SuperHack/SuperHack CD.bin/CODING/SOUND/GUS-121.ZIP/GUS-126.TXT

Text File | 1993-01-31 | 19.8 KB | 414 lines

Ultrasound Daily Digest     Sat, 21 Nov 92       Volume 1 : Issue  26

Today's Topics:
                   486 compatibility - anyone else?
                       A few first impressions
                     Damark dealing working fine
                 Joystick connections as well as MIDI
                            Manual Errors
                              Telemart?
                           Telemart Ships!
                    Ultrasound Daily Digest V1 #25
                     USS8  Problems and Pleasures
                    What I've heard from Telemart.

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

Date: Fri, 20 Nov 92 8:05:30 CST
From: ibmpa!hartmann.austin.ibm.com![e-mail] (Lance Hartmann)
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Subject: 486 compatibility - anyone else?
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <[e-mail]>

I read the account of the UNsuccessful story of installing GUS on a 486/33
in digest #25.  Is anyone else running on a 486?  I got burned trying to
run a SB Pro on my 486/50, so I've put off buying a GUS until I hear some
good news from REAL people (ie. NON-Gravis employees).  By virtue of
the volume of the posts to this mailing list, SURELY someone else has
tried the GUS on a 486.  Anyone?  Anyone?

Lance Hartmann ([e-mail])
               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 miscontrued as those of IBM or anyone else for that matter.

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

Date: 20 Nov 92 10:11:08 EDT
From: Richard Wyckoff <[e-mail]>
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Subject: A few first impressions
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <[e-mail]>

    Like some of us, I just received my GUS from EA.  I sent in my order on
August 18.  Now what sucks is that a friend who ordered his in late
September got his on the same day I got mine.  Anyway, if you ordered a
loooong time ago, and haven't received it yet, get in touch with EA.
Following the messages here, it really seems like the problems with the
EA deal are not Gravis' fault at all.  But then I haven't liked EA since
about 1985 (and WHY OH WHY did they have to buy Origin?).  If you sent EA a
check, find out if they have cashed it yet.  It says specifically on their
order form that THEY WILL NOT BILL YOUR ACCOUNT until they ship, yet my check
was cashed at least three weeks before my GUS arrived.  Had I not received the
card when I did, there would have been some heads rolling in San Mateo, let me
tell you!

    But about the card itself - it comes in an enormous box that is almost
completely empty - just the card, 6 disks, and two tiny little manuals.  I was
expecting at least an audio cable (though I'm told the only sound card
manufacturer that actually goes the extra distance and includes the audio
cables is Creative Labs).  When I first installed it I tried to get it to co-
exist with my SoundBlaster, but ended up just yanking the SB.  After that,
installation was a snap (surprisingly). I picked all the defaults, and all the
software ran the way it was supposed to.  I installed the Windows drivers with
no problems (except for forgetting to copy in Gravis' midimap.cfg).  SBOS
works well for me (although for some reason it manages to make the music in
any game sound comical).  I have a 486/33 with the AMI BIOS, and a slew of
other cards.

    Finally, I tried the card with Starcon2, and was just blown away (and the
game itself is fun, too).  I do wonder, though, if it is really using the GUS
or just playing MODs through the DAC, as a post in Friday's digest hinted.

    Despite my amazingly pleasant first encounter with this board (I had
expected more bugs than Ultima 7), I still have some concerns about it.  One
is that my friend who got his at the same time still can't get SBOS to emulate
the SB's DAC, and is having major problems with Windows.  He has a Fastdata
486/33, which is at least not cobbled together like my machine is, and as
far as we can tell, did nothing different in the installation.

    Another concern is the fact that the software it ships with is almost
totally useless.  There is no DOS mixer, (even though the board is supposed to
have a built-in mixer - maybe it's just me, but I would expect some software
to control that...) and the Windows 'mixer' is hardly worth the disk space.
USS8 is brain-dead (but then I have yet to see an IBM digitized audio program
that even begins to approach SoundTools II for the Mac), and even USS10
doesn't look like much of an improvement.  Actually, USS8 really seems to be
demo crippleware.  We don't support this in shareware, why should we put up
with it in a commercial product?  The rest of the utilities do what they are
supposed to do, but are very basic.

