Mail Archives: djgpp/1999/09/06/18:25:22
Shawn Hargreaves <ShawnH AT Probe DOT co DOT uk> wrote in message
news:8D53104ECD0CD211AF4000A0C9D60AE30162E5EC AT probe-2 DOT acclaim-euro DOT net...
> Alan McFarlane writes:
> > I recently purchased a SoundBlaster PCI64v sound card which is
> > (imho) crap!
> >
> > It works (ish) under Windows, although I continually have to
> > readjust the volume controls... It works under Dos for some
> > games - although the sound quality if you are running in a Dos
> > box is terrible... I havn't tried it under Linux yet - need to
> > get round to downloading RedHat 6... It works under Allegro
> > only if I am running in a Dos box with inevitable problems -
> > poor quality, and timer resolution...
>
> Yeah, soundcards suck. They have always sucked to some extent, mostly
> because everyone was just copying the original SB design which isn't
> really all that good, but these days things are getting a lot worse
> because people are finally moving on from the SB system, but haven't
> replaced it with any other good standards. This is no problem if you
> are running under Windows, because the hardware manufacturers provide
> Windows drivers for everything they make, but if you prefer to use
> some alternative OS, you are pretty much stuck with no drivers, no
> specs, and no hope of rescue.
Maybe if there were a standard like "UniSBE" or something,
it would make things a #### of a lot easier.
> (and before someone leaps to suggest this, no, you
> cannot realistically use Windows drivers from a DOS
> program. Write a Windows program if you want to do that.
With RSXNTDJ? With MinGWin32? Or with half a grand
and Visual Studio? What's the Windows tool du jour?
> Or provide some working code to prove me wrong, but it gets
> very boring when people keep suggesting this idea but without
> having any idea how to actually go about implementing it).
>8 (scissors applied here)
> > A. Purchase an original (and genuine) SoundBlaster Pro 2.
> > B. Complain bitterly to Creative Labs about not giving Shawn the tech
ref.
> > C. Give up computers altogether and become a lawyer <g>
No. Then you'll have to lie a lot, and you know what happened to
Pinocchio. You'll deal with shareware authors who take an
unpatented idea (falling tetrominoes) and implement it (the so-
called Tetris clones), and your superiors expect you to sue them.
You would have no case:
http://www.rose-hulman.edu/~yerricde/cloning.html
> (A) looks like a pretty good choice to me, if you can find such a thing.
So how do you expect our audience to find such a thing?
And how will it fit on our whiz-bang, PCI motherboards?
Damian Yerrick
http://come.to/yerrick
and download DOSArena. It's more than just a Tetris clone.
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