News Legendary Sound Blaster ISA sound card gets a driver update 30 years later — patch squashes first bug report after 25 years

[Admin]

Creative Sound Blaster AWE32 fixes arrive for the Linux 6.16-rc3 kernel.

Legendary Sound Blaster ISA sound card gets a driver update 30 years later — patch squashes first bug report after 25 years : Read more

 

[bit_user]

A quick check reveals that, in the consumer space, ISA slot-equipped motherboards were last seen in the LGA775 socket era (approx 20 years ago).

And you'd want a board that supported ISA DMA, which apparently not all of the PCI-ISA bridges did. You can just forget about using PCIe-ISA bridges, since PCIe doesn't support port-based addressing.

TL;DR: the best bet is to at least stick with a sound card that's PCI-based.

 

[Ogotai]

i have one of these sb cards...

 

[bit_user]

i have one of these sb cards...

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[JeffreyP55]

So missed are the days of user configured IRQ's and ports. I'm lying!

 

[Amdlova]

@bit_user Some people pay lots of money of that museum...

old IRQ's times

 

[palladin9479]

Wow I actually have one of those in my retro rig a few feet from me. It's running Windows98SE but mostly it boots into DOS for those 90's era DOS games.

 

[TerryLaze]

And you'd want a board that supported ISA DMA, which apparently not all of the PCI-ISA bridges did. You can just forget about using PCIe-ISA bridges, since PCIe doesn't support port-based addressing.

TL;DR: the best bet is to at least stick with a sound card that's PCI-based.

Well, ackchyually.
TPM basically has ISA on it so there are newer boards that you can jury rig to support ISA.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=putHMSzu5og

 

[SirStephenH]

While it's nice to keep support going for ancient hardware, it adds unnecessary bloat to modern OSes for the benefit of only a handful of devices still in use.

 

[palladin9479]

While it's nice to keep support going for ancient hardware, it adds unnecessary bloat to modern OSes for the benefit of only a handful of devices still in use.

It's for retro gaming / setups. There is now a very large community of people who grew up with 80's and 90's era computers and want to reexperience those games on original hardware. Emulation really can only do basic stuff, that era was dominated with hardware specific feature implementations that games used directly instead of going through some sort of intermediary driver or library, the only way to get an authentic feel is to actually have the real hardware present.

That rig I mentioned earlier, it's full specs are

CPU: AMD K6/2+ 450

MB: ASUS P5A
https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/asus-p5a

Memory: 256MB PC-100 SDRAM
GPU: nVidia GF4 440MX AGP
https://theretroweb.com/expansioncards/s/nvidia-geforce4-mx440-8x-64mb

NIC: Intel Pro100

Sound Cards
Creative Labs Sound Blaster AWE64 value (AWE32 with 512kb memory soldiered on)
https://theretroweb.com/expansioncards/s/creative-soundblaster-awe64-value-ct4520

Yamaha YMF715E + X2GS SE Wavetable daughterboard
https://www.vogons.org/download/file.php?id=217480&mode=view

X2GS SE

X2GS Second Edition. Waveblaster compatible soundcard supporting 2 soundbanks : 1 user bank, and 1 preloaded X2GS bank. The preloaded X2GS bank is officially licensed, perfect for DOS gaming.

www.serdashop.com

The AWE64 gives me real Sound Blaster 16 and AWE32 compatibility for games that use it. The Yamaha gives me a real OPL3SAX which is an absolute godsend for FM synth in older games along with a real MPU401 MIDI interface with a 26-bit waveblaster daughter board connector. I plugged in a daughterboard that has the original Roland Sound Canvas 55 ROM sets on it.

A linux kernel patch to fix a long standing DMA hanging note bug on the AWE32/64 models isn't that big a deal when that card is still used in so many retro rigs. Mine has Win98SE loaded onto it because I want real DOS but I can totally see someone using linux instead and then dosbox or other dos emulation software while passing through the sound to a real era specific sound card.

 

[MisterZ]

Why is it so big (long)?

 

[Ogotai]

​

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nope... its in a box, with a bunch of old hardware i have, including 2 12 meg voodoo 2s and a matrox g200, k6 2 and k6 3. i also have a slot a k7 😊😊😊

 

[bit_user]

While it's nice to keep support going for ancient hardware, it adds unnecessary bloat to modern OSes for the benefit of only a handful of devices still in use.

Linux device drivers are modularized and not loaded when not needed. Furthermore, you don't even have to build or ship any that you don't want.

As Terry pointed out, all the support needed at the ISA bus level has to be there for other reasons, so it's not dragging with it a ton of infrastructure that nothing else would need.

The Linux policy is generally just that all drivers need to have an active maintainer. As long as that requirement is met, then the driver can stick around.

 

[bit_user]

Why is it so big (long)?

Here's a high-res pic from Wikipedia:

Creative Sound Blaster AWE32 PNP CT3990
​

Compare that with a Sound Blaster 16 Value Edition:

SB16-CT2940
​

You can see it has fewer analog connectors and a few components missing from the analog section. The WaveBlaster header is still there, as is the ports to receive audio from a CD-ROM drive, but the CD-ROM controller is missing (but you can see where it would go - look for the missing header labeled IDE Interface - and what support chips were needed for it).

The SB16 Value Edition also lacked wavetable synthesis, which is what the AWE32 used that EMU8000 chip for. A few support chips went along with it (ROM, DRAM?) and the SIMM slots, which could hold additional wavetable samples.

That leaves two "Creative"-labeled ASICs I don't have a guess for. Maybe, if we compared the feature list of the two cards, it would be more readily apparent.

 

[cuvtixo]

Linux device drivers are modularized and not loaded when not needed. Furthermore, you don't even have to build or ship any that you don't want.

As Terry pointed out, all the support needed at the ISA bus level has to be there for other reasons, so it's not dragging with it a ton of infrastructure that nothing else would need.

The Linux policy is generally just that all drivers need to have an active maintainer. As long as that requirement is met, then the driver can stick around.

This is a wonderful answer to a question, unfortunately the commentor stated as a fact - that it "contributes to bloat", confidently giving an expert opinion on a subject he obviously doesn't know much about. smh

 

[palladin9479]

Why is it so big (long)?

Sound card used to be that way because of all the dedicated processing chips. Modern implementations use the CPU to do that work instead.

 

[cuvtixo]

TL;DR: the best bet is to at least stick with a sound card that's PCI-based.

I wouldn't be in the market for buying this card if I didn't also have, or are also shopping for, a board that I know can support it. Caveat emptor to those who don't do their research.

 

[Amdlova]

BIG ALWAYS BETTER! When as kid Got Awe16 awe32 and 64 gold... But always have more bass on awe32 have nice Bass playing F22 paired with 10" speakers

 

[bit_user]

I wouldn't be in the market for buying this card if I didn't also have, or are also shopping for, a board that I know can support it. Caveat emptor to those who don't do their research.

The video @TerryLaze linked in post #8 looks quite intriguing. I only skimmed the transcript, but it seems promising. You might give that a look, if you're not already familiar with what it covers.