DOS ain't dead

Hi,
as I wrote about my new MB Commell P4LA, I tried various drivers and 3 different ISA cards but nothing really works. Card is detected but no sound or system hangs. I mailed with Commel tech. support and here's a short and clear reply:

> Currently I have problem with running ISA soundcard under DOS. I have
> ESS1868 ISA PnP card fully SB Pro compatible (it worked fine in
> PIII-iBX440 mobo with ISA slot). When I run the ESS configuration utility
> it successfully recognize it and set proper IO, DMA, IRQ but I cannot hear
> sound. All programs hangs when playback should start or don't recognize
> soudcard. It seems that I/O ports decoding works fine because I can set
> mixer options and other things in DSP. But maybe problem in IRQ/DMA.
> What I tried:
> a) use various DMA 0,1,3 and IRQs 5,7
> b) set IRQ 5/7 to be reserved for legacy card in SETUP/Plug&Play options
> (to prevent other PCI devices use this IRQ)
> c) disable APIC
> d) disable ACPI
> e) under Windows98 works only sound from windows apps not from DOS apps
> f) I tried original Creative SoundBlaster AWE64 ISA but with same result
> (driver initialization OK but hangs/no sound)
>
> What I should set in SETUP for maximum ISA compatability? Or do I need
> some special tool for initialization the PCI/ISA bridge? Is the onboard
> ISA really fully compatible or it have restrictions to DMA/IRQ signals?

(5) Intel's chipset no more support ISA DMA Mode.
therefore some ISA Card will not be support.

I googled and must agree they are true accrding to this intel document:
http://www.intel.com/design/intarch/papers/318244.pdf
It tells some important signal releated to ISA DMA has been removed on ICH6 and later so it's impossible to fully connect the bridge to support ISA DMA.
But I was not warned about it, it's not written in manual and specs. this is ommited. So take it as warning from my mistake. The latest working mobos should be some i845/865 with ICH5 and ISA bridges.

I don't know if there may be some workaroud to route ISA DMA somewhere like on LPC or IDE DMA...

---
DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.

> (5) Intel's chipset no more support ISA DMA Mode.
> therefore some ISA Card will not be support.

Sad but not surprising PCI card drivers for new development, QEMU+HX for old games

---
This is a LOGITECH mouse driver, but some software expect here
the following string:*** This is Copyright 1983 Microsoft ***

> > (5) Intel's chipset no more support ISA DMA Mode.
> > therefore some ISA Card will not be support.
>
> Sad but not surprising PCI card drivers for new development, QEMU+HX
> for old games

I liked intel's chipset for quality, compatability and open documentation but now intel goes hardly against legacy HW. They dropped signals for ISA DMA since ICH5, PATA since ICH8 and as I read about newly developed ICH10 it should drop kbd/mouse PS/2 ports and floppy drive controller. Super IO chips now dropping LPT and COM ports. So then we will have complette legacy peripherals free PC. Shall we celebrate it with many other windows users? :\

---
DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.

> ...now intel goes hardly against legacy HW. They dropped signals for ISA
> DMA since ICH5, PATA since ICH8 and as I read about newly developed ICH10
> it should drop kbd/mouse PS/2 ports and floppy drive controller. Super IO
> chips now dropping LPT and COM ports. So then we will have complette
> legacy peripherals free PC. Shall we celebrate it with many other windows
> users? :\

Even Windows users have no reason to celebrate. COM devices and LPT-only printers will be junk, sometimes requiring lots of money to replace. It could be cheaper to buy extra MBs now, and stay running for years to come.

> Shall we celebrate

NO. Don't throw away working "obsolete" hardware stuff because of faulty "reasons" like "supports only 2 cores, nowadays 4 is minimum"

---
This is a LOGITECH mouse driver, but some software expect here
the following string:*** This is Copyright 1983 Microsoft ***

> DMA since ICH5, PATA since ICH8 and as I read about newly developed ICH10
> it should drop kbd/mouse PS/2 ports and floppy drive controller. Super IO

I already heard about Intel to remove PS/2 ports in the past, but it could be a "big" problem: Some weeks ago I bought a server equipped with an Intel S5000PAL board. Connecting a USB keyboard and installing Windows Server 2003 gives sometimes "i8042prt" errors. Intel's recommendation: Use a PS/2 keyboard!

---
Forum admin

> I already heard about Intel to remove PS/2 ports in the past, but it could
> be a "big" problem: Some weeks ago I bought a server equipped with an Intel
> S5000PAL board. Connecting a USB keyboard and installing Windows Server
> 2003 gives sometimes "i8042prt" errors.
> Intel's
> recommendation: Use a PS/2 keyboard!

Hm, some bugs in USB KBD legacy BIOS support. BTW also some other DOS SW doesn't sometimes like this - if I remember I got this issue with UniFlash which hanged when USB emu was enabled.

---
DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.