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Planet Zaxxon
futura2012 wrote:

Does anyone know of a good starting place for SB16 newbie and ideally a place for decent drivers?

I have a SB16 CT1740 with a NEC XR385 daughter board.  I have a Win98 Music PC currently running a lexicon Studio Core 32 system and was interested in adding some more sounds.

I heard some samples of stuff created on OPL3 and it sounds awesome.

I currently have no drivers. I have no idea what software I would need to trigger or program the OPL3 and could really do with some getting started help.

Hope someone knows a little more than me.

Hmm, for me, the SB16 was plug n lay for win98.. I installed win98 with the card installed, and it detected it fine. And has all playback support without me having to configure anything....

However running in true MS-DOS mode from a win98 install, you will have to configure the config.sys and autoexec.bat files.

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Planet Zaxxon

I may be adding some more laptop models to the list.. just acquired some oldies.. smile

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Tokyo, Japan

Woo hoo. I'm super excited to hear your new tunes.

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Toronto, Ontario, Canada

The older Toshiba Satellite series work great, too. I've got a 430 CDS that does module and OPL3 perfectly. It's even powerful enough to run goattracker (the playback is fine, but the UI is a just a tad laggy).

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USA

lots of good libretto deals on ebay right now. wink  http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi … AQ:US:1123

Last edited by Noplanet (Dec 17, 2013 11:42 pm)

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MBR
Noplanet wrote:

lots of good libretto deals on ebay right now. wink  http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi … AQ:US:1123

DO WANT. I have a 50ct, but that's one sexy machine...

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USA

anyone tried All Sound Tracker?
Apparently it supports OPL3 and MIDI IN/OUT and samples via AWE 32/64 daughterboards.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct … 6428,d.cWc

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Planet Zaxxon

Whoa, don't know how I missed your post, any feedback on Sound Tracker? I may have to try that one out !!

Last edited by Radlib (Jun 6, 2014 2:44 pm)

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USA

It's pretty awesome if you have a SBAWE32. If you don't it's still interesting, but not as useful. F1 is great help just like AT2 though and it has polyphonic MIDI support. No 4op that I could see, but very impressive nonetheless. Going to have to get an AWE32 now. smile

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Solar System
Noplanet wrote:

anyone tried All Sound Tracker?
Apparently it supports OPL3 and MIDI IN/OUT and samples via AWE 32/64 daughterboards.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct … 6428,d.cWc

What that sounds AWEsome, I have 4x AWE... Gonna try this.

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USA
Matej wrote:
Noplanet wrote:

anyone tried All Sound Tracker?
Apparently it supports OPL3 and MIDI IN/OUT and samples via AWE 32/64 daughterboards.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct … 6428,d.cWc

What that sounds AWEsome, I have 4x AWE... Gonna try this.

Please record and share. The OPL3 demo was decent, but I am totally curious what the EMU8000 can do with LFO's and Filters. There was a SID demo too. Looks badass. Wish there were laptops with AWE32's.

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Planet Zaxxon

If there were laptops with AWE32's in them, my bank account and savings would be in the negative.

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Planet Zaxxon

*UPDATED* 9-15-14

Here is some Info about installing an SSD in your oldie laptop. Fun fun !! smile

So I have been trying out some solid state drives/CF to IDE converters. I will specify here which ones I found have that work and which didn't. The advantages when using these are:

Less noisey sound output. This is huge !!! With a traditional IDE drive installed, whenever I would load a new song in Impulse Tracker, I could hear the actual hard drive being accessed. It's an audible noise. With the SSD installed, there is no more loading time noise! smile
Also, fast load times! Such performance!

These were tested on Compaq Armada laptops, models: 7770, 7770DMT.

THE GOOD:

Super Talent 4GB IDE SSD

Just got some today. They work great. However, you MUST do all partitioning/formatting within MS-DOS. It does not like it if you hook this up to a modern (windows 7) PC and partition and format. Even if you partitiong to FAT32, once you put the SSD in the laptop MS-DOS doesnt install correctly or won't detect. You must use FDISK, and then FORMAT on your MS-DOS machine itself. Or after running FDISK and setting it up, you can run the DOS 7.1 install since it contains FORMAT built-in.

SYBA 2.5 IDE to dual compact flash drive

**Shown inside Armada 7770DMT caddy

Works awesome. However, only works awesome with Sandisk Ultra II 15mb/s compact flash cards. I only tried with 4GB ones. It should be fine with the 8GB ones. But other brands I tried like DANE-ELEC or TRANSCEND, it did not like/did not detect. So stick to Sandisk cards (older ones) with this IDE to CF adapter. Same applies to above, you MUST do all partitioning and formatting from the MS-DOS computer for it work/detect properly.

THE BAD

Swissbit 8GB SSD

Very finicky, I only got one drive to work in one of my machines, when all the other setups/combos worked in all or none. So I would stay away from those!

That's all the brands I have tried so far. Hope this helps some of you out!! The easiest ones to get a hold of are the SYBA adapters and SANDISK ULTRA II compact flash cards.

BONUS!!!

If you are one of the very few to be rocking a desktop. I have put an SSD in one of those too. I installed a 2.5 inch 32GB Sandisk SATA drive, with a SATA to IDE adaptor. Works great in DOS !!

If anyone else has tried other brands/configurations feel free to let us all know!

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Tokyo, Japan

Carl you are like some kind of MSDOS Batman.

Question, do the Compaq Armada laptops have switchable power supplies? I am having a devil of a time finding one in Japan but I am going to the UK over christmas. I was thinking about picking one up there and bringing it back.

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Planet Zaxxon

Good question, I have no idea about the power supplies! and never came across any information before.

This is all i know:

AC 100/240 V ± 10% ( 50/60 Hz )

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Tokyo, Japan

It looks switchable to me! is that from the power brick? Does it have the output on it?