    The manual itself is almost devoid of any technical information.  The
section on the SBOS options seems to indicate a "this is way too
complicated for you to understand so we won't even attempt to explain it"
attitude.  It would also be nice to know a little bit about the patches the
board uses, and how to create your own (maybe the 16-bit daughterboard will
come with a patch recorder/editor?).  Again, though, I can only compare the
GUS to the original Soundblaster 1.0, which included a section on the VOC file
format in the manual (something Creative Labs dropped in later versions).

    To sum up, I like the card, but it's seriously lacking in many areas.  I
know the shipping delays were because they were waiting for the software, but
was this software really worth the wait?


**              Richard Wyckoff - Catullus - .Sig radio edit               **
** [e-mail]  --  [e-mail]   **

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

Date: Fri, 20 Nov 92 15:09:04 CST
From: Bob Wilson <[e-mail]>
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Subject: Damark dealing working fine
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <[e-mail]>

Early in the GUS's fitful emergence I asked about the Damark deal with
a GUS and an LMSI CD drive for $399. Several people have asked me by
email how it worked out and I responded privately, but there seems to
be enough interest to deserve a general post.
The drive is LMSI 205. The interface is daughter card from Gravis. The
daughter card is very simple, one main chip, and can be jumpered for
different addresses, etc. Damark sent me my unit very promptly, before
some of the hints now available on setting things up, and I had to
fight the same battles. I got parity error messages when starting
Windows, which were due to address conflict between GUS and something.
I am not sure what, but readdressing GUS made that go away. The
default IRQs for both GUS and CD were unusable, but that got ironed
out. Now everything is working fine with one exception, and I have one
other complaint.
The exception: I disarmed my other joystick port, to use the speed
compensating one on GUS. The Gravis software finds it, but Chuck
Yeager's Air Combat (which came with the package) doesn't see any
joystick. I am not much of a game player and haven't bothered with
this one yet, and it seems unlikely to have anything to do with this
particular package.
The complaint: The driver for the LMSI CD drive, supplied by LMSI,
works fine but can't be loaded into high memory. With the default CD
buffer assignments (in addition to ones in hardware) this driver takes
about 25K and I'd rather move it on up. Presumably all code could be
moved up if properly written, although some buffers may need to stay
low. I'd gladly settle for a new driver which made that partial move.

The bottom line: The Damark deal is fine. The drive isn't fancy but it
all works. Setting up addresses and interrupts was a pain but that had
nothing to do with this deal but comes from a lack of documentation
details from Gravis. I love the board, hate the lack of information!

Bob Wilson
[e-mail]

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

Date: Fri, 20 Nov 92 14:58:29 CST
From: Bob Wilson <[e-mail]>
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Subject: Joystick connections as well as MIDI
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <[e-mail]>

Earlier there was a request for info on building a MIDI breakout
connector for the GUS's 15 pin connector. Dion made available a nice
piece on that. What it doesn't show is how to feed through the
joystick connections. The first game port connections are shown on the
literature with any I/O card, but what is the pinout for the second
joystick at the Gravis connector? I would feed that through to a
connector for a second joystick, where they would appear on the same
pins as for joystick 1.
Thanks,
Bob Wilson
[e-mail]

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

Date: Fri, 20 Nov 92 10:51:27 PST
From: [e-mail] (Ernest Y. Chuang)
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Subject: Manual Errors
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <[e-mail]>

>I found two minor errors in the manuals (I have the newer ones that give
>a longer explination about GUS with Windows).  The errors are:
>(1) On page 19 there is a picture of the cable connections on the GUS.
>The picture is labeled incorrectly.  The Audio In plug is reversed with
>the Microphone in plug, but the back of the GUS box has it labeled
>correctly ( the Audio plug should be the closest to the joystick/MIDI)

Are you sure about this?  What are you doing to test this?

