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8 bit sound card

M

marcoguy

Experienced Member
Joined
Feb 12, 2012
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485
Location
Boston
I am looking for an 8 bit sound card. I have a nice 16 bit sound card with a 50 pin SCSI port too. If you would like to trade an 8 bit (Especially Sound Blaster) sound card for my 16 bit, please PM me. I can send pictures and more details on it tomorrow upon request. Thankyou.
 
marcoguy said:
I am looking for an 8 bit sound card. I have a nice 16 bit sound card with a 50 pin SCSI port too. If you would like to trade an 8 bit (Especially Sound Blaster) sound card for my 16 bit, please PM me. I can send pictures and more details on it tomorrow upon request. Thankyou.
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Some sound cards with 16-bit ISA connector will work in 8-bit slots. For example cards based on Creative Vibra 16VX chip or on ESS1868 chip (ESS688 should work as well). Generally on these cards high data (D8-D15) pads on ISA connector are missing, or connected only to the IDE interface - usually through 74LS245 or similar IC, but sometimes directly.

The only caveat is that most of these cards are PnP, and the PnP enabler utilities usually use 186+ instruction set (PUSHA/POPA?!), so they won't work on Intel 8088 CPU, but work great on NEC V20.
 
You should try your existing 16-bit sound card in an 8-bit slot. If I recall correctly, I used a 16-bit ProAudio Spectrum card in an 8-bit slot, but I had to use the 8-bit ProAudio Spectrum drivers. I also used the Trantor SCSI (T-128?) drivers and ran a 88MB Syquest drive daisy-chained along with the CDROM drive. Too bad I sold all that stuff after I moved it into a 386 tower... now I'm just rambling.
 
I've got a pro audiospectrum that is 16 bit and I guess i need drivers to tell if it will work in an 8 bit slot.
 
It was nearly 20 years ago so I hope I am right. In the DOS days the programs were written to work with specific sound cards, so I may have mispoke when I called it a driver. I recall that the 16-bit card had the older native hardware on it for backward compatibility with older software, maybe not specifically so that it would work in an 8-bit slot. There was a small DOS .com file that initialized the card for the IRQs since the 16-bit version is jumperless. Once that was done DOS programs designed to do so could directly access the card. There was a huge difference in sound quality when I put that card in a 16-bit ISA system with Windows.

Also, it is not Sound Blaster compatible so the number of DOS programs were limited.
 
mcsew2k said:
It was nearly 20 years ago so I hope I am right. In the DOS days the programs were written to work with specific sound cards, so I may have mispoke when I called it a driver. I recall that the 16-bit card had the older native hardware on it for backward compatibility with older software, maybe not specifically so that it would work in an 8-bit slot. There was a small DOS .com file that initialized the card for the IRQs since the 16-bit version is jumperless. Once that was done DOS programs designed to do so could directly access the card. There was a huge difference in sound quality when I put that card in a 16-bit ISA system with Windows.

Also, it is not Sound Blaster compatible so the number of DOS programs were limited.
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If he has a Pro Audio Spectrum 16-based card, it does boast Sound Blaster 2.0 compatibility thanks to its Thunderboard chip.
 
Great Hierophant said:
If he has a Pro Audio Spectrum 16-based card, it does boast Sound Blaster 2.0 compatibility thanks to its Thunderboard chip.
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I just may not be remembering correctly, but when I had the card in my PC 8-bit slot it only worked with a few DOS programs. When I swapped it into the 386 I was using Windows by then, but then it acted like a whole different card.
 
Well, I put the cad in my 8 bit slot and fired up Kilo Blaster. It didn't detect a sound blaster so I am wondering if the thunderboard chip uses the 16 bit part of the ISA bus.
 
marcoguy said:
Well, I put the cad in my 8 bit slot and fired up Kilo Blaster. It didn't detect a sound blaster so I am wondering if the thunderboard chip uses the 16 bit part of the ISA bus.
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Is that the jumperless PAS card? I am sure you need to initialize that one with a DOS utility before it will start working.
 
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