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Sound blaster pro ii & cdrom on a xt

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genocho

Experienced Member
Joined
Jan 14, 2008
Messages
63
Hi,

I know is possible to use a SOUND BLASTER PRO II (ct 1660) on a pc xt with isa 8 bits slot.

But the question is, Is possible to use a creative cdrom with the proper drivers???

I know this is possible with the first sound blaster pro I, so I asume with sound blaster pro II runs to.

Any info about that, if anyone can confirm it is another way to use cdrom in a xt.


Regards.
 
Yes, it should work. The 16-bit section of the card only contains a few lines which can optionally be enabled in 16-bit ISA slots. There were doubts as to whether or not this card would work in an XT, but I am familiar with at least two people in this forum who tried it and reported good results. I have this card installed in my XT as well, but I'm not using the proprietary interface for my CD-ROM drive.

Now the real question is: why would you want to do this? A great majority of the drives that connect to proprietary interface are not able to read CD-Rs or CD-RWs, limiting you to a selection of software that mostly requires 386 or faster. If you are serious about using CD-R media, you'll want to do a SCSI or parallel port configuration instead.
 
genocho said:
I know is possible to use a SOUND BLASTER PRO II (ct 1660) on a pc xt with isa 8 bits slot.

But the question is, Is possible to use a creative cdrom with the proper drivers???
Click to expand...

No, because the extra lines in the SBPro are for the CDROM interface.

Your best bed for a CDROM in an XT is a SCSI CDROM + SCSI card.
 
genocho said:
Hi,

I know is possible to use a SOUND BLASTER PRO II (ct 1660) on a pc xt with isa 8 bits slot.

But the question is, Is possible to use a creative cdrom with the proper drivers???

I know this is possible with the first sound blaster pro I, so I asume with sound blaster pro II runs to.

Any info about that, if anyone can confirm it is another way to use cdrom in a xt.


Regards.
Click to expand...

it worked in mine. i used my old SBpro2(my first sound card ever) and the 2x CD-drive i got with it. i forget exactly which driver i used though, sorry. it was a long time ago.


EDIT: maybe trixter is right and i have it confused with my old 286. like i said, this was ages ago.
 
Not that it really matters, but per the CT 1600 SB Pro manual mininum system requirements are 80286.
It never hurts to experiment though.
 
No, I'm pretty sure we've had this conversation before. I also thought that the 16-bit section of the card was for the CD-ROM interface, but as it turns out it is only necessary for using high DMA (optional) and possibly a high IRQ for the CD-ROM interface (also optional). I am pretty sure the guy "MadMike" on this board runs SBPro 2.0 with Matsushita CR-563B drive. Anyway, despite what the manual says the SBPro 2.0 does indeed work in an XT, as I've been running one in mine for quite a while now. I have a a CR-563B drive that is not currently installed in my XT (I use SCSI), but now you guys have me all confused so I'll have to try running it in my XT to verify.
 
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i need to find my card, i ALWAYS lose that one for some reason! i need to give that a shot myself. more mass storage @ 8088 = win.
 
Anonymous Coward said:
No, I'm pretty sure we've had this conversation before. I also thought that the 16-bit section of the card was for the CD-ROM interface, but as it turns out it is only necessary for using high DMA (optional) and possibly a high IRQ for the CD-ROM interface (also optional). I am pretty sure the guy "MadMike" on this board runs SBPro 2.0 with Matsushita CR-563B drive. Anyway, despite what the manual says the SBPro 2.0 does indeed work in an XT, as I've been running one in mine for quite a while now. I have a a CR-563B drive that is not currently installed in my XT (I use SCSI), but now you guys have me all confused so I'll have to try running it in my XT to verify.
Click to expand...

I'm sure you're confused because the SBPro doesn't support high DMA or IRQs.

Let us know what your results are. I could test in mine, I guess, but I'm reluctant to open it up since the desk its on is cluttered and it has been working so well for years...
 
You're right. The SBPro does not use high DMAs.

however, I took a look at my card and examined the pins on the 16-bit portion of the connector. Only the following five are used:

D3 - IRQ 10
D8 - DMA ackknowledge 0
D9 - DMA Request 0
D16 - +5V
D18 - Ground

Configuration for DMA0 and IRQ10 can be set optionally by jumpers on the card. If you don't set the card to use them, those lines are not used. The reason DMA0 is located on the 16-bit portion of the connector is that in XTs DMA0 is used by something else and is not available, but this is not true of ATs. I highly doubt the 5V and GND are required either...I think it's just common practice to connect all the power lines on the bus. I'll put the CR-563B in my XT on the SBpro and let you know the results, but I see no reason why it wouldn't work.
 
