SOUND BOARDS: REVEAL
Various Boards
- Phone:
- N/A (out of business)
- Fax:
- N/A (out of business)
- BBS:
- N/A (out of business) -- but 818-762-9894 reportedly works for getting
files and possibly third-party support.
- e-mail:
- N/A (out of business)
- Web:
- N/A (out of business) -- but
http://www.vobis.de/bbs/firmen/reveal has drivers for most or all
Reveal products, and http://www.execpc.com/~ellingsj/
and
http://www.netmobile.com/reveal/reveal1.htm have Reveal information.
The latest reports I've received (as of 10/19/96) indicate that Reveal
has finally gone out of business, but they've risen from oblivion (well,
a planned takeover by Creative Labs) once before, so this may not be a
permanent state. In any event, there are certainly a lot of legacy Reveal
boards out there, and some may still be available in stores or on the used
market. Be aware that Reveal played games with product
names; they might completely change a product without changing the packaging,
only altering a revision number which wasn't printed on the box. Thus,
exercise some caution when purchasing a Reveal product. In fact, because
Reveal has gone under, I'd advise against buying any Reveal product at
the moment, unless you find an irresistable price -- and then only on
something with firmer OS/2 support (e.g., InterWave-based board).
Apparently some of the former Reveal tech support people have formed a
company devoted to providing support for various computer products, including
Reveal products. They're maintaining the above BBS number, and hope to have
an ftp site up eventually.
SC400 ("SoundFX"), rev. 2:
- Type:
- FM synthesis
- Chipset:
- Aztech (?)
- CD-ROM:
- ??
- Street price:
- Discontinued (?)
- OS/2 Drivers:
- Available, but may be unreliable
- Drivers from:
- BBS, OS/2 ftp: revsc4r2.zip; ftp.aimnet.com, /pub/users/aztech,
http://www.vobis.de/bbs/firmen/reveal
- Comments:
- This board appears to be a close cousin or identical to an
Aztech design. I've received conflicting reports on whether the
revsc4r2.zip driver works correctly (the readme indicates that it's
a beta-level driver for OS/2 2.1). The Aztech ftp site includes
a variety of drivers, some of which may be a better bet (see above,
under the Aztech boards).
SC400 ("SoundFX"), rev. 3:
- Type:
- FM synthesis
- Chipset:
- Aztech (?)
- CD-ROM:
- ??
- Street price:
- Discontinued (?)
- OS/2 Drivers:
- Uses Aztech NOVA 16 drivers, but unknown reliability
- Drivers from:
- OS/2 box
- Comments:
- The OS/2 ftp sites and the Reveal BBS and ftp
site have a text file describing how to set up the board for use with
the Aztech NOVA 16 drivers included with Warp. One net report indicates
that the Sony CD-ROM drive which is sometimes bundled with this board
doesn't work under OS/2.
SC400 ("SoundFX"), rev. 4a:
- Type:
- FM synthesis
- Chipset:
- Aztech (???)
- CD-ROM:
- IDE (?), proprietary (???)
- Street price:
- Discontinued (?)
- OS/2 Drivers:
- Available, but unknown reliability
- Drivers from:
- BBS,
http://www.vobis.de/bbs/firmen/reveal,
OS/2 ftp: revsc4r4a.zip
- Comments:
- Drivers for this board look suspiciously
Aztech-like, but I know essentially nothing else about it.
Reveal SC400 ("SoundFX"), rev. 4g:
- Type:
- FM synthesis
- Chipset:
- CS4248 (??),
OPTi 928, Yamaha OPL3 (??)
- CD-ROM:
- IDE, proprietary (Sony, Panasonic, Mitsumi)
- Street price:
- ~$70
- OS/2 Drivers:
- Available
- Drivers from:
- BBS,
http://www.vobis.de/bbs/firmen/reveal, OS/2
ftp: 929_v2.zip or
opti928.zip
- Comments:
- This is based on the OPTi 928 design; see the section on that chipset.
SC500 ("SoundFX Wave"), rev. 1:
- Type:
- Wavetable
- Chipset:
- CS4248,
OPTi 929, Yamaha OPL3
- CD-ROM:
- IDE, proprietary (Sony, Panasonic, Mitsumi)
- Street price:
- ~$130 (Now discontinued)
- OS/2 Drivers:
- Available, but limited
- Drivers from:
- BBS,
http://www.vobis.de/bbs/firmen/reveal, OS/2 ftp:
929_v2.zip or
opti928.zip
- Comments:
- This is an OPTi 929-based board; see that section.
SC500 ("SoundFX Wave"), rev. 3:
- Type:
- Wavetable
- Chipset:
- CS9233-CQ, CS4112-CS, CS4232-KO
- CD-ROM:
- ?
- Street price:
- ?
- OS/2 Drivers:
- Available
- Drivers from:
-
http://www.vobis.de/bbs/firmen/reveal
- Comments:
- This board uses various Crystal Semiconductor
chips, and reportedly works with drivers for same. There are also drivers
(possibly the same ones) on the site listed above for Reveal drivers.
SC600 ("SoundFX Wave 32"):
- Type:
- Wavetable
- Chipset:
- Ensoniq OTTO
- CD-ROM:
- ?
- Street price:
- ~$200 (Now discontinued)
- OS/2 Drivers:
- Uses Ensoniq Soundscape drivers (?); available but limited
- Drivers from:
- ftp.ensoniq.com (?)
- Comments:
- This board is either a re-badging or a close copy
of the Ensoniq Soundscape board.
SC800 ("WAVExtreme"):
- Type:
- Wavetable
- Chipset:
- AMD InterWave
- CD-ROM:
- ?
- Street price:
- ~$120
- OS/2 Drivers:
- Available (US$30 shareware)
- Drivers from:
-
http://www.polsci.wvu.edu/sander,
http://www.io.org/~rjm
- Comments:
- This board is based on the AMD InterWave chipset, and as such will
work with Robert Manley's beta-level (as of 11/9/96) 1.20 GUS
drivers. The one report I've had on this board under OS/2 indicates
that the Manley 1.20 virtual DOS driver (ULTRAVDD.SYS) caused TRAP
errors, but that OS/2 sound worked. I've received contradictory
reports from two former Reveal employees about SIMM sockets on these
boards; one report says that no boards had them, the other says that
a few did. For OS/2 use, at present any SC800 without SIMM sockets
will not produce MIDI, since the Manley drivers currently require
RAM for this function.
Copyright © 1996, 1997, Rod Smith, rodsmith@rodsbooks.com
Return to the sound boards listing
Return to the OS/2 Soundcard Summary main page