Looking for VigraSound Manual - Printable Version

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Looking for VigraSound Manual - CB_HK - 12-19-2021

Hey everyone,

I recently managed to acquire a VigraSound VME board for my Onyx. It appears to be in good shape though it was sold in unknown working condition. Visually I see no issues with it, save for a missing retention clip on the bottom front of the board.

I built up a new drive for my Onyx with 6.2 installed (with patches) since the audio library that the VME board references was deprecated in the move to 6.5. I have the board installed in VME slot 1 (directly next to the IO4). I also do not have any jumpers installed on the backplane to shift the slots (in case I wanted to skip slot one I'd have to jumper the backplane to make sure the correct control signals were transferred).

VigraSound 2.2 is the last available driver I could find for the board. I installed this right after doing a base install of 6.2 (prior to patching). The driver shows up correctly BUT the system does not acknowledge any corresponding hardware installed. Autoconfig -v reports that there is an MMI110 board (the sound board in question) installed but it is unable to probe it. As such, I cannot access any of the sound control features (ie. Audio Control Panel). I attempted to reinstall the media tools after all this, in case there was something odd going on with the software. This did not resolve the issue, unfortunately.

So here's where I'm at:

- I have installed the board into the machine, with no issues immediately apparent (ie. damage).
- I have installed IRIX 6.2 onto a fresh drive along with the VigraSound driver AND IRIX media tools (sound playback, audio control, etc.)
- The machine sees that there is a VME board installed; autoconfig reports the correct model of the sound board but cannot probe it

hinv -v reports:
VME bus: adapter 13
VME bus: adapter 0 mapped to adapter 13

The only thing that I have been unable to do at this point is reference a user's manual. I've spent a good while over the past two weeks trying to locate one but have so far come up empty handed. There are jumpers on the sound board which I've left alone at this point but I'm wondering if I need to make adjustments to them. Without any reference material I don't think I'll be very successful with randomly adjusting their positions.

Does anyone have a copy of the VigraSound manual? Even if it's a hardcopy I'd happily receive photos of the pages. I just need something to reference at this point.

Likewise, if anyone has one of these boards installed and knows the tricks needed to get it running correctly, I'd very much appreciate any and all help I can get.

Thank you all!

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RE: Looking for VigraSound Manual - weblacky - 12-19-2021

Okay, I’m sure I’m not the first person to misread that name….


Wayback has an FAQ and support page. Not a manual but a vital tip for installation onyx on first FAQ : https://web.archive.org/web/20010306130337/http://vigra.com/products/faq/mmi110_faq.html

Here’s the support page it came from: https://web.archive.org/web/20010417141215/http://vigra.com/products/vigrasound.html


They had an ftp at ftp://ftp.vigra.com/pub/vigrasound/ but it’s long gone. Archive.org does not seem to have any raw data on this term.

Hopefully the faq install tip will fix your issue as you have to place it in a specific spot against your cpu board slot, it claims.

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RE: Looking for VigraSound Manual - CB_HK - 12-19-2021

Hey Weblacky,

Unfortunately what you linked is all I was able to find as well. I did more digging on the archive earlier in the week but was unable to find any other info after they were acquired.

I have the board where they say it needs to be, but for whatever reason there’s something else preventing it from working. I wish they had hosted a pdf version of the manual so I could see what the jumper settings were supposed to be. Alas, I’m sure the only place that would have likely held them would have been their ftp.

Thanks for the links either way! Hopefully this thread will eventually have all the answers someone else will need to get one of these boards going.

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RE: Looking for VigraSound Manual - weblacky - 12-19-2021

So you did at least read the first question in the FAQ that talked about what jumpers that you needed to remove, right?

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RE: Looking for VigraSound Manual - CB_HK - 12-19-2021

(12-19-2021, 10:32 PM)weblacky Wrote:  So you did at least read the first question in the FAQ that talked about what jumpers that you needed to remove, right?

Yes. It’s in slot one next to the IO4 and I ensured that the backplane jumpers were not in place.

Now I just need to sort the jumpers that are on the Vigra board itself.

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RE: Looking for VigraSound Manual - weblacky - 12-19-2021

Relnotes from the 1.1 tarball (more position honts):

At boot time, the input and output sample clocks on the
VigraSound board may be initialized to an inconsistent
state. This may result in distorted sound during
recording or playback. To ensure that the sample clocks
are properly initialized, toggle the input and output
rates once after boot up. This may be accomplished from
within an application by calling ALsetparams(), or an
end-user may use the Audio Control Panel apanel) to
toggle the sample rates after boot up.

The VigraSound board acts as a VME bus master during
DMA-based audio transfers. If the VigraSound board is
installed incorrectly by either not installing it in
the first (leftmost) VME slot, or if a slot is left
empty or a board to the left of the audio board does
not correctly pass daisy-chained VME signals, then the
system may crash on the first access to audio. Make
sure that the VigraSound board is in the first VME slot
to assure correct operation.

The real-time nature of audio I/O places critical
demands on the VME bus. The presence of other VME
boards on the same VME bus as the VigraSound audio
board may cause improper operation including audio
dropouts or worse. If audio performance is impaired,
the other VME bus board may need to be removed. Sirius
Video has been tested with the VigraSound board and
they are known to operate correctly together on
Onyx/Challenge systems running IRIX 5.3.

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RE: Looking for VigraSound Manual - CB_HK - 12-20-2021

It’d be nice if it were as easy as opening a program and running it. Even on boot the system warns that there’s no audio hardware installed (before loading the login screen).



Attempting to open the Audio Control Panel fails, stating that the system has no audio hardware loaded.

I’ll also note that attempting to auto configure the kernel reports that the Vigra board is installed but the system cannot probe it. It appears it’s not being detected properly, but why that is, is unclear. Board position is good, no jumpers on the backplane causing the system to skip the slot it’s plugged into (exactly as the FAQ noted), drivers installed according to software manager—just no direct ability to access it.

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RE: Looking for VigraSound Manual - weblacky - 12-20-2021

Yeah, I'm actually surprised I couldn't even find a picture of this board online (I realize it predates the web) but you'd think trade in these all this time would leave some pics of it on the web for some level of visual inspection. Even press releases didn't have any pictures. The only thing I didn't try was using wayback to go back to the discrete logic system's original owner and try to surf those pages for images/info. As it was often used in their setups, that's the last thought I had.

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RE: Looking for VigraSound Manual - CB_HK - 12-20-2021

That’s not a bad thought. I wonder if they might have something. I’m hoping someone has a copy of the manual saved somewhere. It’s surprising that the various versions of drivers are available but the manual is nowhere to be found.

As for the board itself, here are the jumpers I’m dealing with:

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RE: Looking for VigraSound Manual - kshuff - 12-27-2021

No manual here to help you Colin but your board is configured just like mine    

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