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Looking for some Gravis Ultrasound enthusiasts...

Jibbajaba

Experienced Member
Joined
Apr 12, 2007
Messages
190
Location
Davis, CA 95616 USA
Hi,

I'm not sure if this was the right forum to post this in so I apologize in advance if it should have gone elsewhere.

I am creating a website called "The Gravis Ultrasound Archive". I actually registered the domain name about a year ago and messed around with making a site for about 10 minutes but totally forgot about it. I was checking my site statistics for my other site last night and saw that the GUS site gets some regular hits, because it pops up second in Google search results when the phrase "gravis ultrasound" is searched. Once I saw that, I figured I aught to get on the ball.

Just for some quick back story, the GUS is the sound card I had when I was a teenage computer nerd, so I've always been a fan. A few years ago I bought one for my DOS machine and noticed that resources for the card are pretty spread out across the internet, so I just wanted to create a site that can act as a one-stop-shop for files and whatnot. I've spent quite a bit of time downloading as much GUS-related stuff as I can find (various utilities, game fixes, different versions of the GUS software, etc.), and am planning on hosting it all on the site.

Basically my web hosting has unlimited bandwidth and storage space, and GUS stuff isn't in high demand, so I can host as much content as I can find. I don't need any help with the design or hosting of the site, so this is not a request for free help from a web programmer. The hosting space is bought and paid for, so this is also not a request for money.

So to make a long story short, I am looking for anyone that can help me with this project. "Help" can mean sending me any images, documents, or files of any type that you have, or if you want you can help create some content for the site, like howto's, FAQ,s etc. Basically I am just looking for other people who are into the GUS and would like to help in any way make what I hope will be the premiere site on the web for all things Gravis Ultrasound.

Lastly, I imagine that once this site is kind of up and running, it will become a pretty static thing. I am not planning on having regular updates, articles, forums, etc. It is just supposed to be a repository for Ultrasound-related knowledge and materials.

Thanks for reading, and let me know if you can help in any way.

Chris
 
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I am actually working on that right now. I have quite a few on my hard drive, so I am going to make a page for them on the site and upload all of them. I'll post an update in this thread when it's all set up, which should be sometime this weekend.

Thanks for checking out the site!

Chris
 
Man, I used to be a huge Gravis Ultrasound fan in my mid to late teens, at one point even starting a flame war against Sound Blaster users somewhere on FidoNet (jot that one down under "foolish youth" :ashamed:).

Well, anyway, I'll keep your effort in mind and if I run into anything that might be of interest to your site, I'll let you know. :)
 
Added the first 21 volumes of the Ultrasound Daily Digest, and found a copy of the "G-List", which I can't find on the net anywhere, on my DOS machine. Haven't put up the Demos, yet.

If anyone has any of the programmer's daily digests or musician's daily digests I would love to put them up as well.

Thanks for reading,

Chris
 
Wow! now this is something that's really needed since almost all GUS sites are long gone with the latest drivers etc

The Gravis FTP is still up hough ftp.gravis.com

Are you going to put up any info and pics of the cards and maybe some recorded samples?

I'd be happy to contribute with info if you want, I own all Gus models..not all revisions though
 
Wow! now this is something that's really needed since almost all GUS sites are long gone with the latest drivers etc

The Gravis FTP is still up hough ftp.gravis.com

Are you going to put up any info and pics of the cards and maybe some recorded samples?

I'd be happy to contribute with info if you want, I own all Gus models..not all revisions though

I want to put up as much info as possible. My goal is for this to be the world's best site for the GUS. When I finally got another Ultrasound a couple of years ago (I had owned one in its heyday but it died) I was surprised to find that GUS resources were hard to find on the net, particularly since the card still enjoys a cult following.

I have downloaded the entire Gravis FTP site and will be posting just about all of it on my site.

I'm going to send you a PM concerning your offer to help.

