GUS Daily Digest            Fri, 3 Dec 93   007          Volume 9: Issue   3  

Today's Topics:
					   ADAPTEC ROM ON FTP ?????
		  Does anyone have Ultima7 GUS specific .ADV files?
						Dvorak & GUS thoughts
						European Registration
				  Fate of atlantis and Ultrasnd.ini
							 GUS and OS/1
						GUS Daily Digest V9 #2
				 How to obtain 1wolf.zip via ftpmail?
		   I hope the GUS MAX will come with Text to Speech
						 Leisure Suit Larry 6
					   More on X-Wing and QEMM
					More problems with Sam 'n' Max
						   Mortal Kombat PC
							  NHL Hockey
							  uuencoding
						   Word Of Warning!

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: Thu, 2 Dec 93 23:47:14 +0200
From: tjakobs@mswe.dnet.ms.philips.nl (THEO_JAKOBS TEL.62667)
Subject: ADAPTEC ROM ON FTP ?????

hi..

I noticed a few days ago a message about a adaptec bios for the 1542b..
Could somebodyhelp me with getting the BIOS, so i can put it in an eprom..
I have FTP acces, I have email and a uuencode-program, but i can't download
it direct of the adaptec BBS.....

Please help me.....

Andre Jakobs
  MicroBrain Technologies Inc.
	The Netherlands

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

Date: Thu, 2 Dec 1993 21:43:07 -0500 (EST)
From: Mark Firoozfar <mfirooz@wam.umd.edu>
Subject: Does anyone have Ultima7 GUS specific .ADV files?

The subject basically says it all.  I need the .ADV files to use with
ULTRAMID.  I did find U7GUS.ZIP in epas but they were fixes to prevent
sbos from locking up.  So, I would appreciate it if anyone who has 
successfully used ULTRAMID with ULTIMA7(Black Gate) can send me their
 ADV files.  All help is appreciated.

Thanks.

Mark.

mfirooz@wam.umd.edu

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

Date: Thu, 02 Dec 1993 15:38:46 -0600 (CST)
From: Raeann Kneefe <RAEANN@VAX1.Mankato.MSUS.EDU>
Subject: Dvorak & GUS thoughts

Wow. It happened. I still am not sure if I believe it. If you 
will grab your trusty Dec 21, 1993 issue (the one you got in 
the mail yesterday) of PC Magazine, and turn to John Dvorak's 
column on page 95 you can follow along.
 
"Advanced Gravis's $199 Ultrasound ... uses a RAM-based system. 
 .. And the board, which is MIDI-compatible as well, sounds 
great."
 
Then later on says: "Over time, you'll discover that FM 
synthesis belongs only in Nintendo boxes. It's only by a fluke 
of marketing that we're tolerating this cheesy sound on the 
PC. I RECOMMEND, the UltraSound for starters. It's sold for as 
little as $140, and except for an awkward installation 
program, the board is outstanding. It omes with plenty of 
interesting bundled software and works beautifully with 
Microsoft Windows."
 
Well, I guess it's started. Now comes the race to see if other
wavetable boards can catch up and ultimately pass the GUS.
This will not be that easy. There are probably a dozen or so
differnet boards based on the Aria chipset already.
We'll have to wait and see if people want to jump from FM to ROM
based wavetable, or directly to RAM based wavetable.
 
Oh, by the way, Orchid is supposedly coming out with a GameWave
version of it's wavetable card... That will sell for the same
if not lower price than the GUS. I think the GUS will have some
stiff competion if it can't come out with an "Advanced" version
soon. Namely, more than 1 meg memory. Either going to SIMMs
(where you only have to add one at a time) or going for 1meg x 4
DIPs seems the most reasonable right now. (It can't be that* hard
can it? Unless the Forte chip has a 1 meg address space for some
reason this shouldn't be too hard. Anyone know?
 
