On Fri, 13 Jul 2001, Pedro Quaresma wrote:
[snip]
> And a bit more off topic, how easy would it be to get my hands on one of
> them? How much would I have to expect to pay for one and sorse still, what
> could I do with it on a modern rig? :)
Concerning the LAPC-1, I'll tell you what I know ...
It shows up on eBay approximately once every six weeks. Expect to pay
$80-120 (depending on how much of the package you get; I didn't get any
manuals or anything else with my card, so I was at the bottom of the
range).
It might very well fail to function on a modern computer -- the guy who
sold it to me tells me that timing issues (similar to the AdLib issues
someone else talked about) cause it to fail on anything faster than
approximately 300 MHz. (I'm just passing this information on, so I don't
know how accurate it is.)
The LAPC-1 is GIGANTIC (it's a good 40cm or so -- that's a very rough
estimate since I don't have it with me now). You need a LOT of space to
fit it in -- it probably won't fit at all in a modern computer unless it's
a big one. It's as big as the long cards that went in the original IBM
(if you've seen one of these). It actually touches the other side of my
486 (where there are fortunately slots that hold it in plaace). It has a
raised bottom, so it fits over the 486 CPU without touching it.
I was aware of some of these issues before I got it, so I decided to put
it in the 486.
If you get it, be sure to get the "Reset" utility out there. Some games
reprogram the card and then don't bother to restore it to default when you
finish the game, so that any subsequent game is going to be screwed up
until you restore the original settings. Normally you have to reboot, but
this handy utility makes things faster.
Not *all* games sound better with an LAPC-1; a few are designed to sound
better on the much more common Sound Blaster. Wizardry VII is a good
example of this (especially since Wiz VII forces to use one card for music
and sound effects, I think) -- it relies almost exclusively on brass
instruments that FM does a passable job of imitating.
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