Thanks,

Chris
 
Just a note to say .. Excellent site. I recently purchased a GUS and found it hard to locate any decent information.

Thanks. Please let me know if you are looking for anything that isn't posted yet. I am going to keep working on it, but I have another site that I work on, and the GUS site is sort of a side project.

Chris
 
This is an excellent idea! I wanted to download the entire Gravis FTP site some time ago too, but I never did. Now, only a couple of months later, it seems they have shut it down. Probably it will be down forever, since you now will be directed to the Kensington site instead. Too bad that they did not at least set a shut down date, so people could have a chance to download all the stuff they wanted before it disappeared for good. It should be forbidden by law to shut down sites in such a way without any notice! Thus, I am very happy to read that Chris managed to download the entire Gravis site before it was too late. I suggest you to make an identical copy of the original Gravis FTP site on your site (in addition to what you have planned), so people can get the feeling of browsing the original site again. As far as I remember, the structure on the Gravis FTP site was quite tidy. The most important thing is of course that no software has been lost. I guess there are some other people out there who's been smart enough to make an entire back-up of all this stuff as well. Ultrasounds are yet too young to die!
 
Just wanted to inform that I wrote an e-mail to Kensington customer service the other day about the Gravis FTP issue. I have now got an answer. Seems like www.gravisultrasound.com will be the place to go for Gravis enthusiasts in the future. Please add the original Gravis archive to your site as soon as possible, Jibbajaba! I can tell you that I have a Gravis Ultrasound Max soundcard with the original manuals intact. Maybe I could scan them and send them to you - if this is something that's not floating around on the net already.


My e-mail to Kensington customer service:


"Hi. Some months ago I entered ftp.gravis.com looking for some drivers for my old Gravis Ultrasound soundcard. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to download them at that time. Now, only a short period after - when trying to access the site again, I am not able to enter it anymore. :-( It seems Kensington have closed it down with no notice. Is this correct? If yes; then I hope you will bring all the files back online - at least for a limited period of time. It's important to keep these files available to the public so they won't disappear. Yes, I know it's old hardware, but there are still people out there who are using the Gravis range of soundcards. If you don't want to maintain these files yourself, I am sure there are people out there who want to. I hope for God's sake you haven't deleted them from your servers. That would be a shame. Thanks."


Their reply:


"Dear JoeM:

Thank you for contacting Kensington Technical Support.

We apologize for the inconvenience caused.

The entire gaming/soundcard line of Gravis products are discontinued by Kensington. As a result no software/drivers were ever developed and there are no future plans to develop drivers or software for Windows XP since the line has been discontinued. There are no Gravis drivers or firmware for Windows 2000 and Windows XP. Gravis gaming/soundcard products are only supported under the older versions of Windows.

We are sorry to inform you that the software/driver is not available.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused to you."


I think they could have kept the old archives still open, even if the Gravis products were discontinued long ago. Not everyone wants the latest stuff... ;-)


JoeM.
 
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I just added forums to the site, so that people will have a place to talk about GUS-related issues. I also slightly altered the look and layout of the site.

Most of the files from the Gravis FTP site should already be on my site. I just need to post the demos and instrument patches. Right now I am also looking for content for the "multimedia" section, ESPECIALLY any scans of magazine advertisements for or articles about the GUS. If anyone has anything that they can add to the site, please contact me using the "Contact" link in the site's header.

Thanks for reading,

Chris
 
Recently I added forums to the site, and although the forum index page gets a lot of hits, no one seems to sign up or anything, which I think is because the place looks so dead. I don't know if there is anyone here who ever had a GUS or was into DOS gaming in general, but I think if I could get a few people to sign up over there and participate a little bit, the place might take off somewhat. My site gets a pretty decent amount of traffic coming in from Google, but most people just download the files that they need and then take off.

Anyway, please check it out and become a member if you're interested.

http://www.gravisultrasound.com/forums/index.php

Thanks!

Chris
 
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