Micom 2000
January 28th, 2008, 09:40 PM
I recently picked up an HP Omnibook 4000 LT. According to the specs it has an ESS soundcard installed, but the Bios Setup doesn't respond to any indication of a sound card altho it has provisions to do so.
An HP diagnostic program responds in the sound check with a melodius sound and the multitude of DOS games on it happily give all sorts of synthesized sounds, whether configured for ad-lib or soundblaster. I haven't been able to find any sort of ESS sound driver for it. It has Win4WGs installed on it. It won't play any sound-extension file however.
It's been some time since I configured a DOS system for a sound-card, usually following the instructions of what to add to the "autoexec" file. In the autoexec.bat and config.sys there is no reference to a sound card. Could it simply be missing some entry to enable it ? These plug-n-play systems really spoil you with their mindless installs.
SB= IRQ X and some other format options tweak my mind. Likely on the HP/ESS install driver if I could one.
I found it fun to rediscover how to use the DOS games, many of which pushed the free DOS memory to it's limits, some even using EXT memory. I had to check my books to recall the various methods to maximise lower memory. "Smart drive" was an obvious casualty. A big change from the present voluminous extended memory of Point'nClick.
I'll likely be installing Win95 on it once I rescue, by removing, the DOS games since it only has a 250M HD on it and hopefully it will recognise the sound card as well as a PCMCIA modem which it ignores since "card services and sockets" isn't installed.
Lawrence
An HP diagnostic program responds in the sound check with a melodius sound and the multitude of DOS games on it happily give all sorts of synthesized sounds, whether configured for ad-lib or soundblaster. I haven't been able to find any sort of ESS sound driver for it. It has Win4WGs installed on it. It won't play any sound-extension file however.
It's been some time since I configured a DOS system for a sound-card, usually following the instructions of what to add to the "autoexec" file. In the autoexec.bat and config.sys there is no reference to a sound card. Could it simply be missing some entry to enable it ? These plug-n-play systems really spoil you with their mindless installs.
SB= IRQ X and some other format options tweak my mind. Likely on the HP/ESS install driver if I could one.
I found it fun to rediscover how to use the DOS games, many of which pushed the free DOS memory to it's limits, some even using EXT memory. I had to check my books to recall the various methods to maximise lower memory. "Smart drive" was an obvious casualty. A big change from the present voluminous extended memory of Point'nClick.
I'll likely be installing Win95 on it once I rescue, by removing, the DOS games since it only has a 250M HD on it and hopefully it will recognise the sound card as well as a PCMCIA modem which it ignores since "card services and sockets" isn't installed.
Lawrence