Ultrasound Daily Digest Sun, 14 Mar 93 Volume 2 : Issue 69 Today's Topics: digest. GUS and keyboards GUS joystick and midi port Is there a database of SBOS switches Modification to previous report on SBOS Patch switching in Windows Why not ship with 1 meg on board? Information about the UltraSound Daily Digest (such as mail addresses, request servers, ftp sites, etc., etc.) can be found at the end of the Digest. *** HEY!!! *** Before you ask a question, *** READ THE FAQ ***. It's available on the request server and the ftp sites, or check the newsgroup archives. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 13 Mar 93 21:39:03 CST From: Michael J Stumpf Message-Id: <9303140339.AA05357@tamsun.tamu.edu> Subject: digest. To: Ultrasound Daily Digest Suggestion: Maybe we should keep a semi-current archive of digests in the ultrasound archive.. I delete most of mine, and would like to be able to ftp one when necessary and grep for what I need rather than having to keep them all around. thanks, mike ------------------------------ Date: 13 Mar 1993 11:53:47 -0400 (EDT) From: "KEVIN HOLLY....SSC BURKE SCIENCE LAB" Message-Id: <01GVRAGP5W209EE4X5@SSCVAX.CIS.MCMASTER.CA> Subject: GUS and keyboards To: Ultrasound Daily Digest Has anyone out there had any extensive experience hooking a keyboard up to the GUS? I was wondering how well the GUS performs as a synth. Obviously you can't expect a $200 card (or $169 if you were lucky like me :-) ) to perform like a $1000 synth but what CAN we do with this thing? Does it respond to key velocity or aftertouch (I know, I know, I'm pushing my luck right?) What about compatability of formats from other samplers? Everything I've seen here has been mostly dealing with software playing files. If anyone could clarify the capabilities of the GUS when hooked to a controller it would be greatly appreciated. Kevin Holly hollyk@sscvax.cis.mcmaster.ca ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 13 Mar 93 10:35:10 CST From: eason@ncrnd3.StPaul.NCR.COM (Dale Eason) Message-Id: <9303131635.AA24905@ncrnd3.StPaul.NCR.COM> Subject: GUS joystick and midi port To: Ultrasound Daily Digest The pin outs for the joystick on the gus are the same as any joystick connector. Therefore if you wire up your auxiliary connector to each and every pin on the input side you will be OK. The joystick does not use the pins that are used by MIDI (except the 5v pin). ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 13 Mar 1993 03:07:59 -0500 (EST) From: djh@neptune.att.com Message-Id: <9303131214.AA00287@orca.es.com> Subject: Is there a database of SBOS switches To: Ultrasound Daily Digest Since I don't have a GUS, I don't know if this question is easily answered by just looking at the enclosed software. Seeing so many messages about what switches to use with sbos for all the programs out there, I was wondering if there is a database from Gravis that lists names of programs and what switches to use. For instance, the file might have something like wolf3d.exe -arg1 -arg2 uw2.exe -arg99 Then, when sbos was invoked, it could be run with the name of the game as an argument to an option, e.g., sbos -g wolf3d. This way, you don't have to remember the switches, and they are all centralized. Of course, the user should be able to edit this file and add or change items. Related to this, I was wondering if a program always uses the same switches no matter what system a user has (not the interrupts, just the -x arguments, etc.), or do the switches depend on the model of their machine, etc. What I was really wondering, was whether or not it would ever be _possible_ to eliminate the switches altogether, and if not, why not. -- Dave Heiland djh@neptune.att.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 13 Mar 93 14:37:30 PST From: "Burns Fisher, VMS Engineering 13-Mar-1993 1726" Message-Id: <9303132237.AA13946@enet-gw.pa.dec.com> Subject: Modification to previous report on SBOS To: Ultrasound Daily Digest I wish I could mail this to John Smith rather than have to use a public mailing list like this, but it just does not work! Anyway, I previously sent a report that essentially said that SBOS 1.4b3 was a step backwards from 1.4b2, at least in playing Sierra's King's Quest 5, and possibly SimEarth (which at one point did a weird parity error). The good news is that I take that back. I was confused on which versions I was testing. I have redone it, and 1.4b3 is (for me) essentially no different from 1.4b2. The bad news is that my comments about a step backwards apply to the change from 1.37b to 1.4b2. 1.37b did the music on KQ5 *much* better than ever before or since. 1.4b2/3 seems to improve some sound effects a bit, like the lightning noises as teh castle is stolen, but the music throughout is quite bad, as noted before. 1.37 is much better on that game. BTW, I was able to reproduce a parity error. It happened when I (stupidly) replaced 1.37b with 1.42b3 in the ultrasnd/sbos directory while 1.37b was still loaded. It did not like me to run a game in that situation. I hope this is helpful. Sorry for the previous misinformation. Burns ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 13 Mar 93 4:23:50 EST From: Phat H Tran Message-Id: <9303130923.AA00484@sciborg.uwaterloo.ca> Subject: Patch switching in Windows To: Ultrasound Daily Digest > Date: Fri, 12 Mar 93 16:49:44 -0500 > From: cs012043@cs.brown.edu (Brendan Miller) > Message-Id: <9303122149.AA15657@cslab0a.cs.brown.edu> > Subject: Pats in Windows > To: Ultrasound Daily Digest > > I've read the FAQ and there's no information on this in it. How do I change > the PAT files that are associated with particular numbers (ie replace > acpiano1 on 0 with oboe, for instance. I would like to be able to do this > without restarting or exiting Windows. I've tried altering ultrasnd.ini, > changing the midimap configuration, and changing default.cfg and none of > those have worked. How can I do this? Thank you. > I don't think you can drastically change the patch mapping without editing ultrasnd.ini and restarting Windows. MIDI Mapper lets you shuffle the existing patches as found in ultrasnd.ini upon startup, but it doesn't let you assign a program number to a patch that wasn't in that file to begin with. (If all you need to do is shuffle the GM instruments around, go into MIDI Mapper, edit or create a new Patch Map, and edit or create a new Setup that uses that Patch Map. Then, use that Setup as the default. Media Player will fall under the influence of whatever changes you made in MIDI Mapper, but WinJammer appears not to sway.) Gravis/Forte: What I would like to see implemented in the Windows MIDI driver is a bank switching feature implemented as a sysex command. The default bank uses the patch assignment in ultrasnd.ini, while the custom banks will use whatever .ini filename is passed through the sysex command. This way, musicians can actually get to take advantage of the RAM. Phat. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 13 Mar 1993 02:52:37 -0500 (EST) From: djh@neptune.att.com Message-Id: <9303131214.AA00284@orca.es.com> Subject: Why not ship with 1 meg on board? To: Ultrasound Daily Digest In the FAQ, it says that the GUS ships with 512K. If the board can hold 1M and "everyone" upgrades to 1M from whatever they started with (256K, 512K), why not just ship the boards with 1M and prevent some confusion and trouble for the users. Surely Gravis can purchase the memory in bulk cheaper than users can, and adding 10 or 20 dollars to the cost won't harm sales any. -- Dave Heiland djh@neptune.att.com ------------------------------ End of Ultrasound Daily Digest V2 #69 ******************************