hardware-level MPU-401PCMCIA?

[BlueMax]

I have an old junker laptop I may consider getting running.  (P-133, 8MB RAM, 800MB HDD)
Any PCMCIA cards that would provide hardware-level MPU-401 on the cheap?

Now that I think of it, since I don't have the power brick for it - it's almost not even worth it, short of the smaller size of the lappy.
Probably best just to send it to recycling and try to get a SFF oldie with a short-neck CRT.

[Ari]

I don't know of any other than maybe the Roland SCP-55 (SC-55mk-II on PCMCIA), but it's probably a bit too much for the laptop to handle.

[Great Hierophant]

I don't know of any other than maybe the Roland SCP-55 (SC-55mk-II on PCMCIA), but it's probably a bit too much for the laptop to handle.

Almost definitely too much for his budget to handle!  However, I don't see why any Laptop with a Type II PCMICA slot would have difficulty with the SCP-55. 

[Ari]

Perhaps you're right. I thought the SCP-55 only worked on win95 and up systems, and a laptop with 8MB RAM seems to be a little too little to handle win95.

[jbltecnicspro]

I have an old junker laptop I may consider getting running.  (P-133, 8MB RAM, 800MB HDD)
Any PCMCIA cards that would provide hardware-level MPU-401 on the cheap?

Now that I think of it, since I don't have the power brick for it - it's almost not even worth it, short of the smaller size of the lappy.
Probably best just to send it to recycling and try to get a SFF oldie with a short-neck CRT.

Wow, that's an odd memory configuration there.  Did it come with 8 MB of RAM?  If so, wow....  My 486SX 33Mhz came with 4MB of RAM, upgraded to 12MB later.    The good ole days...

[BlueMax]

It might have been upgraded, I won't know until I can turn it on.  No AC adapter, and it's not worth me spending $20-50 to get one on this old junker.  Forget I even asked. 

[BlueMax]

Just for laughs, I started opening panels on the bottom.

I found it was upgraded with a pair of 16MB modules for 40MB total.  Still win95 at best, there. 

But the real find was that it's got a 20GB Hitachi hard drive!  That's worth getting an external drive casing to carry around!  The rest of the drive is junk.  Doubt even the RAM is worth keeping, but it's small so I will. 

[glendower]

http://portland.wweek.com/buyselltrade/classifieds/ViewAd?oid=oid%3A337620&name=electronics

FWIW

I ran Win95 with 8MB of ram on my P60 *briefly*... it was brutal but it worked.

[Ari]

wouldn't it be cool if the card actually worked with modern laptops, and not just Win95/98? 
You'd think the price would go down a little by now seeing how most people upgrade to XP or higher.

[Galahad]

Don't mean to steal the thread here or anything, but does anyone know if the SCP-55 is based on the original SC-55, or the SC-55mkII?  At one point I was thinking of acquiring an SCP-55 at some point in the future, as it would make a great portable MIDI solution for use with a laptop.  Although if the SCP-55 is based on the SC-55mkII, I guess getting one will not be a viable option for me, as I have classic games that will not play MIDI correctly under SC-55mkII.

http://portland.wweek.com/buyselltrade/classifieds/ViewAd?oid=oid%3A337620&name=electronics

FWIW

I ran Win95 with 8MB of ram on my P60 *briefly*... it was brutal but it worked.

[Great Hierophant]

I have classic games that will not play MIDI correctly under SC-55mkII.

Would you be willing to identify those games?  Will they only play properly in an SC-55?

[Cloudschatze]

...I have classic games that will not play MIDI correctly under SC-55mkII.

If you're referring to anything relating to the capital-tone fallback, then, I hate to break it to you, but they're not playing correctly with the SC-55/CM-500 either; you're just hearing a substituted tone rather than silence.

[Great Hierophant]

...I have classic games that will not play MIDI correctly under SC-55mkII.

If you're referring to anything relating to the capital-tone fallback, then, I hate to break it to you, but they're not playing correctly with the SC-55/CM-500 either; you're just hearing a substituted tone rather than silence.

Unless the sound being used fell within the sound effects area of the patch table, at least with the capital-tone fallback you will hear something close to what the composer intended, which is always better than silence. 

[Galahad]

One of my fav games where this is the case is Forgotten Realms Unlimited Adventures, aka as FRUA or UA for short, which I still play a lot to this day because of its extensive fan-based contributions and user community  Released in 1993 by SSI, it's basically the Gold Box game engine, a CRPG creation kit that ships with one default adventure and provides a GUI interface for you to create additional adventures, or modules -- the user community has created up to about 500 or more freely-available games for it so far today. 

AFAIK, it was originally intended to work with MT-32 MIDI due to the earlier Gold Box games that preceded it dating back to 1991 and also if you look at the info page for it on mobygames.  However, later fan-based modules and add-ons used some music that must have been SC-55 based, but other mods must have used other synths, because if you play UA with a SC-55mkII, some modules will have a lot of instruments whose sound you won't hear at all.  I know this because I tested it on my SCB-55 + MPU-401/AT, which as Cloud kindly pointed out in another post, is due to the fact that the SCB-55 is based on the SC-55mkII, whereas I can hear everything with both my CM-500 as well as the Microsoft GS softsynth.

--Galahad

I have classic games that will not play MIDI correctly under SC-55mkII.

Would you be willing to identify those games?  Will they only play properly in an SC-55?

[Galahad]

If you're referring to anything relating to the capital-tone fallback, then, I hate to break it to you, but they're not playing correctly with the SC-55/CM-500 either; you're just hearing a substituted tone rather than silence.

Yes Cloud's right here, I stand corrected -- sorry if my original post sounded imprecise or misdirected.  Since a lot of the fan-created UA modules play all of the instruments on my SCB-55 but not on others, I can only theorize that some modules were created using SC-55 based MIDI while others used MIDI created on other synths perhaps like the Yamaha, which would explain the absence of sound on the SCB-55.  In any case, the only way I was able to get all the intruments to play was to use my CM-500 which as Cloud mentioned at least can play the capital tones.

[Galahad]

Unless the sound being used fell within the sound effects area of the patch table, at least with the capital-tone fallback you will hear something close to what the composer intended, which is always better than silence. 

Definitely agreed, which is why I prefer to use the CM-500 when I play FRUA modules so that I can hear all the instruments represented, both GM- and MT-32 -based   

[Galahad]

Well I think after reading online that I saw the SCP-55 has 354 voices, which I assume would indicate it shares the SC-55mkII heritage.  Although not too great a loss though, since I could always use the Microsoft GS softsynth with FRUA.