🚀 go-pugleaf

A few questions:

I was playing around with Ultima VII the other day...and was appalled at what
I saw (no, the game was great).  Here's why.  We were playing it on a 386-25
DX with 8 megs of RAM and more than enough disk space.  Biggest problem was,
it accessed the disk every time you took a step.  This resulted in SLOW...
movement.  Is this a case of bad programming, where Richard Garriot decided
they were pressed for time and didn't have time for fine-tuning.  I'm 
comparing Times of Lore for the Commodore 64 by Chris Roberts (yeah, the
Wing Commander guy).  He had smooth bi-directional hires scrolling on a 
one mhz machine!  That definitely took some time, but Ultima VII?

Hey, I can see going all 386 based.  That ought to give more than enough
power for applications today, and ideas of what we want for better machines.
But Ultima VII felt like more of an abuse to the 386 than an encouragement.
I'm not knocking U7.  It's a great game.  Can someone offer an explanation,
though?  (I want an explanation, not a flame on what I just said)

Secondly...does anyone have any reference as to how the DMA works and how
to transfer between the Soundblaster and the computer (I mean, the computer
and SB).  The Dev Kit doesn't provide enough information on this.  I called
Creative Labs and was basically told "shove it" by one guy.  Another guy I
talked to there told me that they didn't have a policy of releasing source
code.  He said they didn't let him look at it, and he is a tech support guy
for their Dev Kit and the CT-VOICE driver!!!

Thanks,
Josh