Apparently we have different manuals, since the connection diagram is on
page 16 in my manual, but it sounds like they show the same thing.  The
picture in the manual shows the Audio In to be the one further from the
joystick port, while the back of the box indicates that the Audio In is
the one closer to the joystick port.

However, for my card at least, the *manual* is correct.  (Either that, or
Gravis' Mixer program (for Windows) has its labels reversed...)  Toggling
the "Line" box in the Mixer applet controls whether I hear the input I
plugged into the plug further from the joystick port; while toggling the
"Microphone" box in the Mixer controls the input closer to the joystick
port.

- Ernest Chuang
  [e-mail]

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

Date: Sat, 21 Nov 92 1:15:11 EET
From: Lasse Hero <[e-mail]>
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Subject: Telemart?
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <[e-mail]>

[e-mail] (Jeff M Krusz) wrote:

>        Anyone got they're GUS from Telemart yet?  I was hoping it
>would have come today.  But hey maybe tommorow or next week or ...
>According to Telemart they were supposed to get a shipment in on
>Tuesday Anyone know if the got it in?  I am trying to be as patient as
>possible, I even didn't call Telemart last week :)  I guess that it
>won't kill me to wait, but maybe I should have waited to sell my
>Adlib, since I have been without a sound card for a over a month!
>Anyone want to buy an Adlib Programmer's Guide?  Send replies to
>email please (for everything) or post I guess, I don't care which.

I tried faxing then in the beginning of the week, but got no response.
(Usually they are very eager to answer question, what comes to my
experience..)

Maybe you should call them and let us all know..?

(And I shouldn't have sold my SBPro so soon..:()

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

Date: Fri, 20 Nov 92 12:20:58 EST
From: [e-mail] (Edward Lewis IV)
Message-Id: <[e-mail].>
Subject: Telemart Ships!
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <[e-mail]>

To all of those wondering if Telemart finally has GUS's the answer must
be yes!  I ordered my GUS from TELEMART on July 17th and received it this
morning(Nov 20.).  EA gave my a better response time.  I ordered on Aug 19 and
received that one on Nov 12.  Although both of them were beat by MICROCENTER
. They had GUS's on Nov 11th.  Oh well, I'm a Happy Camper now!

The long wait may finally be over for some of you.  I do not know how many GUS'sTelemart received.

Just thought I would try to keep the anxious informed...

Edward Lewis IV
[e-mail]
Here is Beautiful, Wonderful Dayton, Ohio!

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

Date: 20 Nov 92 14:08:04 +0100
From: [e-mail]
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Subject: Ultrasound Daily Digest V1 #25
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <[e-mail]>

> Finally when I was at the earth base under "outfit shit" and I

I guess you mean "outfit shiP"? ;-)

> took out my "crew holding module" it put little "dispatch" ships on my
> screen, maybe 15 of em?  Can't do anything with them -- they aren't
> really there, but they never go away, even if I leave the screen and
> come back. SIGH!
>
> I hve played less than 2 hours and I am having all these troubles. Is
> This game REALLY this buggy or what?

Actually I started experiencing the same problem with CIVILIZATION
after I installed the GUS, even if it didn't use it. Now, I don't know
if it is the GUS' fault, it may just be my processor running hot (no
lid..), but still, it's kinda suspicious....

    -=* Bjorn :: [e-mail]
  ACCESS DATA :: TEL: [phone] 791
                 BBS: 61-97 304/97 945

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

Date: Fri, 20 Nov 92 20:10:09 AST
From: F. Wallace Peers <[e-mail]>
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Subject: USS8  Problems and Pleasures
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <[e-mail]>

I just finished experimenting with USS8 and I noticed some wierd things
with it.  Before I mention them, however, I should tell you that I'm
using USS8 ver 3.04 with a 25MHz 386dx computer (no math co if that
makes a difference).  I have a stacker drive (C) and an unstacked drive
(D).

