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

I have five old ISA soundcards which have a combination of
Opti 82C929A chips ('929') (or a Reveal label hiding something the same 
size) and a larger Crystal CS4231-KL or KL-A or an AD1848 or something 
similar in number.  A web search found me separate large driver packages 
for each one of these.  One is called Aztech Sound Galaxy Pro, two are 
Acer Magic, and two are Reveal (with various things following, such as 
SC400 Rev. 2 or V1.10).  At least three of them have volume dials.  They 
all have 2-4 different CD-ROM connectors for things like Panasonic, Sony, 
and Mitsumi drives, and some have jumpers for mpu_io or io, speaker/line, 
etc., but I think they are all or mostly pnp.

So I tried pnpdump on the two Acer Magic 520 94302-2 cards.

The program was unable to find any boards after trying addresses fro 0x203 
to 0x3ff.  With the -rc option 'Port address /etc/isapnp.conf (0x0000) out 
of range 0x203..0x3ff.

I then managed eventually to install the DOS part of 929w95.zip, which is 
the smallest package I could find for these cards.  I deleted the 
subdirectories (vxd and other win stuff) and copied the remaining non-win 
files to a floppy disk because snd4dos will only install from A: or B:. 
It made me a d:\sound16 directory and put nothing into it, so I copied the 
files over to it and ran install from that directory.

Install ran sndinit.  I was able to choose SB Pro emulation, io 220 irq 7 
dma 0 (or 1), disable gameport and mpu.  CD-ROM support was disabled by 
default.  Once I realized that the speakers plug into the hole farthest 
from the gameport, a sound test played 8-bit 16-it and FM synthesized 
sound.  First do Accept to get in autoexec.bat:

set blaster=a220 i7 d1 t4.
sndinit /b  (this sets the sound)

You need to manually add
set sound16=d:\sound16 (or whatever place you chose to put it).

Rebooting (after also manually deleting anything for other sound cards)
got me to the point where I could use this card outside of sndinit to play 
midi files with msp or cdp, but wav sounds would not play with them or 
with S16 play, which complained about low-level drivers.

The larger packages probably come with card-specific drivers.   msp and 
cdp may be tested only on sb16 cards and this was sbpro emulation.

There was also WSS (Windows Sound System) emulation with irq 534, which I 
have not tried in DOS.  I will come back to this fact.

I then went back into linux and tried setting the card up with sb.o and 
the above settings.  It had an IRQ conflict and told me my card might not 
be entirely SBPro compatible.

So I tried the settings which I had found online for Opti930, which worked 
with my Opti931 (except it appears to have a dying amplifier and sounds 
bad unless I turn down vol with software and up with speaker).
I made the following script and ran it:

insmod soundcore
insmod soundlow
insmod sound
insmod ad1848
insmod mad16 io=0x530 irq=7 dma=1

No error messages.

Note that I used 530 not 534.  534 would produce an error message about a 
4-byte conflict (I forget what I did to get this message - maybe I used 
isapnp somehow?).  530 was listed for the Opti930 by a Bulgarian site.

play 'cannot open /dev/dsp' and similarly for mpg123.

lsmod shows mad16.  /proc/interrupts does not.

rmmod mad16.
ad1848:  Can't find device to be unloaded.  Base=534
Sound device 3 went missing!

I then tried again with insmod mad16, same settings.
This time the mad16 was listed in /proc/interrupts and I could play with 
sox and mpg123.

I did a rmmod and ran my  script again, with the same results as the first 
time I ran my script - error messages instead of sound, no mad16 in 
/proc/interrupts.  If I then insmodded mad16 on a separate line CLI it 
worked again.

I did not have this problem with the Opti931 or at least I don't recall 
having it if I ran the script (where irq=5).

Why does insmod mad16 NOT work in a script?  Should I be putting in some 
sort of pause like I had to do for a script with plip, which also worked 
CLI but not via script otherwise?

And why did pnpdump not check the card for higher io addresses?

I have not found reference to ANYONE getting the 929 to work in OSS.  ALSA 
has a separate 929 module.  I have it working with the same mad16 module 
as the 930 and 931.

The 931 did not need to be set up in DOS before working in linux so I 
doubt the 929 requires it, but it helped to know the card was working in 
DOS (as io 220, did not check WSS at io 534).

It is interesting that linux play (sox) works where DOS sb16 play does 
not.

I also have Audioexcel working (as SB16 in DOS and linux - 16bit) and 
ESS1868 (in linux as sb but not in DOS).  An ALS100 appears to be dying 
but it does play (with its own DOS alsinit program or in linux as sb).
Why do the ES and ALS cards work as sb in linux but not in DOS, and the 
Opti works in DOS to play midi but not wav files?  Is this a case of 
partial SBPro emulation and they only cared about midi files because games 
use those?

It appears to be possible to use BL2 with OSS on all of the old 
ISA sound cards that I got working in DOS.

One Reveal card won't even fit into my computer because it is so long it 
hits either a capacitor or the CPU fan.  The Acers are shorter tho they 
have only 2 not 4 CD-ROM connectors.  The Reveal may be larger because 
they were kind enough to clearly print out jumper settings in a blank 
spot.  This card may not actually be opti 929 - ungluing the reveal 
sticker revealed a blank chip underneath and the io settings are 220 or 
240 with nothing about 534.  Crystal CS4248 whereas the others are CS 
4231.  Someone posted a 4248 driver for Windows.

I still have two Crystal 16-bit ISA cards sans Opti to get working in DOS 
but the installation procedure insists on using Windows 3.1 even to 
uncompress some files.  Ubuntu failed to even find one of these, but so 
did isapnp. Maybe the newer linuxes ignore non-pnp ISA cards. It also did 
not find the 3COM, which is set by a DOS program that permanently alters 
settings, or the jumpered Rockwell modem.

keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org
SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org