The second advantage to using RAM to store the samples is
that only the samples actually used for a given application have to
reside on the card when the application is being used.  To keep costs
down and yet store all the needed General MIDI instruments in a ROM,
many other wave table cards use lower quality 8 or 12-bit samples
usually totaling one megabyte or less.  The Ultrasound ships with over
five megabytes of high quality, 16-bit instruments samples on disk.

Now that I've explained what the Ultrasound is, I'd like to explain
what it offers you, the entertainment industry.  In past years,
publishers have often included support for the high-end Roland SCC-1
or MT-32 sound boards in their games.  Often, this was simply so the
composers could hear what their music was supposed to sound like
before they "de-rated" it to work on a Sound Blaster.  Additionally,
it gave the game an ideal "demo mode" which was often used at trade
shows and retail stores to show off the game.  In great proportion,
however, most purchasers of the software went back home and actually
used the software with a poor-sounding Sound Blaster.  The Ultrasound
allows the mass market to inexpensively have the sound quality of a
high-end Roland sound board.

The Ultrasound also offers software writers and composers two
technical benefits: hardware mixing and freedom from the General MIDI
instrument set.

The Ultrasound mixes samples in hardware.  This allows multiple,
overlapping sound effects (up to 32) to be played without having to
devote possibly critical CPU time to mixing the samples in software.
This allows a dramatic environment to be created for the consumer
without slowing the software down to a crawl.  Consumers are tiring of
in-order, one-at-a-time sound effects, and the Ultrasound is the
easiest and most dramatic route to an immersive aural environment
consisting of many simultaneous sources of sound.

Finally, because RAM is used to store instrument samples, if a
composer wants to change the samples for whatever reason they are
easily uploaded.  This frees composers from the shackles of the
General MIDI instrument set and allows many different styles of music
to be incorporated in the software.

The Ultrasound is already shipping and no action is required other
than you adding the support to your future releases.  This is not a
difficult process as the board is easy to program and software
development kits are readily available from Gravis (for free).  Gravis
has even written John Mile's Audio Interface Library (AIL) drivers for
the Ultrasound that can simply be included with your releases for
instant Ultrasound support (if your sound system uses the Miles AIL
system).  Some companies are releasing patches and drivers for their
sound systems to support their older releases.

Thank you for your time.  We appreciate your support, we'll be
watching, and we'll be voting with our pocket books.  Many other
leading computer entertainment companies such as Sierra On-Line,
Strategic Simulations, Maxis, and Activision have announced their
support of the Ultrasound.  We hope that you'll join them.

Sincerely,


Dave Roberts

The following list of people (representative of all Ultrasound owners)
think that having inexpensive, high quality sound for their software
is important.  We urge you to consider the Advanced Gravis Ultrasound
the vehicle to make this goal a reality.

[numerous GUS owners' names]

ACTION ITEMS:
=============

I'll volunteer to do the leg work here.  I'll accept help from other
people who wish to help out. :-) Please let me know.  Since this is a
petition, what's required of you individually is relatively little if
you just want to participate.  All I need is a very short email
message from you telling me some information.  See below for all the
details.

Before you do anything, please read all of these and then respond.
Since I could be getting at least hundreds of responses, I'll be using
some sort of electronic processing to help me with this.  Because of
this, you'll need to respond in an appropriate format that I'll
describe below.

1. I need a list of game companies that you care about.  In fact,
don't limit yourself to game companies.  Any company that writes
software that needs explicit GUS support should be targeted.  Note,
please limit yourself to the more major companies.  We don't want to
be sending petitions to every garage outfit everywhere.

To start off, I have collected the following list.  Please write me
and send me more names.  Note, some of these companies have already
said that they will be supporting the GUS.  I want to track these as
well, so if there are others that I've left off, please send those to
me.  This list will be use to both track the progress of the various
companies and form the basis of who gets sent the petition.

Access Software, Inc.
Accolade
Activision
Apogee
Dynamix                                   
Electronic Arts
Epic Megagames
ID Software
Interplay
LucasArts                                 
Maxis
MicroProse                                
Mindcraft
New World Computing
Origin Systems                            
Sierra On-Line
Sir-Tech                                  
Spectrum HoloByte
Strategic Simulations, Inc.               
Strategic Studies Group
Three-Sixty Pacific
Virgin


2. For each of the above companies, I need standard surface mail
addresses of their headquarters.  Additionally, I need names of either
presidents, vice-presidents, or major decision makers.  You'll have to
go off your knowledge of this and I'll be relying on people who work
either in this industry or live in the fringe to help with this.