I ran USS8, no problem.  I connected a line from my radio into the audio
line in connector.  I then set USS8 to 22kHZ sampling rate, stereo, and
clicked the sampling button.  First thing I noticed was that my mouse
response time went down...  way down.  I'd compare it to playing Wing
Commander on a XT (yes, it was really that bad).  Any mouse movement I
made was delayed by at least a second which made it next to immpossible
to click the sample button off again.  The best way I found to stop
sampling is to move the mouse pointer to the menu bar across the top of
the screen and click like mad. Any where on the bar will do.   Next
thing I noticed was that although the stero button was selected, I was
only getting mono (only one of the meters was moving).  So I stoped
sampling, clicked the button to mon and started sampling again.  Bingo!
I was now sampling in stereo.  This seemed to be a little weird so I
tried it several times, but the buttons are definitely reversed for me.
The big question now is "are the audio line in buttons and mic in
buttons reversed as well?".  I posted to digest #25 and told you that
the mannuals had a picture with them labeled wrong, but that the box had
them right.  I received email from a reader who thought I the manual was
right and the box was wrong.  All I know is that when I set USS8 to line
input and put the feed into the second connector up from the bottom, I
get proper input (incidently, if I switch the feed input the signal
becomes very weak but I still get a signal).  Would someone from Gravis
please post the correct audio in and mic in connections?  I just don't
know for sure anymore.

Anyway, previous problems aside, I got brave and decided to record
anyway.  Once again I set up USS8 at 22kHZ and stero input (which is
actually the mono setting for me remember?).  I set the sampling levels
at 50 for left and right.  Then, without pressing the sample button, I
hit the recored button.  The mouse slowed down a little but not as much
as before.  I recorded about 15 sec and then stopped it.  I then played
it back, only to hear what I recorded coming out slow.  What I mean is
that the voices and music sounded streched out kinda like what a
cassette sounds like just before your tape player eats it :-)

My guess as to whay is because I was recording on my stacker drive.  I
also have a virus checker that stays TSR and checks constantly for a
virus.  So I changed to my unstacked drive, disabled my virus checker
and then rebooted.   I then repeated the same steps as above for
recording and played it back.  The result?  Would you believe SUCCESS!!

It worked great.  I plaed it to my girlfriend over the phone and she
couldn't tell it wasn't the radio, so I guess it passes the test  :-)

Seriously though it did sound good.  As for why it didn't work the first
time, my bet is on the stacker.  I'd like to get somebody with a 486 to
try it on a stacker drive just to see if maybe my computer isn't fast
enough to handle the recording and stacker at the same time... Any
takers?

PS-  Sorry for being so long winded but I thought the more detailed I
was the better in this case.  Happy recording!

--
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
<>                                        <>
<>   [e-mail]       F. Wallace Peers                <>
<>                                        <>
<>                                        <>
<>        "There is no law that vulgarity and literary            <>
<>         excellence cannot coexist."                    <>
<>                - A. Trevor Hodge                <>
<>                                        <>
<>                                        <>
<>        "But we'll never survive!"  - Buttercup                <>
<>        "Nonsense.  You're just saying that because             <>
<>         no one has ever done it before."  - Westly            <>
<>                - The Princess Bride                <>
<>                                        <>
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

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

Date: Fri, 20 Nov 92 11:53:08 EST
From: Kevin Dangoor <[e-mail]>
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Subject: What I've heard from Telemart.
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <[e-mail]>

I talked for several minutes with one of the people at Telemart. He said that
Gravis was possibly having trouble with customs and that he heard that the
card may not be available stateside until February. He was rather surprised
when I told him that Diskcount software had already had two shipments of them
and that people had also gotten them from PC Zone, Electronic Arts and Damark.
Anyway, November 23rd is their ETA, but they just keep moving that back so it's
not very trustworthy. It seems that Telemart buys their stuff from Ingram (and
once Ingram's got it, it will probably be all over the place). So if anyone
wants to pester Gravis about where the GUS cards are going, ask them about
Ingram.

--
Kevin (Tazzzzz) Dangoor          \ Locomotive (adj): powered by insanity.
University of Michigan           /
Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA         \ This ultraDeluxe powerpack sig has 50% less
internet: [e-mail] / saturated sponge than the competing brands!

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

End of Ultrasound Daily Digest V1 #26
******************************