ZVG Multi Vector computer and the sound card

Radford119

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Donor 2011, 2023
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For the last 2 weeks I have come home every night after work and tried to get multiple PCI sound cards to work in pure DOS on my IBM NetVista with no luck. I tried multiple models and configurations and every time I thought I was getting close, I failed. Really frustrating.

Well today I picked up another computer, this time a Gateway Essential 500 from a guy on CL. I hooked it up, setup my autoexec.bat and config.sys files, then tested a Creative CT5803 card for the first time. And just like that, it worked perfectly!

I will post some notes on the current setup and the sound cards I tried previously. This has been an absolute pain staking process and I am glad this part is over. I want to give a shout out to PinsAndVids on YouTube (awarner on here) for getting me started with his ZVG video series. Without him, I would probably still be in the dark.

Time for a beer.
 
Nice, I went down the same route as you until I got rid of my modern PC motherboard for one that was a few years old.

I've just got myself an empty Gravitar cab, so my ZVG project is now in full swing.

Have you checked out awarner thread on ZVG? Very useful indeed.
 
Thanks for the kind words folks. It was a fun series to do. I'm glad it's still helping people. I know how strange it was for me to be working in DOS again; I can't imagine how difficult it would be for someone coming in new.

Those Old Gateways make excellent ZVG computers. I know I have a "Spare" waiting in case of problems.
 
Those Old Gateways make excellent ZVG computers. I know I have a "Spare" waiting in case of problems.

Don't know if it matters, but one thing I noticed immediately was that I had more control over the IRQ's in the Gateway BIOS vs the IBM NetVista BIOS.
 
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