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Help finding ess driver for Aptiva 923 from 1999?

N

NealOrr

Junior Member
Yeah, please laugh first and I'll wait. Save a few laughs.

Okay. I have friends who paid $4000 for an Aptiva 923 in 1999.
Go ahead, I'll wait some more till you are finished laughing.

They finally needed to reload the Windoze from being overloaded, corrupted and just Windoze over time things.
And here is the problem that after almost 5 years they have no idea where the recovery disk is.

Time to laugh again -- they called IBM and IBM doesn't have any more recovery disks and of course the support
people don't think beyond that to help a past customer. Getting up from a chair and bruning a copy from an
archive that doubtless does exist is just too hard and so is simply sending drivers via email. Too much like work
or just against company policy to go that far for someone who is not running current hardware.

I was able to get video drivers but not audio. It's an ESS chipset on the mobo is all I find so far. I do have an IBM
part numer for the mobo if it will help, *** V66M-2Z w/ZX 100, AGP slot ***.

If anyone can help with what ESS audio to get a driver for or what driver, I would appreciate it.

And no... I would not have paid even $1000 for the machine they bought back in 1999. Well, maybe $1000.


Neal
 
I can't imagine their not being available on the IBM web site (I found several ESS audio driver entries there for Aptiva). But you can go here and likely find what you need and be sure you're getting the latest drivers: ESS Tech . Or driverguide.com as linked by santar.
OTOH, are you sure you are competent to help your friends, as it appears you haven't a clue as to how to locate drivers, are oblivious to driverguide.com, etc. Doesn't bode well for the success of the venture...
.bh.
 
I didn't find em at the IBM site, only a video driver update.
It would have helped if IBM had identified the chipset used
as they did for the vidcards. I must be lazy.

Santar; Tks! Looks like IBM farmed the mobos from Acer, I
hope that 2 companies didn't use the same base for a board
#! So I'll get these over to the folks and give em a try!

Zepper; Gee, no not a clue. Built my first PC in 83 and was
very happy when a decent clone standard hit in 86. It's been
only luck all these years really. Loads of drivers at ESS but since
I don't know which version soundchip I just figured ask someone.
Really stupid of me, wasn't it? I really lucked out getting them a
good working video driver, didn't I? Guess I shoulda spent a few
hours digging at something I normally don't need to rather than
chance someone being a bit overly honest with me.
Thanks anyway, I'll try and put the driver I got in with the right
screwdriver, okay?

Neal
 
Well, I'm feeling better now. I was afraid I'd have to go out and get a sympathy card for your friends on the passing of their Aptiva.
. Oh, and if you get good light on that mobo you can read those little numbers on top of the chips - and if I recall correctly, the numbers on the ESS sound chips aren't all that small...
. My first was a Heathkit (H-88) I built in the winter of '79-'80 - dual Z80s, 16kB DRAM, GE cassette mass storage (had to modify it to work with confuser) - Benton Harbor Basic was both OS and prog. lang. IMO, the Wintel hegemony has done irreparable harm to small computer progress. Having only two real choices (Wintel or Apple) is simply inadequate - the thought of which can depress me greatly.
.bh.
 
I totally agree about Wintel and the Pirates of Silicon Valley. Winblows has done far too much to ruin meaningful computing and turn it into about what disco was to the music and cultural scene.
Funny how Gates couldn't even find an original name when stealing X-Windows and perverting the intellectual work of others to his own greedy and selfish ends?
Or how the same govenment that forced the big computer industries to unbundle software from hardware in the call that Bill led has been so cooperative with him when he chose to control through bundling and actual conspiracy to monopolize later on. But that's corruption for you, so many lawmakers never had good stock in IBM and Honeywell, etc, as they do in M$.
Yeah I loved my old Amiga 1000 just for the 68010 I had in it. Imagine Intel abandoning the segment! I'm amazed they haven't made a CPU that runs true 32 bit addressing in hardware and emulates the broken mind kludge they developed so long ago. But then I'm talking about a company that's reversed byte orders for the sake of 4 bit compatibility aren't I? Well, it's better than the DEC 12 bit words, just not damn much.

