Help run old Dos based Analog Mixing Console Automation

[LowBaudRate]

Hello!

Thanks to all that have made this emulation possible.

I'm not a computer expert in any way, but did program a few things in GW Basic as a kid/teen, and knew my way well within DOS at that time.

I run a recording / mixing / mastering studio design firm (Acoustics Engineering) and like a lot of our costumers we run vintage equipment in our studio.

Our Mixing console is an old AMEK Rembrandt/Galileo 56ch, which is a design that relies heavily on an old IBM 486DX2 or 90/100Mhz Pentium 1 for automation and recall functions, as well as for activating a number of features in the console, like digitally controlled analog dynamics and routing.

While we do have a lot of spare computers, run IDE flash drives instead of mechanical drives and the system is very stable, I'm trying to find a way to port that system to a newer, more reliable computer as we see that a lot of the parts we need are increasingly becoming unobtanium, even on Ebay etc.

The AMEK "SuperTrue 3.6" Automation system runs on:

• IBM PC DOS 6.3 or DOS 6.22
• requires an ISA card to interface with the console - the AMEK PC979 card, which is likely a rebranded IBM network card
• requires the LPT1 and COM A & B ports for further data transfer with the console
• old PS/2 i/o for the console's keyboard and trackball/mouse.

I have all the info required, and specific CONFIG.SYS file for the system to run on an old PC.

I ran the "SuperTrue" install file in Dropbox-X and it opened and everything worked well.

So I decided to purchase the following to test my way into maybe being able to run the system:

• USB to ISA card adapter to be able to mount an use the ISA card (ARS Tech https://arstech.com/usb2-products/39-usb2isa-x3set.html)
• USB PS/2 i/o converter (StarTech)
• PCI-e to LPT1 and COM ports (StarTech https://www.startech.com/en-be/cards-adapters/pex2s1p553b)

The system has to work within a certain speed otherwise the console gets "overwhelmed" by the data and freezes.
E.g. more than than a Pentium I 120mHz will not function.

Is there a way, at least in theory, that this could work?
Can DosBox-X somewhat interact with / "see" the ISA, COMs and PS/2 adapters so that the data can be transferred between the SuperTrue Automation DOS program and the console?

We are happy to hire someone competent in the field to manage this - I can dabble in this for a bit but this out of our field of expertise.

Thanks!

[rderooy]

There is no support for ISA or PS/2 pass-through. There is only emulation of a generic PS/2 keyboard and mouse.

Technically, there is support for pass-through of LPT and COM devices, but support for that is rather dependant on the host-OS (Linux probably is your best bet) in combination with the actual device port (real legacy on-board ports give you the best chance for success). You can find some description of this on the DOSBox-X wiki on the serial and printing pages. But a word of warning that people typically struggle to get it working and often end up giving up.

"DOSBox Staging" (another DOSBox fork) which only supports COM device pass-through made the decision recently to rip out the pass-through support altogether.

[Torinde]

• I have successfully used the COM passthrough along with USB-to-COM adapter.
• thus, I assume LPT passthrough will also work - and it's relatively common feature (I assume "many" people use it for their preferred matrix printers, etc.)
• ISA AMEK PC979 card, which is likely a rebranded IBM network card
  • ISA passthrough​ #4662
  • DOSBox-X maintainer has idea for rudimentary support, maybe you can follow-up with him on that.
  • check VirtualXT, it seems they used similar ARSTech card and it doesn't support all ISA features.
  • ARSTech provide a DOSBox-X variant themselves, did you get it already? Maybe you can answer the question about its differences, readme, source code, etc.?
  • do you have more information on that card, pictures, what ports do you use on it, etc.? DOSBox-X has support for IPX and Ethernet, so depending on what the card does maybe you can skip the ISA part and utilize the "network" directly?
• PS/2 keyboard/trackball/mouse - when you connect the USB-PS/2 convertor on the host, the keyboard/mouse will appear as regular USB HID devices on the host, I assume.
  • if you're lucky all their keys/button/axes/etc. will use standard scancodes/etc. and appear on the host and thus propagate to DOSBox automatically
  • do you have more information on the keyboard/trackball/mouse, pictures, documentation?
• can you upload the software you want to use?
• PCI bus improvements : Allow device to see full size access #5683 (comment)

[LowBaudRate]

Thank you rderooy and Torinde for the answers.

It's both bad and good news!

I didn't see a DosBox-X variant on the ARS Tech site. I'll check again. I saw the development tool, but that's above my coding paycheck. I'll still look into it.

I probably cannot do without the AMEK/IBM ISA card... Although I do know what it does from manufacturer documents. The issue is likely that the Supertrue App needs to see it to function. I checked and it's DUART card, adding COMs. It's not a network card.

For the PS/2 bit, it makes sense - they are normal old school cherry keyboard and mouse + trackball connected to the computer. The trackball is via COM A port IIRC. Need to double check.

I copy a series of documents that can help and photos of the an ISA spare card we have.

SUP3P6.zip
979 Board.pdf
AMEK Rembrandt56 brochure.pdf
AMEK Supertrue.pdf
Galileo+Post+Rembrandt+Technical+Manual.pdf

In the manual: relevant infos page "2-15", "2-18", "2-19", and from pages "4-4" onwards. Page "4-19" has a lot of info.

Checked now and COM A is used with IRQ4 3F8h and is for the trackball.
COM B has IRQ3 2F8h
Parallel port has IRQ7 378h

[Torinde]

So, this ISA card seems to be providing COM ports and MIDI I/O

• COM passthrough is already supported
• MIDI maybe as well, but I have no experience with it
  • hardware midi passthrough on linux? #230
• maybe you can avoid ISA passthrough (and using the real card) - what it does probably can be performed in the emulator, especially since you have a lot of documentation. But I don't know if the available features are sufficient for that or source code changes will be needed as well.