16 bit sampling will probably mostly be a marketing gimick in the
months ahead. Really, how many of you out there want to sample at
16 bits at 44.1K for anything but just "playing around on your
own"? I certainly wouldn't. (Although it would* have been nice)
 
So what do I think SOMEONE will come out with soon?
 
o Up to 8 meg DRAM based Wavetable Synthesis
  using 1 meg SIMS or 1meg x 4 DIPs. At least 1 meg standard.
 
o Includes Roland GS and MT32 support in HARDWARE. (Hopefully 100%
  compatible.)
 
o Have it as affordable as the GUS.
 
There are already lots of 2 out of 3s out there.
 
 
What do I hope* someone does on the GUS?
 
o Get extremely good patches. If professionals say, "Wow, that
  little card sounds just as good as my Roland JV-80, if not better.",
  no one can lose. For example the JV-80 uses about 8 megs of patches.
  (4 megs in ROM that are compressed.) Size wise, the patches aren't
  that far off now. They just have to be more "professionally" sampled.
 
  This will ultimately make others stand back and say, jeez, just
  what is* the difference between this $200 card and that $800 Roland
  module I can add on.
 
  Sure, the people in the know will not be persuaded totally because
  the Ultrasound isn't exacly a match for the Turtle Beach products
  on sheer power. But it is a step in the right direction.
 
o A better approach to user-defined samples. An extension of the
  Roland GS extensions to GMIDI isn't a bad place to start with it's 
  sort of "bank switching" of different families of instruments.
  I still cringe to think that inherently I'm "loosing" all the GMIDI
  instruments when I use my own patch list. (Ok, I know, just leave
  the normal instruments in your custom file, but this seems like
  such an awful workaround.) Perhaps, in the mean time, it would be
  nice to have the GUS default back to the origonal GMIDI .cfg file
  if a instrument isn't defined in your custom file.
 
  I expect the people at Gravis have been pouring over this "problem"
  themselves debating the alternatives.
 
o License MegaEm and include it in the package with every GUS. Or you
  could just develop your own Roland/SB emulator that uses the 386
  instead of the hardware port for it's emulation.
 
Enough of my blathering. I hope* that some of you got something out of
this. The GUS is good, but far from perfect. Let's hope the major 
software companies start reacting and start shying away from just
SB support.

Any thoughs? I'm sure others would be interested too.

-Raeann@vax1.Mankato.MSUS.EDU

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

Date: Thu, 2 Dec 93 10:24:40 GMT
From: Mark Bullen <Mark.Bullen@src.bae.co.uk>
Subject: European Registration

Hi all,

I finally got around to buying a PC for my GUS ;-) I've been torturing
myself for a couple of months by playing on a friends PC+GUS whilst I saved
up the money for a GUS and a PC to plug it into -- you've got to get your
priorities right!

The registration card that came with the GUS (rev 3.4 + 2.06 install disks
with PowerChords + MidiSoft) has 3 (three) addresses to return the
registration card to:

Address on cover of registration card:

		Advanced Gravis Computer Technology Ltd,
		1790 Midway Lane
		Bellingham, WA 98226
		U.S.A

Address for Canadian & Int'l Customers:

		Advanced Gravis Computer Technology,
		101-3750 North Fraser Way, Bumaby, B.C. V5J 5B6, CANADA

European Customers:

		Logitech SA, CH-1122 Romanel/Morges, Switzerland

Being a `European Customer' I guess that I should send my card to Logitech
in Switzerland, but I'm not sure that I'll get put on Gravis' distribution
list for update disks :-(

Are there any other Euro-gussers out there who've been receiving update
disks from Gravis? Will Logitech pass on my registration details to Gravis?
Do Logitech distribute the update disks in Europe on behalf of Gravis? 

I don't wish to cast any aspersions on Logitech's good name, but I do want
to make sure that I get put on Gravis' registration database. I realise
that this doesn't necessarily imply that I WILL get any update disks from
Gravis ;-)

My friend's GUS didn't have a registration card in the box, he telephoned
the mail order company that he bought it from and they took his details and
said that they'd register him. He hasn't received any update disks since he
bought his gus in May '93 -- I had to ftp'd the 2.06L disks for him.

