Ultrasound Daily Digest Sat, 31 Oct 92 Volume 1 : Issue 5 Today's Topics: Comments from Gravis... Digest Admin: Please get the addresses correct! :) EA Delivery Future OS/2 support. Gravis troubles (TG it's not me) Gus Availability (10/30/92) Ultima 7 & Wing Commander 2 FIXED!! Whacker Tracker Digest Address: ultrasound@dsd.es.com To post to tomorrow's digest. Request Server Address: ultrasound-request@dsd.es.com To subscribe, unsubscribe, and request files. Owner Address: ultrasound-owner@dsd.es.com To contact a human if the server has troubles. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 30 Oct 92 10:31:21 -0500 From: "What the World needs now..." Message-Id: <9210301531.AA10571@magick.tay2.dec.com> Subject: Comments from Gravis... To: Ultrasound Daily Digest > Advanced Gravis now has a representative on Internet. His name > is Chris Yuzik and he can be contacted at . Chris > will be happy to answerany product information questions you might > have. Chris Yuzik is indeed on the Internet but this isn't (or wasn't as of yesterday) his correct email address. I believe he's simply ... He's also very new of Unix and experiencing some pain in regards to editors...:-) DDA ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 Oct 92 15:35:59 MST From: ddebry@itchy (David DeBry) Message-Id: <9210302236.AA18478@itchy> Subject: Digest Admin: Please get the addresses correct! :) To: Ultrasound Daily Digest There were a TON of requests today for the new files. This is good... it means people are interested in the Ultrasound. A lot of requests went to the address for the digest. This is bad... it means everyone would have to read your requests. I just cleaned out the digest queue so it doesn't have all those requests in it. However, since the list is automated, it's not something I want to (or will) do regularly. Please, people, mail to the correct address to get what you want: ultrasound@dsd.es.com -- DIGEST POSTS ONLY! ultrasound-owner@dsd.es.com -- ONLY IF YOU NEED HELP WITH THE SERVER OR DIGEST! ultrasound-request@dsd.es.com -- Send requests here, and here alone. Thanks! -- \\\ "In the spaceship, the silver spaceship, the lion takes control." \\\ \\\ - They Might Be Giants, "Guitar" from Apollo 18 \\\ \\\ \\\ \\ ddebry@dsd.es.com \ debry@peruvian.utah.edu \ Email either address. \\ \\\ David DeBry \\ `finger debry@peruvian.utah.edu` for contact info. \\\ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 Oct 92 12:03:38 PST From: nestlero@daystrom.usc.edu (Mikeee) Message-Id: <9210302003.AA07855@daystrom.usc.edu> Subject: EA Delivery To: Ultrasound Daily Digest I spoke to Judy at EA on Thursday.....she said Gravis promised the next delivery would be "next week"...here we go again! :( On a more disturbing note, Judy also expressed extreme displeasure with Gravis and their on again off again delivery schedule. She said that she wouldn't have anymore to do with Gravis, if she had her choice. Luckily, she's just a sales rep. and hopefully her opinions aren't those of EA. We don't want to lose any supporters! Still patiently waiting for my back-ordered GUS......... Mikeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee nestlero@spock.usc.edu ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 Oct 92 14:24 EST From: "Matthew E. Bernold" Message-Id: <9210301928.AA28990@orca.es.com> Subject: Future OS/2 support. To: Ultrasound Daily Digest This question should have been in the digest that got hozed, so here it is again. Does anyone know if Gravis has reconcidered it's position concerning a driver for OS/2? Last I heard, the word at Gravis was "We're thinking about it...maybe." That is not going to be good enough for some friends of mine who are using OS/2 exclusively. Any info will be appreciated, but I hope it's good news... :-) Matthew E. Bernold MEB117@PSUVM.PSU.EDU <> meb@haydn.psu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 31 Oct 92 1:15:34 CST From: Jana Janicek Message-Id: <9210310715.AA11618@ccu.UManitoba.CA> Subject: Gravis troubles (TG it's not me) To: Ultrasound Daily Digest I too am a proud new owner of a Gravis Ultrasound Board. I installed it on my system without a hitch, and am now listening to christmas carols in the background. (Still can't get over how good midi sounds on a real sound card). Anyway, my problem is with my friend who also purchased an ultrasound board from me. I was there to do the installation. The software went onto the drive ok, or at least so it appeared. The card setup fine (digitized voice and all), I used my own preferred settings (ones that I have found that work best with all software) that is : SET ULTRASND=220,7,7,11,7. The board itself was configured for port 220, and the joystick disabled (on account of the fact that he did not have documentation for his I/O card, thus we could not disable the joy port on it). Well, we reboot the computer so that the new settings would take effect, and the first thing we tried was FLIDEMO. The demo loaded, than there was a total system failure/crash. We had to reboot. This is where the problems started. To reduce englishy clutter I will post a chart showing what we tried to do, what worked and what did not. Things that worked: ------------------ .Setup program .SBOS initialization (and programs that support SB/ADLIB) .ULTRINIT (clicked the speakers) Things that did not work: ------------------------ .FLIDEMO (Blank screen, Big 40 col cursor, or funny chars on screen, or parity error [neat ehh]) .MIDIDEMO (Same symptoms as above) Didn't bother to even attempt the windows stuff. Attempted Fixes: --------------- .Disable all suspicious TSR's until we had a bare bones clean boot (no stacker) (no good) .Tried to move card to another slot, and another 8bit slot (no good) .Remove all suspicious cards from system (FAX card) (no good) .Tested the card on my system (worked 100%, ahh now were getting somewhere) The above fixes were mostly cumulative ie) the TSR disabling remained permanent for the rest of the attempted fixes, and so on. The card simply did not want to work in my friends mother board, therefore we concluded that it must be a mother board incompatibility. We would appreciate any suggestions, oversights we may have made. His only option is to return the sound board or replace his mother board. After hearing my card, he had no choice but to opt for a mother board change, the sound is just too damb good. Thanks to any/all who reply! ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 Oct 92 13:21:37 CST From: ibmpa!hartmann.austin.ibm.com!lance@ibminet.awdpa.ibm.com (Lance Hartmann) Message-Id: <9210301921.AA12220@hartmann.austin.ibm.com> Subject: Gus Availability (10/30/92) To: Ultrasound Daily Digest FYI-, Just got off the phone with Gravis (Fri Oct 30 13:18:33 1992 CST). Learned that all cards there are on the way out or committed. As such, there is currently an approximate 2-week wait if purchasing DIRECTLY from Gravis. Regards, 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 miscontrued as those of IBM or anyone else for that matter. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1992 02:14:55 -0700 From: chrisr@ersys.edmonton.ab.ca (Chris Ringe) Message-Id: Subject: Ultima 7 & Wing Commander 2 FIXED!! To: Ultrasound Daily Digest I finally figured out how to get both Ultima 7, and Wing Commander II...(hurray!) WC2: I ran the INSTALL program, and changed to ADLIB, and selected the VOICE option ON. The VOICE now plays fine. Funny that the ADLIB music sounds identical to the SB music though. ULTIMA7: I ran the INSTALL program, and changed to IRQ 5 which was set at 7 (default). Check your SET SBLASTER setting in your AUTOEXEC.BAT and use the IRQ which I# is set to. BTW> Both of these work fine with the default SBOS options. ** Note ** I discovered another option in SBOS... -d (diagnostic?) It is quite neat to check out all that it reports. The option -p is supposed to bypass that sickening "SBOS Installed" voice, however, I noticed that it also kills any chance of music/sound from being played in games. Does anyone else have this problem? Spear of Destiny - Since this is basically Wolfenstien 3D, I had assumed -o2 would work for it. NOT!!! Does anyone know the correct settings? The doors don't have the ominous slamming to them, and the Gatlin Gun doesn't make noise until you reach the next level. / __ ___ /___ \ / Chris Ringe (VE6MCP) \ | / \(__ / ___) | St. Albert, Alberta, CANADA | | \__/___) / (___ F O R E V E R ! | MAIL: chrisr@ersys.edm.ab.ca | \ / / \ PHONE: (403) 460-PLAY/7529 / ------------------------------ Date: 30 Oct 92 11:30:22 MET+1 From: "Daniel ' Mr Bap ' Falk" Message-Id: Subject: Whacker Tracker To: Ultrasound Daily Digest WhackerTracker and The CodeBlasters... I saw a request in the Ultrasound Digest for information about WhackerTracker.... I spoke with the coder (Hakan Gustafsson) last week and he told me that he's currently working on Whacker Tracker v2. It will feature 8 channels and a completely new user-interface. Hopefully it will be finished early 1993. As I'm a soon-to-be Gravis owner I asked him if there will be any Ultrasound support and he was interested but as he hasn't got a card (and can't afford one, yet!), someone must support him with a Developer Kit (and a card ? :-) ). I shall speak with him and maybe we can get some kid of deal with Gravis. If he gets the Developer Kit they (TCB) will probably also release a version of GoldPlay compatible with the UltraSound. The GoldPlayer is a postcard-ware (!) program with the object-code for a complete module-player which enables you to write your own Pascal/Assembler programs with support for SoundBlaster, DA:s and so on. Really easy and sounds good too. More info about it next week when I've talked to him! / Daniel Falk d91-fad@hjds90.hj.se ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1992 19:18:54 +0100 From: Hans Christian Egeberg NTH H92 Message-Id: <9210301818.AAnic07508@nic.unik.no> To: Ultrasound Daily Digest GUS out of key? Hi, I received my GUS about two weeks ago. The GUS coexists with an original Roland MPU-IPC (MPU-401) in my 486-33. I do not believe I have any technical / hardware conflict with the setup. GUS ( A220, D7, I11, M5 ), MPU ( A330, I9/2 ), Mouse ( I3 ), Serial ( I4 ) & Parallel ( I7 ). All cards / interfaces mentioned above work fine. Since the GUS already has a built in UART MIDI, I see no reason anyone would want to use another UART MIDI, even though it might work. I consider myself an *amateur* musician, and a competent PC programmer. Because of this, my PC controls a small audio rig, consisting of a synthesizer (Ensoniq VFX), drum machine (Roland R5), sampler (Yamaha TX16W), an analog mixer, GUS and MPU. I have fiddled around with the Windows MIDI-mapper, in order to create Patch and Key maps for the rig, and thought why not create a "super" MIDI-mapper setup that plays the VFX, R5 and GUS at the same time... No problems with the MIDI-mapper. Luckily the GUS doesn't require any patch or key maps, or I would have to key in *a lot* of numbers. Open the media-player, and start the *.MID file that comes with windows 3.1 (CANYON.MID i think). WOW! what a sound! lots of multi timbrality^H^H-something... but, what's this? Nah, can't be right. The GUS and the VFX are definitely out of key. One of them is not tuned properly. Both sound fine separately. I can play the VFX in key along with the CD player. Does anyone have the equipment to test whether an international A coming from GUS has a frequency of 440Hz? I hope this has nothing to do with my PC bus speed of 8.33Mhz. I mean, they do vary between 8MHz and 10Mhz... It could be the general sample playback rate of the GUS... It could be "a couple of" the GUS patches... It propably won't matter much for everyday use, but 8-| Ciao Christian ------------------------------ End of Ultrasound Daily Digest V1 #5 ******************************