Baslinux mailing list

[sindi keesan <keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org>]

On Fri, 3 Jun 2005, sindi keesan wrote:

> If you liked 'diagnose' you will like:
>
> ftp://ftp.pipeline.com.au/drivers/miscellany/145DSK1.exe and /145DSK2.exe,
> self extracting files from Intel (also found at 
> http://www.intel.com/design/motherbd/gen_ind.htm) which purport to be DOS ISA 
> Configuration Utilities for configuring pnp cards with a non-PNP bios.
> I have not tried them yet.  I presume once you get a card configured in DOS 
> it will work with linux booted via loadlin.
>
> pipeline also has a great collection of old DOS and Win3.1 and Win95 sound 
> drivers for ESS 1869, Crystal 4232, Opti 929, Aztech Sound Galaxy (I have 1-4 
> of each of these), and under /drivers/Sound_Card/Creative you will also find 
> a variety of things which look like ISA configuration managers or utilities. 
> See the index for CTCMBBS CTCMGR CTCU and SB-ICU (the last is from Intel, 
> 2MB, and may be the same as the two ICU disks above, the others are about 
> 200-400K).  CTCMBBS includes diagnose, it says, and some of the others.
>
> I have five CT AWE cards - a Vibra16 CT3930 which works perfectly in DOS 
> including AWE initialization, and diagnose finds the added RAM (despite there 
> being no jumper to enable it) and tests it and lets me play AWE sound.  The 
> Vibra16 is jumpered for io and irq and dma.

I downloaded from pipeline:
ctcmbbs - corrupt zip file
ctcmgr - designed for running in a DOS box in Win95

ctcu.zip - the correct file for plain DOS, unzips to some instructions and 
ctcm.exe and ctcu.exe

Run ctcm first to configure the card, then ctcu to see what you have.
You can CHANGE the settings by manually editing the ctpnp.cfg file (they 
don't seem to mention this) but the settings don't stay in the card, you 
need to run ctcm every time you boot.

You can change the IRQ from the one that is native to the card.  I had two 
CT1600 cards with IRQ10 (okay but not standard) and IRQ9 (conflicts with 
something on this computer).  The card with IRQ10 would not run diagnose, 
said there were no free IO addresses (220 is standard).

I was able to edit the .cfg file to set IDE and gameport to
disable=1 (they are disabled) and suddenly io 220 was free again.

On the card with IRQ9, after changing it to IRQ5 in the .cfg file, it 
still would not find a free IRQ5 until I also disabled the game port.

If I reboot, the old settings return until I run ctcm, which I have not 
got to work in autoexec.bat before all the other sound settings.  So maybe 
it should go at the end.

Linux would not work with these cards either, until I edited the .cfg file 
to disable IDE and gameport (IDE may not be necessary but I don't need a 
third controller anyway).  It now works with IRQ5.

The Vibra16 card is jumperable to standard settings and works fine without 
any need to configure anything.

The two AWE64 cards also have IRQ9 and won't work on this computer (I will 
try ctcm on them tomorrow).

When I run Diagnose, it still does not offer me AWE synthesis so there is 
still something missing for that, which is not needed for the vibra card. 
I have no idea what it is.  These cards all work to play AWE in a DOS box 
in Win98FE.

Anyway, ctcm is a helpful tool for changing the configuration of ISA pnp 
cards in DOS when they have IRQ or io conflicts, and the settings persist 
into linux after loadlin (they stay in some register until you reboot into 
DOS again, warm boot).

I don't expect these four cards to play AWE in linux until I use isapnp, 
or some equivalent in DOS which ctcm is not.

Sindi