Since no one responded to my request for a 1-800 number for Gravis, I'll ask again. I'd be happy to use email to Gravis, but I can't get responses from any of the mail I've sent so far:
To: POSTMASTER@Gravis.com brought back the response from POSTMASTER@gravis.com that user John@Gravis.com not registered at this site.
To: SALES@Gravis.com didn't seem to get any response
To: gus-beta@gravis.com brought back the response from POSTMASTER@gravis.com that some user (I think it was John) was not registerd at this site.
I hate to communicate by written mail, as from postings here, it doesn't appear I would fare any better, and it costs me more time and money for each try.
The phone is the best, bet to know someone actually understands the request, but I'm just curious if Gravis has discontinued their 1-800 number.
> Very interesting...I've also notice the pauses in my Mitsumi drive. Especially
> doing video with the S/W Toolworks Encyclopaedia.
>
> BTW, I've run my Mitsumi interface in both DMA and interrupt mode. In both
> cases, I get the pauses. However, in DMA mode, Sherlock Holms Consulting
> Detective hangs after a few seconds of music. FWIW...
>
> Burns
>
After calling 1-800-555-1212 and not finding a 1-800 listing for Gravis, I decided to call 1-604-431-1807 which is Gravis Tech Support.
I told him about my frustration with Email and he suggested that I should use john.smith@gravis.com and not POSTMASTER@gravis.com to contact Gravis via internet mail. From this information I can piece together that originally John Smith setup the internet mail gateway, and assigned john@gravis.com as the POSTMASTER alias. Since then they appear to have changed their naming conventions to include last names, and no one has bothered to update the alias for POSTMASTER (probably because no one has complained loudly enough)
** Flame-on
Gravis, if anyone reads the digest, please wake up and realize that anyone familiar with internet mail uses POSTMASTER to ask email address information when reply's bounce back. It's very import to maintain this alias, especially when you change your email addressing scheme!
** Flame-off
Even more interesting was the information I received from Sales about the Matsumi daughtercard.
It seems that at the time I called to order one, they had just started shipping the card, and they didn't realize that they needed to include a redbook audio cable. And they must have received feedback from someone that the redbook cable that came with the Matsumi drive would not work, so they decided to hold any further shipments until they have a redbook cable to include.
Unfortunately they didn't think it was necessary to notify any of the customers who had ordered the daughtercard to let them know about the delay, and nothing has been posted to the digest, so I'm doing that now.
Upon further questioning I discovered that there are no drivers being shipped with the card, with the assumption that the drivers that came with the Matsumi drive should be used. This implies that the hardware on the GUS card must be quite similar to that found on the Matsumi interface card, and the daughtercard probably just does a cable pin-swapping function. So you may be right in assuming that there is little value to this card other than saving one expansion slot and perhaps getting a redbook audio cable that works without swapping the wires in the connector, as I did with the Masumi cable.
There is still a remote possibility that the problem with the Matsumi drive pauses is a hardware design problem with 16 bit DMA, that might possibly be corrected if Gravis used a different design, but I wouldn't be surprised to find that the problem is in the software driver and will remain even with the GUS daughtercard.
You'd think that if Gravis had done much testing with their daughtercard for the Matsumi drive, they might have stumbled onto these delays that occur with many applications. They might then have used their resources to resolve this by providing a better driver, since they should have access to Matsumi tech support as a developer, where I do not.
I`ve been through all the Matsumi documentation and have not found any way to receive technical support to resolve this issue. Does anyone out there know how to get technical support for this drive, either email or phone?
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 20 Sep 93 22:38:55 EDT
From: Meshreki@ee.udel.edu
Subject: PLAYMIDI -BUG-
Message-ID: <9309210238.aa20271@zip.ee.udel.edu>
PLAYMIDI version 4.07 has a bug!
It alters the DOS clock when playing MIDI files through the MIDI port
(playmidi -m).
The same MIDI file, start and stop DOS clock times:
playmidi 10:52 10:56 = 4 min (good, it's a 4 minute tune)
playmidi -m 11:01 11:31 = 30 min (not so good)
I couldn't figure out why for the past couple of weeks my DOS clock
was several _days_ ahead of the actual time... now I know :-)
Which brings me to my next complaint...
I WANT LINEAR VOLUME DRIVERS FOR WINDOWS AND PLAYMIDI! RELEASE THEM!
I WANT LINEAR VOLUME DRIVERS FOR WINDOWS AND PLAYMIDI! RELEASE THEM!
I WANT LINEAR VOLUME DRIVERS FOR WINDOWS AND PLAYMIDI! RELEASE THEM!
<ahem>.
Yes, coming up this November, I will be celebrating a first year
anniversary with my GUS which still doesn't have the linear volume
response I noticed missing way back when I bought it. I consider
it a must for composing, which is my primary interest in the GUS.
I've experienced firsthand patch-caching remorse (and the release of
PatchManager), windows drivers without MIDI IN (and new drivers with),
infinitely delayed Gravis MIDI Box (and the PAS MIDIMate), exponential
volume MIDI playback (and Phat's VMAP), superflous game support (and the
mystical AIL drivers), General MIDI gaming (and Jayeson's MEGA-EM), lack
of readily available tunes (and Josh's GUSMOD), the escalating war of SBOS
options (and SBOS 2.XX), mysteries of patch making and GUS inner workings
(and PATCH.EXE inside the tomes of the SDK family), alternative operating
system wars (and Hannu's Linux drivers), where's Gravis? (and the Gravis BBS/
internet combo), lame SB-only demos :-) (and Future Crew, Renaissance, and
Twilight Zone goodies), DMP without GUS support on epas (and DMP 2.6X),
the game companies' ultra-negative reps and tech support staff (and the
promise of GUS support in DOOM from Id), user-unfriendly installation (and
the 2.0X install disks), a serious lack of patches in quality and number
(and install disks 2.0X), what happened to my line-in? (and ultrinit -l -o),
simultaneous record and playback des (and GUSDELAY), reverb + echo +
Does anyone know how to get POP ONE running with the GUS? I used to play it with my ThunderBoard, and pulled it out to try with GUS.. It locks up very quickly now.
------------------------------
End of Ultrasound Daily Digest V6 #20
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