[RTTY] Ritty and Notebooks

[Walt Niemczura]

RTTY Folks,

I've setup RITTY on a wide selection of laptops including most of the IBM
Think Pad series, Toshiba's Dell's, the older Sony Viao's (I have a new 
FX-240 that is stubborn) and it seems to work fine.

Brian has expanded on the sound card that are compatible and has added 
a feature where you can use an external mixer program.

Borrowing from the RITTY.DOC manual (Copyright 2001 by Brian Beezley, K6STI):
<paste>
	---- SOUND CARD ------------------------------------------------

	        RITTY works with most sound cards, but a 16-bit Creative
	Labs card (non-PCI bus) works best.  Other cards may provide
	inadequate input/output levels, offer only coarse level
	adjustment, or exhibit limited dynamic range.

	        RITTY displays sound-card A/D resolution and mixer type
	at startup.  "Full mixer" means a CT1745 or equivalent mixer
	chip with complete source control and 40 level settings 2 dB
	apart.  "Partial mixer" means a CT1345 with eight 6-dB levels
	and no mic input-level control.  "Primitive mixer" means a
	CT1335 with no source selection or input-level control, and with
	eight 6-dB output levels.  (Cost-cutting, depopulated cards may
	exhibit fewer levels and coarser steps than these design specs.)

	        If you find RITTY's mixer control to be inadequate with
	your sound card, you can try an external mixer utility by adding
	M to the RITTY command line.  This option internally disables
	RITTY's source and level controls.

	        RITTY uses the SET BLASTER statement to determine sound-
	card hardware settings (I/O address, IRQ level, DMA channels).
	You may need to configure your card to these settings by
	executing a utility such as DIAGNOSE in AUTOEXEC.BAT or CTCM in
	CONFIG.SYS.  See your sound-card manual for details.

<end paste>

I think that only one of the IBM's had a true Creative Labs chip sent. All
others were some kind of knockoff. However, the "SET BLASTER" command and 
the "RITTY M" option sorted these out.

Go with the older models (more than two years old). These devices are more
likely to work and to have the available external mixer software in DOS
format. In most cases RITTY can do some basic control even with the most
"primitive mixer".

Hope this helps.

73 an Aloha,

Walt
AH6OZ

> Ron Lodewyck wrote:
> 
> 
> I'm trying to find a notebook computer that will run Ritty (by K6STI) and either
> Writelog or WF1B.
> 
> I know Ritty requires an ISA bus sound system, but it didn't work with a Toshiba
> Portege 300CT which has a Yamaha OPL3-SAx chip on the ISA bus (BLASTER=A220 I5 D1)
> and "Soundblaster Pro" compatibility.  It runs MMTTY and Writelog's RittyRite AOK.
> 
> I'd appreciate hearing from anyone who has had success getting Ritty to work on a
> notebook.  The exact model and configuration would be especially helpful, but any
> clues would be welcome.  I will compile a list and post the result for others who
> may be interested.
> 
> Thanks and 73,
> Ron N6EE
> aka NN6NN
> 
> BTW, Thanks everyone for all the Q's (1600) in WPX RTTY from NN6NN.
> 
> 
>