I hooked the drive up in my XT and the system locked up immediately after loading the driver. I am using the SBPro 2.0 driver (I think), so I'm going to try to SBPro 1.0 driver before I call it quits.
 
Anonymous Coward said:
I hooked the drive up in my XT and the system locked up immediately after loading the driver. I am using the SBPro 2.0 driver (I think), so I'm going to try to SBPro 1.0 driver before I call it quits.
Click to expand...

thanks for the update. let us know what happens with the 1.0 driver!
 
thanks modem7 - now i need to dig through my boxes of junk and find my SB pro v2 card and 2x cd-rom! that would make ideal mass/fast storage for my 8088 web server. if it reads CD-R's! :eek:
 
I just wanted to point out that the zip file posted does not include any files for the CD-ROM drive. But...

The good news is that I got the Matsushita CR-563B drive going in my XT using the SB Pro 2.0 adapter. However, it wasn't trivial. The drivers supplied from Creative Labs for whatever reason do not work with this drive. I tried versions 2.0 and 4.22. Driver version 4.22 just locked up the machine, and version 2.0 didn't recognise the drive at all.

What I had to do is locate the Matsushita supplied driver, CDMKE.sys version 4.1. That one worked just fine. In addition to the MSCDEX line in your autoexec.bat, be sure to include the following line in your config.sys like this:

DEVICE=C:\CDMKE.SYS /D:MSCD001 /P:220 /S: D

Where P is the port number, and S is the drive speed S = Single, D = Double, A = Automatic. Don't leave a space in between the colon and the drive speed, I just did that because it turns into a smiley face.
 

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Anonymous Coward said:
I just wanted to point out that the zip file posted does not include any files for the CD-ROM drive. But...

The good news is that I got the Matsushita CR-563B drive going in my XT using the SB Pro 2.0 adapter. However, it wasn't trivial. The drivers supplied from Creative Labs for whatever reason do not work with this drive. I tried versions 2.0 and 4.22. Driver version 4.22 just locked up the machine, and version 2.0 didn't recognise the drive at all.

What I had to do is locate the Matsushita supplied driver, CDMKE.sys version 4.1. That one worked just fine. In addition to the MSCDEX line in your autoexec.bat, be sure to include the following line in your config.sys like this:

DEVICE=C:\CDMKE.SYS /D:MSCD001 /P:220 /S: D

Where P is the port number, and S is the drive speed S = Single, D = Double, A = Automatic. Don't leave a space in between the colon and the drive speed, I just did that because it turns into a smiley face.
Click to expand...

AWESOME! i wish i could find my sbpro... this sucks. i saw it just a couple months ago. used it, in fact.
 
Anonymous Coward said:
The good news is that I got the Matsushita CR-563B drive going in my XT using the SB Pro 2.0 adapter. However, it wasn't trivial. The drivers supplied from Creative Labs for whatever reason do not work with this drive. I tried versions 2.0 and 4.22. Driver version 4.22 just locked up the machine, and version 2.0 didn't recognise the drive at all.
Click to expand...

I have that same CDROM drive (CR-563-B) and I have a SB Pro 2. When combined in a Pentium using version 4.20 of SBCD.SYS and version 2.25 of MSCDEX, the CDROM drive works.

CONFIG.SYS: DEVICE=C:\SB16\DRV\SBCD.SYS /D:MSCD001 /P:220
AUTOEXEC.BAT: MSCDEX.EXE /S /D:MSCD001 /V /M:15

I don't plan to try the drive/card in an XT (mainly because you've found a solution).

Maybe the Creative Labs drivers require a 286 or better.
 
Interesting results, my problem is that i´m trying to make work an
matshushita cr-581-m instead cr-563-b model. I think cr-581-m quad speed model is not compatible with sound blaster pro 2..........

When I plug the cr-581 to the ide port with a normal ide cable, the soundblaster environment says at nothing detected........

Can anyone test soundblaster pro 2 with cr-581-m quad speed cdrom drive ???

Regards.
 
genocho said:
Interesting results, my problem is that i´m trying to make work an
matshushita cr-581-m instead cr-563-b model. I think cr-581-m quad speed model is not compatible with sound blaster pro 2..........

When I plug the cr-581 to the ide port with a normal ide cable, the soundblaster environment says at nothing detected........

Can anyone test soundblaster pro 2 with cr-581-m quad speed cdrom drive ???

Regards.
Click to expand...

yep that won't work. it's not an IDE interface at all. it's a totally proprietary creative/panasonic invention.
 
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