I got a copy of the latest GUS FAQ (rev 1.31 [93/08/29]) to see if that had
any words of wisdom on registration and update disks, but alas not.

Mark.Bullen@src.bae.co.uk

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

Date: Thu, 02 Dec 1993 22:22:38 +0200
From: PWRJAM01@Uctvax.UCT.AC.ZA
Subject: Fate of atlantis and Ultrasnd.ini

Has anyone got a good version of the ultrasnd.ini file for the
Fate of atlantis ( this is with megaem ) that piano sounds awefull
I changed the patch 1 to strings is sounded a bit better but still
to me SBOS sound better ( instrument wise - not sound quality )

James

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

Date: Thu, 2 Dec 1993 09:53:46 -0500 (EST)
From: msciriol@eos.ncsu.edu
Subject: GUS and OS/1

Does any one  know if the GUS windows drivers will work with the recently
released OS/2 for Windows?  I was thinking about installing this, but was
curious if I would lose windows gus support when I did.  I haven't had a
chance to look at the manuals for Win/OS2  yet, so if this is an obvious 
question please excuse me.

Thanks!

 - Mike Cirioli

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

Date: Thu, 2 Dec 1993 15:58:55 -0500
From: TOMMYLEE@uhura.trinity.toronto.edu
Subject: Re: GUS Daily Digest V9 #2

>Date: 30 Nov 93 08:09:00 PST
>From: EBULALACAO@CSUPomona.Edu
>Subject: Re: GUS Daily Digest V8 #29
>
>Hmmm...you got Hardball III to work with thenew MEGAEM?  How?  I can
>only get the Roland music working, but not the Sound Blaster
>digitized sound... anyy special instructions?

	I had no problems getting it to work.  I have nothing special
installed on my system, other than the "D=256" command added to my
"EMM386" line of config.sys.  Oh, I also have the player's disk
installed (which alters the Hardball.exe file), and a patch I use to
bypass the annoying doc check.

>------------------------------
>Date: Wed, 1 Dec 1993 11:42:20 -0400 (EDT)
>From: "K.S. Holly" <u8843389@muss.cis.mcmaster.ca>
>Subject: NHLPA and MEGAEM
>
>Has anyone found any solutions to the locking problem with NHLPA when
>used with MEGAEM?
>
>I have managed to get it to play a full game if I don't ask for
>replays or anything but it still crashes at the end of the 3 stars
>announcement.  Also I have this annoying background static during the
>game.
>
>I have tried booting all different configs, with and without drivers
>i.e. mouse, smartdrv, etc and none really made a difference except
>that it SEEMED to be a little more stable without the mouse but that
>is a pain.
>I've alos tried loading megaem with /sbi5 and no difference.

	That background "static" you hear, is the "buzz" of the crowd.
It's supposed to be there as stadium noise.  The effect just doesn't
seem to work well, because you don't get the music mixed in between
faceoffs.
	I had similar problems getting the program to work.  What
worked for me was, first, increasing the Dma buffer to 128 or 256k (by
adding "D=256" to either the EMM386 or QEMM386 line of your
config.sys).  Then, when the game still crashed on me at the very end
(before, it crashed at the beginning), I switched over to Qemm 6
(still using the D=256 command), and bingo, no problem...

>p.s. What's Jayeson's address again?

I believe it's jayeson@gravis.com

Tommy...

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

Date: Thu, 2 Dec 93 12:35:40 CST
From: ibmpa!hartmann.austin.ibm.com!lance@ibminet.awdpa.ibm.com (Lance Hartmann)
Subject: How to obtain 1wolf.zip via ftpmail?

Lacking direct ftp access, can anyone please give me an ftpmail host/id
(along with associated commands) for retrieving Wolfenstein v1.0
(I understand it's at princeton.edu:pub/apogee/1wolf.zip)?