My first real computer was a Televideo drive controller board with Z-80 and 64K. The board was a reject that could be made to run by twisting it. I had help. We mounted it on standoffs with a pile of washers under two corners and it did well. Ran CP/M on that and used the CB-80 Basic compiler to write apps as a FlightSafety vendor and for other small companies. No sound, no video, just a used Wyse 100 terminal and 2 new Chinon 360k floppy drives that ran me $150 each, all in a homemade metal box.

The audio drivers don't work I am told. And I can't get over there to look yet, I've moved and it's long distance. If I had the damn box, it'd be working by now. The audio is only the last piece not functioning already. Either I get drivers they can use or I find out how to disable the onboard sound and send an old audio card from a drawer here. I've always got parts, just not usually new ones. You upgrade enough peoples' PC's and you end up with a good junk collection, no? More junk than I have time to use all of.
I'll point em at ESS and make suggestions for now... it's education time in basic methods for the oldest son who is 14. Once they have all the right pieces archived I'll have them install Windoze all over. Wish they'd run Linux instead and make life easier.


Neal

 
A simple search of the IBM site for the 923 (actually model 2171) points to these ESS drivers:

ESS Drivers for 2171 model 923

As for your comments about Microsoft. Intel and Apple, give me a break. That's capitalism. If someone else came out with a truly better product, the marketplace would respond. That assumes they know how to market it, of course (e.g. Sony's Beta VCR vs. VHS).

The compter industry will change when the paradigm changes. Sun thought they had the new paradigm with "the network is the computer", but didn't quite get it. But someone else will, and no matter what Wintel does to forestall it's emergence, it won't work. Things will change, as they always do.
 
I could apply the same argument to the pre-M$ years. It literally took an act of Congress to allow M$ and others to break into the lock that the big manufacturers had.
Compare the actions by M$ since which are exactly the kinds of things that Bill led the charge to court over as being wrong. And if you remember, M$ was found guilty but with the advent of Bush the whole thing has blown over. What got caught was less than half, by far.
You can't have fair market competition with the activities we have seen from M$, so spare the justification. Maybe all that went before you were out of grade school? And for sure, you really don't understand business beyond some models.
There's still some hope yet but be sure M$ is working behind the law as well as within it to curb alternatives to paying Bill. Companies that let things happen that M$ doesn't like (as in "You're either with us or against us." -- hope you know that quote) somehow find themselves getting updates and info, shall we say a bit late? You are either all for the team or you don't get fair business. How many slot card makers not only don't make non-Windoze drivers but won't let info out on their hardware to allow others to make any? Yah, fair market! And so is the Mafia!

Neal
 
NealOrr wrote:
Funny how Gates couldn't even find an original name when stealing X-Windows and perverting the intellectual work of others to his own greedy and selfish ends?
Click to expand...

Not to nit-pick, but.....

The Xerox 8010 ('Star') System was the first commerical system to use a WIMP (Windows, Icons, Menus and Pointing Devices) graphic user interface - from which all modern WIMP and Windowing systems have evolved. Apple used these concepts when designing the interface for the Apple Macintosh (see January 1984), and later alleged that Microsoft copied their 'look and feel' when designing Microsoft Windows.

The Xerox 'Star' was the commercialised version of the 'Alto', which had available internally inside Xerox PARC since the early 70's.
 
Facts are a funny thing, aren't they? I'm the last person to trump Microsoft. I've gone on record before that they are predatory marketwise, and deserved to be slapped down. Whether you think it's enough of a slap or not is up to you. My only comment was that if there is truly a new and better technology out there, very few things short of a conspiracy can keep it from succeeding in the marketplace.

There will always be an interest in keeping the status quo from the companies who deal in the status quo. That can come in many forms: lobbying, predatory marketing, etc. But there are many outlets now for the message to get out, particularly the internet. Kind of hard to keep news of a better mousetrap from the masses.

Part of the problem with Microsoft and bundling is a double-edged sword. As consumers, we sure as hell want software that comes free with the operating system that does what we want. As third-party developers, we hate that. Consumers aren't going to put up much of a stink, though.


You're welcome for the drivers link, by the way.
 
You don't need better to succeed in the market, you just need "good enough". If Sony had licensed the Beta technology early enough with a reasonable price, VHS never would have happened - it was too late when they finally wised up. Beta was and is the better format but now digital recording has pretty much supplanted analog.
.bh.
 
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