3. I need you.  I need names of GUS owners to put on this petition.
To make the point that I/we didn't make this up, I'd also like
paper-mail addresses and email-addresses for each person who responds.
I'd like everyone who reads the GUS digest to add their name to the
list.  I know that this goes out to several hundred direct email
addresses throughout the world and gets relayed onto many BBS's and
FidoNet connections.  I also know that many of you may know people who
own GUSes but don't read the digest.  Please ask them to respond as
well.  If they don't have email, please send it in for them.  Ideally,
I'd like to reproduce an exact copy of Gravis's registration list. :-)

That's all!

RESPONSE FORMAT:
================

Please make the subject line of your message contain [GUS petition].
Then, please use the following format for your response.  Put this
stuff first.

NAME: Dave Roberts
EMAIL: david.roberts@amd.com
ADDRESS: 40802 Capa Dr.
ADDRESS: Fremont, CA 95054

[use as many ADDRESS lines as you need]

If you have additional information about various things, put this
*FOLLOWING* your name and address.

XTRA:

Blah, blah...


The system works as follows.  First, I save all the incoming messages
that have [GUS petition] in them into one big file.  I then run a
script on the file to search for all the NAME, EMAIL, and ADDRESS
lines.  As these are found, they are added to the name file.  When the
XTRA line is found, it causes the script to save that individual
message into another file that I read by hand to get any sort of
messages.  If you don't have anything to say other that your name and
address, don't include the XTRA keyword.

That's it.  Start sending those names and addresses in.


Dave Roberts
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
I/O and Network Products Division
david.roberts@amd.com

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

Date: Sat, 30 Oct 93 11:04:01 EAT
From: styx@aho.cis.nctu.edu.tw
Subject: GUS MAX??? [ Watch Out!? ]

Hello folks,

Attached is a article posted by a guy in the BBS in Taiwan. Can Advanced
Gravis (Matthew, John?) or anybody else (Phat?) confirm all the content
for us?  Or what we can do is just stop purchasing any GUS but wait for the
GUS MAX release?

PS. GUS costs about US$250 each piece here. :~~~

Styx

----- The article starts -----

Headline: To who want to buy UltraSound: WAIT!!

Content:

  I am an engineer of the official distributor of GRAVIS, the maker of
UltraSound. I know many of you don't like our price and are ready to mail
order. I have NO opinion about your decision, because IT'S YOUR FREEDOM
  Besides the risk on mail-order, I have one heartly suggestion-- WAIT.
The NEW UltraSound MAX is going to be out. In fact, I will get a beta
test verion of MAX next week from GRAVIS. According to the information
from GRAVIS, the MAX will have:


 -All characters of UltraSound
 -16 bit recording function (for the option on GUS, the price is $130,basing
							 on the mail-ordering catalog)
 -SCSI II CD-ROM interface
 -Filter built-in
 -Mixer built-in
 -1024k DRAM on-board
 -Many other new software bundle in package (Voice-Rec,MIDI..)
 -Fixed bugs in UltraSound v3.4

Just provide some information -- from GRAVIS (not in INTERNET, but in the
FAX from GRAVIS)
Oh,the most important, List Price :US$299

----- End -----

Shouldn't we stop purchasing GUS right now and wait for GUS MAX if above is
true? Who does like the BUGS in UltraSound v3.4??

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

Date: Fri, 29 Oct 93 21:57:17 EST
From: BGUZ000 <BGUZ@MUSICB.MCGILL.CA>
Subject: Harry

Although the help file in Halloween Harry says that it does not
support the GUS, I have read in this digest that the older versions
of SBOS work with the game. I tried using SBOS 1.2 and the music and
sounds work fine. My problem occurs with the joystick. When I use
SBOS 1.2, I am unable to move Harry to the right with the joystick.
The character can still move left and up but not right. When I run
the program without SBOS, the joystick control works fine. Does
anyone have a solution to this problem (I have already tried calibrating
the joystick).

G. Segal
BGUZ@MUSICB.MCGILL.CA

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

Date: Fri, 29 Oct 1993 15:57:29 -0300 (EDT)
From: "K.S. Holly" <u8843389@muss.cis.mcmaster.ca>
Subject: Lost files/NHL Hockey/OS2

What happened to GUS0009 - GUS0021 on epas? I'd like to try some older
versions of SBOS again. I agree with what was said yesterday that some
older versions work better with certain games than the newer ones.
Unfortunately, I no longer have the old versions.
Can someone help me out?