The GUS ftpmail server hasn't been very useful.  I noted that 1wolf.zip
does not exist on the GUS ftpmail server.  When I obtained the
"mailserver.doc" file there was no info about accessing OTHER hosts
from nike.rz.uni-konstanz.de like I've seen in other mail servers.
I did try "ftp open/close" commands, but they were rejected.

Thanks to all in advance,
-- 
Lance Hartmann (lance%hartmann.austin.ibm.com@ibmpa.awdpa.ibm.com)
			   Yes, that IS a '%' (percent sign) in my network address.
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
All statements, comments, opinions, etc. herein reflect those of the author
and shall NOT be misconstrued as those of IBM or anyone else for that matter.

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

Date: Thu, 2 Dec 1993 18:07:14 MST
From: "Dean C. Johnson" <JOHNSODC@caedm.et.byu.edu>
Subject: I hope the GUS MAX will come with Text to Speech

I read a while back what Gravis and others posted about the next GUS 
(GUS MAX).  They mentioned voice recognition software coming with it. 
 I think thats great!  Along with the software that already comes with the 
GUS the thing that would really make it a superb software bundle is 
Text to Speech software.
 
I currently use a Covox Sound Master II (not Sound Blaster) card but 
will definately buy a GUS MAX when it comes out.  I enjoy using the 
Speech Thing text to speech software that I have for the Sound Master. 
It is written by First Byte software company.  I think this is the same 
company that makes Monologue for Windows, which is the Text to 
Speech software that comes with several other sound cards.  I have not 
see this product in any store or magazine on sale.  I assume that a 
text to speech program would be less expensive to licence from a 
company than a Voice Recognition program.  I think it is worth a small 
increase in price to get text to speech with a sound card.  Or mabey 
Gravis could arrange a special offer of such a program to registered 
GUS users.

Could Someone from Gravis comment on this?

Does anyone else have an opinion?

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

Date: Thu, 2 Dec 93 02:28:17 -0800
From: mbarboni@sdcc13.ucsd.edu (Real Athletes Throw! )
Subject: Leisure Suit Larry 6

Yesterday's Digest mentioned how LSL6 by Sierra was running fine... how?

I agree, Sierra did but a heck of a lot of info on how to install GUS drivers
in a text file (complete with step by step instructions and everything), but
when all was said and done, I got the music part (i.e. theme music, birds
chirping, etc..) but when I opened or closed a door (as well as a few other
things), I got an unbearable screech at high volume!

Anyone else had this problem?  Seems that the music is fine, but the
digitized sounds are playing the wrong patches or something...

-Mike
barboni@ucsd.edu

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

Date: Thu, 2 Dec 93 9:31:26 MST
From: Stuart Yoshida <yoshida@elektra.fc.hp.com>
Subject: Re: More on X-Wing and QEMM

>From: "Michael Patricios" <PATRICIO@odie.ee.wits.ac.za>
>Subject: Re: Megaem and X-wing fix
>
>Stuart Yoshida <yoshida@elektra.fc.hp.com> said:
>> 
>>   I just wanted to add my voice to the chorus of people who finally got
>>   X-Wing and Mega-Em to work completely together.
>> 
>>   PROBLEM:  The MIDI music in X-Wing would cut out soon after a mission
>>         is started.
>> 
>>   SOLUTION: Turn off the Stealth Mode option in QEMM (the ST:M switch)
>> 
>Nope, I am running QEMM 7.0 with stealth _OFF_ but the music still 
>cuts out for me ;-(
>
>Ah well..... Any other thoughts??

 Hmmm.  Have you upgraded your version of QEMM to 7.02?  You need to get
 the 7.00 to 7.01 AND the 7.01 to 7.02 patches.  I got mine from the
 QEMM bulletin board.  That's the only other thing I can think of...
 Let us posted if you find a solution!

