Apparently-To: john.smith@gravis.com GUS Daily Digest Mon, 8 Nov 93 007 Volume 8: Issue 8 Today's Topics: Cheap GUS Digital Sounds Delay with SBOS Dosmax, UMB? Yes I know DOSMAX and memory managers Epic Pinball and Rampage Grand Prix Circuit, 1 Meg upgrade from Gravis Mega-Em code generator Part # for gnd loop isolator? Satisfied GUS owner 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: Mon, 8 Nov 1993 00:01:24 -0600 (CST) From: Joerg Bashir Subject: Cheap GUS I haven't checked the mailorder places lately, but a local chain of stores, EB, is selling it at $129. They have like 300 stores in the country so there may be one by you. Electronics Boutique I think. Later. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 7 Nov 93 22:52:16 -0800 From: rcrane@wsuaix.csc.wsu.edu (useradd) Subject: Digital Sounds Delay with SBOS The latest version of SVGA Air Warrior, 1.13B, has incorporated "standard" sound libraries. The problem now is that digital sounds get delayed and cause the game to pause. :-( Previous versions of SVGA AW worked just fine with SBOS. Does anybody know what causes this? I believe that this is a comon problem but I don't see in the FAQ. Also, since SVGA AW uses only digitized sound, how hard would it be to support it (i.e., write a driver supporting digitized sound only)? -bob crane rcrane@wsuaix.csc.wsu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 7 Nov 93 19:17:00 BST From: b.williams44@genie.geis.com Subject: Dosmax, UMB? Yes I know Mike, This is just what I didn't want to do ,get into a long discussion and take up room on GUS-DIGEST. Half of my letter is straight from the DOSMAX readme file,including the part about HMA and COMMAND.COM. I did tell him that he would have to increase his UMB space and showed him how DOS 6 did it for me with MEMMAKER. Not all folks want QEMM ,I don't because of the problems it has with some games.Dos 6 hasn't gave me any problems, the thing about DOSMAX I like is it fits your Devicehigh and Loadhigh programs by size and does it better than DOS. As for 272k I meant 272 bytes of COMMAND.COM and it frees up a little Conventional memory which was very handy in getting Falcon3 to LoadHigh. I don't think my MEM/C is confused. I didn't state anything about other memory managers other than DOS 5 or 6. I tried to help with a simple fix for getting Ultramid to loadhigh. I don't use I=E000-EFFF as I stated I use I=B000-B7FF and that adds UMB's from the Monocrome buffer that I don't use.Then Ultramid will have enough room to loadhigh.He doesn't HAVE to use DOSMAX, but I like it for the reasons I stated. The version of DOSMAX I have is what I found. And thank you for the new program location. ***StarHawk*** ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 08 Nov 1993 10:48:30 +1000 From: David Vu Subject: DOSMAX and memory managers mikebat@netcom.com (Mike Batchelor) wrote: > The late Simtel20 had it. All of its mirrors still do. The current > version is 2.0, and you need this version to be fully compatible with DOS > 6.0. Earlier versions will work, but may be unreliable, especially if you > use Dblspace. There will be no other versions in the future. The latest version of dosmax is 2.1 and it can be found on simtel-20 and its mirrors. When I had my old C&T motherboard, I was using dosmax and umb.sys to get 642000 bytes free and about 147456 bytes usable UMB with DOS 5 high. Since I got my new motherboard with the UMC82C481 486 chipset, the stupid AMI bios can't fill the high ram area with RAM like my old AMI bios could. As a result, I can't use dosmax and umb.sys anymore! And I hate using EMM386.EXE because it puts my 486 in virtual mode - which slows my PC down. I think all mem managers including QEMM 7 put the 486 in virtual 86 mode - prove me wrong and I 'll gladly buy it! The new AMI bios may be more user friendly than the old one but is never as flexible. With the old one, I could actually set bits in the chipset registers to do anything I want. Anyone got any programming specs on the UMC82C481 chipset? Assembly programming anyone? -David- ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 8 Nov 1993 11:49:04 +1030 (CST) From: Gavin Subject: Epic Pinball and Rampage This game is very impressive, for it's graphics but more importantly for it's Native GUS support. Anyone who has not got this, go get it from epas. As an experiment I tried this on 2 SoundBlasters, both sounded poor even tho it's all digital, I guess it's mixing noise I'm hearing on the SB, on the GUS it's as clean as you could want. Also on the SB when the white text is put on the pinball screen it makes a static/flatulating like noise, but not with the GUS, I guess it's the game saying what it thinks of SBs ;-). Well done Epic in supporting the GUS so well, I hope this is now their policy. Also I have come to the conclusion that Terminator Rampage is doing it's mixing with the CPU and not letting the GUS do the work since the sound is not up to it's best compared with Epic Pinball. But thanks go to Bethseda for the support anyway. (I want more baddies in the real game tho - it's too easy!) ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 6 Nov 1993 23:21:32 -0700 (MST) From: Derek the Dweebosaurus Subject: Grand Prix Circuit, 1 Meg upgrade from Gravis Does anyone know if there is a SBOS setting for Grand Prix Circuit that would better emulate the Soundblaster sounds? The sound with GPC seems less than enticing without any switches. Also, I remember reading somewhere a long time ago that one could get the one meg uppgrade direct from Gravis for $10. Is that offer still valid? ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 7 Nov 1993 11:11:27 -0800 (PST) From: haroldf@rcf.usc.edu (Jeff Lawson) Subject: Mega-Em code generator Currently, I have heard of two methods of getting around the Mega-Em timer. The first is slowing down the timer after installing Mega-Em and the other is to re-enable the output after Mega-Em shuts it off. Well, I've come up with a better solution: Simply give Mega-Em what it wants (a serial number). I created a program that does just this around August, but kept it to myself. I have recently uploaded it to epas with assembly source for those of you who are curious about how the serial number is generated. The filename is MEGAFIX.ZIP Jeff -- -------------------------------------------------------------. | Jeff Lawson haroldf@rcf.usc.edu | | University of Southern California Phone: (213) 258-5604 | | Course Assistant for Computer Use (213) 258-4264 | `-------------------------------------------------------------' ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 7 Nov 1993 06:50:25 -0500 (EST) From: impster@umcc.umich.edu (Charles Budensiek) Subject: Part # for gnd loop isolator? It seems like a while back I saw someone post Radio Sharks part number for a ground loop isolator (or was it on c.s.i.p.soundcard?> ahh well.. if anyone knows, could ya toss it my way? impster@umcc.umich.edu Charles.Budensiek@launcher.unc.edu ab543@leo.nmc.edu "I'm pretty cool, Beavis. But I can't change the future." - Butthead Remember Grasshopper, the path of sanity is most often ignored by the sane. -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: 2.2 mQCNAizaJZ4AAAEEALmkZCOj9KgoSzfflhUpUP+mCUDgg2jHEylJoJNnXkOMRSkq +50NJ8v/2lIpIVsDJTKswyS71OGDJJf6x6LUcp4h8RKoTEdERCXqykAtU748EqK+ 0s5Ye+y6JAhM7YTOkCVXaWlDdkPV3yoHzHnvsz96EVA1NxPJh2nCAHNRsQ87AAUR tCBJbXBzdGVyIDxpbXBzdGVyQHVtY2MudW1pY2guZWR1PrQgSW1wc3RlciA8aW1w c3RlckB1bWNjLnVtaWNoLmVkdT60B2ltcHN0ZXI= =oQKL -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 7 Nov 93 02:54:36 EST From: John Fulmer Subject: Satisfied GUS owner TO: gus-general@dsd.es.com High-HO! I just wanted to put my two cents in.... I bought the GUS on the chance comment I heard, "if you liked the sound on a //gs, you'll love the GUS". As a former owner of an Apple //gs, I'll verify the statement. I am very satisfied with the Ultrasound and haven't had too many problems with SBOS (Brix! is strange, though). Commendations to Gravis for their engineering, cost controls, and tech support (had a bad disk when I bought it and the tech I called send me a new set NO QUESTIONS ASKED!) Now for a question...Does anyone know what the flags on SBOS are for? I mean, it would be more helpful if I knew what -o1, -x3, etc... were actually doing to use them. Also, why does it make a difference in which order they are specified (I find on Brix you first have to specify SBOS -x2 -o2 and then load SBOS again with -x3 -o2 in order for it to recognize the GUS as a soundblaster. any other order seems not to work(BTW, Brix is by Epic Megagames...)) thanks J. Fulmer .. ... Mr. Bullfrog says "Time is fun when You're having flies". ___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.12 ------------------------------ End of GUS Daily Digest V8 #8 ****************************** To post to tomorrow's digest: To (un)subscribe or get help: To contact a human (last resort): FTP sites: archive.epas.utoronto.ca /pub/pc/ultrasound wuarchive.wustl.edu /systems/msdos/ultrasound archive.orst.edu /pub/packages/gravis theoris.rz.uni-konstanz.de /pub/sound/gus FTP mail server: mail-server@nike.rz.uni-konstanz.de Hints: - Get the FAQ from the FTP sites or the request server. - Mail to for info about other GUS related mailing lists (programmers, musicians, etc.).