Re: [9fans] Sound cards in use

Re: [9fans] Sound cards in use

[Richard Miller]

> Richard Miller has code for making a SoundBlaster Pro work, and I
> believe he has used it to get various sound chips that were SBPro
> compatible to work.  Unfortunately, neither of us had any luck with
> it on the IBM Thinkpad T21, which uses a Cirrus Logic chip.  Maybe
> Richard has had better luck recently.

Nope.

-- Richard

Re: [9fans] Sound cards in use

[forsyth]

>>I had to try w/ a 16 ISA card, and it worked.
>>PCI cards I tried didn't work either.

i'm fairly sure the SB16 PCI use a different chip set.
i'm also fairly sure i've got documentation somewhere.
i know that i've got two cards to work with.

Re: [9fans] Sound cards in use

[Audible Meowbot]

forsyth@caldo.demon.co.uk wrote:
> i'm fairly sure the SB16 PCI use a different chip set.

Right, that card is based on the Ensoniq family.  It might be
worthwhile to look at the Linux es1371 driver.  There is an ugly
twisty maze of optional registers, but Ensoniq did help to make it
work.

Re: [9fans] Sound cards in use

[rsc]

Sound is really tough.  Sound cards have gotten oodles
more complicated since the SB16.  Apparently some really
new SBs don't work, but for a while the SB16 and SB32 and SB64
all just worked as SB16s.  The problem now is that most sound
cards seem to be ESS something-or-other, and getting
documentation out of them is nearly impossible (in some
cases, they don't even _have_ documentation internally:
they bought up the company making the chips and it got
lost in the shuffle or something).

Russ

Re: [9fans] Sound cards in use

[Douglas A. Gwyn]

rsc@plan9.bell-labs.com wrote:
> cards seem to be ESS something-or-other, and getting
> documentation out of them is nearly impossible (in some
> cases, they don't even _have_ documentation internally:
> they bought up the company making the chips and it got
> lost in the shuffle or something).

But *some*body must have documentation, since drivers
keep appearing for other systems.  Maybe this is a bit
like the vintage computer market in that there is
information out there in private hands, and it just
takes some (human) networking to find it.

Re: [9fans] Sound cards in use

[nemo]

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I had to try w/ a 16 ISA card, and it worked.
PCI cards I tried didn't work either.


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From: matt <matt@proweb.co.uk>
To: 9fans <9fans@cse.psu.edu>
Subject: [9fans] Sound cards in use
Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2001 17:32:25 +0100
Message-ID: <11191964360.20010426173225@proweb.co.uk>

Hello,

Now I've got paying work again I'm going to kit myself out with some
new PC gear. Obviously I want to have as much plan9 compatible
equipment as possible at my disposal. So that brings me to the question of sound
cards.

I know it says SoundBlaster 16 and above in the supported hardware
list but could people tell me which actual cards they have found sucessful.
I tried a SoundBlaster 16 PCI and it didn't work (although I didn't try too hard).

tia

--
Best regards,
 matt                          mailto:matt@proweb.co.uk

[9fans] Sound cards in use

[matt]

Hello,

Now I've got paying work again I'm going to kit myself out with some
new PC gear. Obviously I want to have as much plan9 compatible
equipment as possible at my disposal. So that brings me to the question of sound
cards.

I know it says SoundBlaster 16 and above in the supported hardware
list but could people tell me which actual cards they have found sucessful.
I tried a SoundBlaster 16 PCI and it didn't work (although I didn't try too hard).

tia

--
Best regards,
 matt                          mailto:matt@proweb.co.uk

Re: [9fans] Sound cards in use

[Dan Cross]

In article <11191964360.20010426173225@proweb.co.uk> you write:
>I know it says SoundBlaster 16 and above in the supported hardware
>list but could people tell me which actual cards they have found sucessful.
>I tried a SoundBlaster 16 PCI and it didn't work (although I didn't try too
>hard).

This is a recuring them, somewhat unfortunately.  The sound chip on
the bitsy works, but I don't think that's quite what you're looking
for.  :-)

I've had luck with an ISA bus SoundsBlaster 16 that I saw at J&R
computer world the other day (same day I bought my bitsy).  A friend
of mine in Brooklyn has had luck with a SoundsBlaster AWE 32,
probably also ISA.

Richard Miller has code for making a SoundBlaster Pro work, and I
believe he has used it to get various sound chips that were SBPro
compatible to work.  Unfortunately, neither of us had any luck with
it on the IBM Thinkpad T21, which uses a Cirrus Logic chip.  Maybe
Richard has had better luck recently.

To my knowledge, most PCI cards don't work, due to differences in
the way ISA and PCI DMA works, and lack of support for setting up
``legacy'' ISA modes.  There might be a way around that, but I'm
not sure.

I too any interested in hearing what other folks are doing for audio;
this seems to be a weak spot at the moment, and it's not clear that
it'd be easy to integrate new cards into the current driver framework
(which seems rather SB specific).

One yearns for a PCM based sound framework....  ;-)

	- Dan C.

Re: [9fans] Sound cards in use

[Douglas A. Gwyn]

Dan Cross wrote:
> ...  A friend of mine in Brooklyn has had luck with a
> SoundsBlaster AWE 32, probably also ISA.

Yes, AWE32 definitely works and is ISA.