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midi playback on the XT?

S

sqpat

Experienced Member
Joined
Mar 21, 2009
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168
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Seattle, WA
I recently got my PC-XT to boot IBM-DOS 3.3 from disk and have started the process of getting some drivers for my ISA cards. One of them is a sound blaster pro 2.0 on my XT. I installed a pair of disks with a bunch of drivers and software. One of the biggest things I wanted to do was have MIDI playback. One program included in the install was PLAYMIDI. The SBMIDI driver, when run, crashes my computer though. The /2 and /3 options which enable external midi playback are fine, but the default option fails. Is there any low end midi player or drivers i can use to get midis playing, or has anyone else had similar issues and gotten past sbmidi not working on an XT?
 
sqpat said:
I recently got my PC-XT to boot IBM-DOS 3.3 from disk and have started the process of getting some drivers for my ISA cards. One of them is a sound blaster pro 2.0 on my XT. I installed a pair of disks with a bunch of drivers and software. One of the biggest things I wanted to do was have MIDI playback. One program included in the install was PLAYMIDI. The SBMIDI driver, when run, crashes my computer though. The /2 and /3 options which enable external midi playback are fine, but the default option fails. Is there any low end midi player or drivers i can use to get midis playing, or has anyone else had similar issues and gotten past sbmidi not working on an XT?
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I've wondered about that myself. I got the same card, it works in an 8-bit bus, but it seems like the drivers are written for 286+. I would also be happy if anybody found a midiplayer that'll work in an XT.
 
all the other drivers and software seems to work, though, including playcmf. Not only that, but i tried an sb/sb2 midi driver and it froze in the same way.
 
Only remotely on-topic, but worth mentioning nonetheless.

Before sound cards with MIDI/joystick ports for the PC came out, one popular approach was to take a IBM serial card (with current-loop drivers) and change out the crystal and a couple of resistors to get MIDI service. I don't know if there are any drivers still available for that, however.
 
The old Adlib cards are 8-bit. I haven't tried one on a XT yet, but I tested mine on a 286 with no problems. I currently use it in a 486.
 
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