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Mixer loads badly on MCGA

evildragon

Veteran Member
Joined
May 29, 2007
Messages
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Location
Tampa Florida
I'm having a hard time "seeing" the soundblaster 16 mixer on my MCGA equipped IBM Model 25. The controls look like pi and paragraph sumbols, along with other odd glitches.

What gives? It's in text mode, but it looks like it's trying to replace the fonts with custom symbols, but I thought MCGA could replace the fonts..
 
No idea on the text/font issue, but I gotta ask, how you are using a SB16 in a machine with only an 8-bit slot (I do see you have a V30 CPU, but the ISA slots are only 8-bit still)?
 
No idea on the text/font issue, but I gotta ask, how you are using a SB16 in a machine with only an 8-bit slot (I do see you have a V30 CPU, but the ISA slots are only 8-bit still)?

It just works, as long as you set the high DMA as the same as the low DMA (otherwise it won't work). It honestly seems the only thing that uses the 16-bit bus is the high DMA and the CD-ROM controller.. While the Creative Labs diagnostic utility crashes doing a sound test (or MIDI) test (as it's not real-mode it seems), you can test this easily on an 8-bit slot in a 286 class machine and run the diagnostic utility, it DOES play the 16-bit sound sample, and clearly too..
 
It just works, as long as you set the high DMA as the same as the low DMA (otherwise it won't work). It honestly seems the only thing that uses the 16-bit bus is the high DMA and the CD-ROM controller.. While the Creative Labs diagnostic utility crashes doing a sound test (or MIDI) test (as it's not real-mode it seems), you can test this easily on an 8-bit slot in a 286 class machine and run the diagnostic utility, it DOES play the 16-bit sound sample, and clearly too..

Nice, I was under the impression that only relatively few 16-bit cards would work in 8-bit slots (only devices MEANT to be backward compatible, IE dual 8/16bit mode cards would work). I have tried this with a few (even with the supposedly compatible 3c509 card) and never had any luck getting them to work.

As far as your Text issues, I wonder if the upper ascii is different for MCGA than it is for VGA (which I assume the SB software may be detecting it as.). I might have to go toss a SB16 into my PS2/25 and see what happens on mine. You could also have some other issue too.

EDIT: Oops I probably cant run the SB software on mine, I still have the stock 8086, I am pretty sure the software will bomb without a V30. Maybe I can print all the upper ascii on screen and see what it shows, see if it shows proper ascii line characters or something else.
 
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I think it works on the 8086, but I can zip up the driver for you if you want, from mine, including the autoexec.bat lines..
 
I wont have time to test it till next week at the soonest, but if you want to attach your copy of the driver to this post I can sure try it when I get a chance.
 
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