Question for the older guys... SB16 ISA and DOS mode

I'm trying to set up a retro gaming machine, that uses a Sound Blaster 16. I have it working in Win95, that's the easy part, but I'm stuck on how to configure it for DOS mode. It's a CT2290, one of the sorta-but-not-quite-plug-n-play cards, that doesn't use jumpers but still seems to be considered a non-PnP card.

So I'm confused about what I need to do. I can't just set the jumpers and then pass a SET BLASTER= string, but I'm not sure if I can use the PnP configuration manager like the later cards do, either. I know something needs to run at startup to configure the thing, I'm just not sure what, exactly.

Anybody happen to remember this stuff? I skipped that whole era of cards the first time around, went straight from jumpered non-PnP to PCI, so this is completely foreign to me.

My Soundblaster 1.0 doesn't use any drivers under DOS, and I think the Pro and 16 versions did the same. Make sure there's no IRQ conflicts and use the SET BLASTER bit, and it should 'just work' under DOS.

All the SET BLASTER= does is tell DOS where the sound card is, after the resources have been set. I.e., that string tells DOS to assume there is a sound card at that location, regardless of whether there's actually sound card there or not. You're correct that the early 1.0, Pro and SB16 didn't need any particular drivers, because the resources were fixed to particular values by way of hardware jumpers, but some of the later ones were more like PnP, where all that had to be configured by software before the SET BLASTER would do anything. And unfortunately, mine is one of those later cards.

Old Thrashbarg said:

All the SET BLASTER= does is tell DOS where the sound card is, after the resources have been set. You're correct that the early 1.0, Pro and SB16 didn't need any particular drivers, because the resources were fixed to particular values by way of hardware jumpers, but some of the later ones were more like PnP, where all that had to be configured by software. And unfortunately, mine is one of those later ones.

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Can you throw up a picture of the PCB? There's several different layouts of the same product.. Love their naming scheme

edit: I must be blind, you said CT2290. Doh.

you have to set the variables in autoexec.bat if i remember correctly.

Something to the affect:

SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H7 P330 T6

and then you'll need to load up the DOS drivers "sbinit" and "sbload" as far as I can remember. I do remember that the PNP model I had only needed the varible in the SET BLASTER command to be set in order for games to find and use the hardware...

Yeah, I'm pretty sure it'll just work. If it's some kind of weird hybrid card, you might have to track down ctcm.exe and load it on boot, I could swear it should just work without it though.

OK, back from digging around. Here's the skinny:


Diagnose.exe is contained in the 95/dos archive, and can be grabbed here http://support.creative.com/downloads/download.aspx?nDownloadId=379

Looks like it defaults to IRQ5 and DMA1/5, standard 220h.

edit: If that file right from Creative doesn't work, you can give http://www.urr.ca/dosdrivers/sb16-32-64/ctcmbbs.exe a shot, no guarantees it's virus free of course. I scanned and didn't find anything, YMMV.

OK, got it sorted. Diagnose.exe was what I was missing, but the root of the issue was some conflicts that didn't allow it to run at the default settings. Finally got the right utility, and also got the other stuff worked out so it could work at default anyhow.

Of course, once I got it working, I found that the Goldfinch card I was using along side it had a bad case of teh dead, so I decided to just stick in my AWE64. It ain't ideal, but it'll work alright for now.

Old Thrashbarg said:

OK, got it sorted. Diagnose.exe was what I was missing, but the root of the issue was some conflicts that didn't allow it to run at the default settings. Finally got the right utility, and also got the other stuff worked out so it could work at default anyhow.

Of course, once I got it working, I found that the Goldfinch card I was using along side it had a bad case of teh dead, so I decided to just stick in my AWE64. It ain't ideal, but it'll work alright for now.

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For a vintage gaming machine I'd look real close at http://cgi.ebay.com/Roland-MT-32-So...66:2|39:1|72:1205|240:1318|301:1|293:1|294:50

Last I knew, the LAPC-I's were way too expensive, but that piece is priced to move. All depends what you are gonna play, of course. Lots of older games only had Adlib/MT-32/Tandy 3 voice support. Even ones that support Soundblaster tend to just use it as an Adlib+digital channel.. Running in Roland+digital mode sounds way better in many of them

edit: Can ya/did ya put a thread up somewhere (general hardware?) regarding the rest of the build?

For a vintage gaming machine I'd look real close at

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I've been watching for something like that, but $120 is waaaay more than I'm willing to pay. I remember a couple years ago I could find those MT-32s for $40-50.

Ideally I'd like to have a non-Creative (i.e, better quality) sound card, an MT-32, and an SC-55, or better yet a CM-500. I'll get there eventually, but unfortunately I don't have a local source for such equipment, and eBay sellers seem to be quite proud of their items lately.

As for a build thread, there really isn't much to see at this point. It's an old IBM prebuilt... one of the pre-Aptiva desktop machines, and all I really did was stick a couple cards and drives in it. Maybe I'll post a thread on it once I get the configuration closer to finalized... I still need to dig up a better SCSI card (I know I have one somewhere) and also look for an appropriate era 3D card, perhaps an orignal Voodoo if I can find one.

Old Thrashbarg said:

Ideally I'd like to have a non-Creative (i.e, better quality) sound card, an MT-32, and an SC-55, or better yet a CM-500. I'll get there eventually, but unfortunately I don't have a local source for such equipment, and eBay sellers seem to be quite proud of their items lately.

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http://cgi.ebay.com/Turtle-Beach-Sy...6:4|39:1|72:1234|240:1318|301:0|293:1|294:200 is tempting me at the moment, so cheap yet so nice

edit: Yeesh, not a single GUS on ebay.

Uhhh, I'd be careful with that one, I seem to remember those Multisound cards being an unbelievable PITA to get working with DOS.

I just ran across this and am strongly considering it... a few people over on the Vogons forums have 'em (and got 'em from the same guy), and they're pretty happy with them.

Everything used to be a real PITA, I think I've still an old Monster 2 card and various things laying around this place in boxes, I need to clean stuff out someday hehe.



Still have a couple cheesy torquise Antec cases with various stuff in em, not even sure functional AMD thunderbird's laying about