>          
>Mike

--

  Stuart Yoshida

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

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

Date: 02 Dec 93 17:19:01 PST
From: pil!puppet@PacBell.COM (puppet)
Subject: More problems with Sam 'n' Max

	 I'd like to thank those who responded to my request for help setting up
Sam 'n' max to work with the GUS and Megaem.  However, I have tried the
'-F22' switch with Emuset before, and to no avail.  Here's what I have done.
Loaded up megaem (defaults). Loaded up Emuset (-F22 or without), configured
the sound to work with General Midi and SB (using all the defaults of course).
The music and sound test out wonderfully, but when I start up the game, I
only get music.  No speach, no sound!  Help. 

	 I'm running it on a 386-DX-33 with 4megs of RAM, a 256k GUS, Dos 6.2,
Qemm 7.01.  I've also tried using a boot disk.  Using just DOS's memmaker. 
But I still get no sound.  What's up?


-Sam

Oh, BTW, please reply directly to the digest (my mail address, as listed
above causes some problems)

thanx!

 -------------------------------------------------------------------------
Public Image Limited VBBS (510) 831-3634 [ASV] Guest Account open
Home of VUUCP/2 USENet Interface! [VSP]  VBBS 6.10   [Primary Dist. Site]

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

Date: Thu, 2 Dec 1993 11:45:57 -0800 (PST)
From: "George A. Montemayor" <gmontem@eis.calstate.edu>
Subject: Mortal Kombat PC

Anyone know if the new MegaEm will work with Mortal Kombat using the 
Roland+SB DAC option?  I heard it loads DOSX or something like that to 
access memory above the 1 meg range.

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

Date: Thu, 2 Dec 93 03:46:32 EST
From: ddr@math.ufl.edu
Subject: NHL Hockey

The only time I was able to get NHL hockey to lock up was when I used
the /ROOFF switch (SB Digital only, no Roland)  Perhaps if you just
load Megaem and Emuset with no switches it will work for you also.

Dan.

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

Date: Thu, 2 Dec 93 16:05:11 -0300
From: "Scott Giberson" <gibersn@jupiter.sun.csd.unb.ca>
Subject: uuencoding

Hello. Is there any program for PC's that removes uuencoding, that is
on the mail server? I have uuexe521.zip, which seems to be encoded, and
I am unable to FTP files at this time.        
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
										  THANKS
Scott Giberson
Florenceville, New Brunswick, Canada
(506) 392-6969
INTERNET: gibersn@mailserv.nbnet.nb.ca

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

Date: Fri,  3 Dec 93 06:20:00 BST
From: b.williams44@genie.geis.com
Subject: Word Of Warning!

Hello all,
	I have a Word of Warning for all GUS owners thinking about buying
 Sierra's new game Gabriel Knight "Sins of the Fathers". DON'T!!!!!!!!
 I did and Came to find out that almost 2 Months after Sierra released their
 version of the GUSAIL Drivers for their games, that they have changed the
 sound Drivers for this game from SCI-16 to SCI-32. So MEGA-EM, SBOS, GUSAIL,
 none of them now work with this new game!:(
 
	They have also used a Protected Mode, so Mega-em refuses to work with it.
 This has gotten my Goat for the Last and Final time! I have had it with
 companies that feed you with one hand, then slap you with the other!
 
   I call on all Loyal GUS owners! Turn your nose up at this game! Do not
 buy it! Unless they make new GUSAIL SCI-32 Drivers! Whoever came up with
 this dumb idea to change the Drivers IMHO, deserves to be blamed for
 chopping GUS owners sales of this product! A dullard with a AXE chops his
 own foot, as they say!
 
P.S. This game is also Windows compatible, but not with the GUS in General
	 MIDI format. I only got a couple of sounds out of it, NO music and
	 it ran so sluggish, I removed it after 5 min. of play. I am returning
	 it to the store and will not even glance at it again until I see some
	 working GUS support again!
 
						***StarHawk***
							 SEZ!
		  " I Will Buy No Game, Before It's GUS Time! "
						 From Now On!

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

End of GUS Daily Digest V9 #3
******************************
