CompuServe Messages

I think you'd be safer asking in the MULTIVEN forum or calling Media Vision tech support to verify which IRQ levels are supported by the PAS 16, since my impressions from one quick phone call may not be accurate. The impression I had from talking to a Media Vision tech support person was that the PAS 16 supports a number of higher IRQ levels including IRQ 10. I took that to mean that the PC Magazine features listing was incomplete on this point. But the answer may be tricky. There seem to be two separate portions of the PAS 16 board – the "Soundblaster emulation" portion and the "Pro Audio" portion. They each have different default IRQ levels and DMA channels, though each set of IRQ levels and DMA channels can be changed (by software in Rev D). I'm not sure if the answer to your question is the same for both portions or not. The other issue that has me nervous (and that makes me want to have a jumperless board so I can correct the situation if I get stuck): I believe that your board has to match your software. Some older software only will work with certain IRQ levels. I haven't mastered this yet, but I imagine that if I get older kids' educational programs which were written for XT machines, they won't be able to deal with a sound card on IRQ 10, for example. I imagine that the reason the PAS 16 comes with different defaults for the different portions is that it wants older and newer software to be able to find it. There are also issues about whether the sound card can share an IRQ with something else. The tech support guy told me that they can usually share IRQ 5 or & with an HP IIIP printer – except that Gateway machines don't allow IRQ sharing. . . .