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

Hasn't anyone found out what's going on with NHL Hockey? Has anyone
experienced slowdowns using SBOS before. It seems that is all that is
happening here. Everything works but the digitized voice is painfully slow.
HELP!

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

Has there been any news on OS/2 drivers? Anybody?

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

Kevin

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

Date: Fri, 29 Oct 93 10:23:06 MDT
From: Stuart Yoshida <yoshida@elektra.fc.hp.com>
Subject: Return to Zork: Divide error solution?

  I've run into the Return to Zork "divide error" while I'm playing the
  CD-ROM version.  My setup:

  GW2K 66V
  16MB
  Sony CD-ROM
  Stacker 3.1 (Disk compression)
  QEMM 7.01 (Memory management)
  Hyperdisk (Disk caching)

  I called Activison, and they suggested that I change the ultramid
  statement from

  ultramid -ddrivers

  to

  ultramid -cdrivers

  This supposedly prevents the music from being loaded everytime.
  Activision claims that the memory is being overflowed because of the
  constant loading of the music into memory.  This change prevented the
  problem from occurring, but it also hung the game after playing for a
  little bit.

  I've also tried taking out the -F option for the CD-ROM driver, which
  means that I'm not using the project file, and this seemed to help.
  However, I was still able to get the "divide error" once in about five
  times.

  Any suggestions?

  adTHANXvance,

--

  Stuart Yoshida

Internet: yoshida@elektra.fc.hp.com
   Voice: (303) 229-2324

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

Date: Sat, 30 Oct 93 02:01:10 +0200
From: pate@clinet.fi (Pasi Haatanen)
Subject: Sealteam with SBOS

Can anyone tell me which SBOS settings are the best for Sealteam?
I have tried many combinations, but cannot get as good a sound as my 
friend from his machine. 
 
My SBOS is version 2.08, which is getting rather old <grin>. 
Would upgrading to 2.0B9 or 2.0B10 clear the problem ?
 
-- 
Pasi Haatanen      email or netmail to:    Voice (17-22, GMT+2): (90)878 4885
Emannankuja 4D15   ** pate@clinet.fi **    Data (24H, V.32B): +358-0-547-1935
SF-01670  VANTAA   2:220/610@fidonet.org   ----------------------------------
FINLAND, EUROPE!   14:1500/610@sbcnt.org   PREFER EMAIL. THAT'S ALL FOLKS 8-Q
 

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

Date: Sat, 30 Oct 1993 13:56:08 +1000 (EST)
From: Andrew See <asee@st.nepean.uws.edu.au>
Subject: Shadowcaster

Can anyone tell me if Origin's new game Shadowcaster, uses the 
miles drivers and can thus be used with the GUS.
If not, !@#$%^&*( Origin.
 

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

Date: Fri, 29 Oct 1993 10:08:19 -0400 (EDT)
From: Sinclar Shuit <sshuit@sciborg.uwaterloo.ca>
Subject: So I decided to buy a GUS....

This summer (Approximately August) I purchased my GUS from a discount
chain in Winnipeg (For the Bargain price of 200$ [with a gravis analog pro])
and I've been mucking with it ever since. I have a number of problems
which I could go into at length... But I will save those for gravis
support. My main concern is, now that I have FTP access, and a lot of free
time to kill, I would like some input as to what utilities, drivers, misc
stuff is really useful to have for someone who likes to play games / Mess
with recording sounds and experiment in general. If possible I would like
anyone who has any suggestions on programs I could FTP from the
archive.epas.utoronto.ca site that would be "Must Haves" I have the FAQ
and the 00INDEX, and there is just too much volume on utoronto to be
downloading at random. 

Proud GUS owner 
Sinclair Shuit [sshuit@sciborg.uwaterloo.ca]

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

Date: Sat, 30 Oct 1993 06:52:55 +1000 (AEST)
From: andrewf@lsupoz.apana.org.au (Andrew Foster)
Subject: Volume on GUS

In GUS Daily Digest V7 #23 someone mentioned a way to make a volume control
for the GUS.
Since I bought mine I have been using the following :
I connect my speakers to a small headphone volume control I bought from
Tandy  here in Australia.  I then connect this to the GUS (using an adapter
as the plug on the volume control is larger than the socket on the GUS.  The
volume control has a left and right speaker and seems to work.


  Thanks, Andrew
(andrewf@lsupoz.apana.org.au)

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

End of GUS Daily Digest V7 #29
******************************
