Re: ESS sound card with 2MB wavetable chip - DONE

Posted on 2023-06-25, 08:45

by

by Paar

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Hi! I think your best bet is to check datasheet for ES690 chip. There's one floating around with schematics and components listed. The chip itself is often available on eBay or Aliexpress, but good source is Jotrin. Just send them a request, I've bought from them several times in the past and always …

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Re: Native PS/2 mouse implementation for 386/486 boards using the keyboard controller

Posted on 2023-05-12, 19:46

by

by Paar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Looks promising. What is the height of the inverter IC used in the newer revisions?

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Re: MT-32 wavetable daughterboard exist

Posted on 2023-03-17, 08:01

by

by Paar

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Lucky find. Just stick it on you sound card, configure desired software for MT-32 music and you should be good to go. But remember, all cards work only in UART mode, software that needs Intelligent mode won't work properly. Still, you could use SoftMPU to fix that.

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Re: ESS sound card with 2MB wavetable chip - DONE

Posted on 2023-03-14, 10:41

by

by Paar

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Thanks for the input. Just remember the Comaq Armada laptop you mentioned has the ES982N chip inside, in a TSOP package. You'd have to create a TSOP->SOP adapter for it to work. You'd have to find out the pinout of the chip as it's not documented anywhere. Shouldn't be too hard though, you can just …

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Re: ESS sound card with 2MB wavetable chip - DONE

Posted on 2023-03-14, 09:30

by

by Paar

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

The only 1MB wavetable that I heard that had those two instruments different is Samsung one found for example on Aztech Waverider card. However those samples are heavily compressed.

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Re: ESS sound card with 2MB wavetable chip - DONE

Posted on 2023-03-14, 07:24

by

by Paar

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Too bad it's not possible to make generally usable wavetable daughterboard with ES690F chip. It just doesn't have proper digital line out for connecting to external DAC. You can only do it with ES689F but that chip lacks reverb/chorus. It is possible to create board with ES690F but it would be …

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Re: ESS sound card with 2MB wavetable chip - DONE

Posted on 2023-03-13, 11:28

by

by Paar

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

ES689 works just fine, don't worry about it. The only benefit of ES690 is reverb/chorus, apart from that it's the same. But I believe that 2MB bank is of enough quality that it deserves the added effects. Amplifies the experience.

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Re: ESS sound card with 2MB wavetable chip - DONE

Posted on 2023-03-12, 19:01

by

by Paar

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Next step could be a wavetable daughterboard, in a form of open source project.

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Re: ESS sound card with 2MB wavetable chip - work in progress

Posted on 2023-03-12, 16:11

by

by Paar

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Yeah, the dump is ok, just my soldering skills were lacking. But everyone makes mistakes. By the way, here are some samples. May do more if there is a demand.

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Re: ESS sound card with 2MB wavetable chip - work in progress

Posted on 2023-03-12, 14:55

by

by Paar

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Soldered the flashed ROM to another 233X card I had and success! Glorious MIDI music emitting from my speakers. Well, glorious in a sense that I'm happy the work was worth it. But it sounds better than regular 1MB ESS soundbank, at least to my ears. It definitely has the ESS vibe as the 1MB version …

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Re: ESS sound card with 2MB wavetable chip - work in progress

Posted on 2023-03-12, 08:29

by

by Paar

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I'm not sure what image you're referring to but the ROM from the last image works correctly. There's no need to set anything, the synth chip will recognize it properly. Perhaps there is some init info in the ROM header or something. And yes, you can use ES689F with it but I don't like it. Still, …

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Re: ESS sound card with 2MB wavetable chip - work in progress

Posted on 2023-03-11, 07:49

by

by Paar

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Hi everyone, new updates. I felt an urge to return the project as I have felt that my soldering skills got better. That and I don't like to leave things unfinished. On the picture below you can see the result of my work - BRB 233X card (is BRB a brand?) with ES982A ROM and ES690F synthesizer chip,. …

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Re: Sound Blaster 16 Bugs and Deficiencies Summary

Posted on 2023-03-02, 09:31

by

by Paar

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

The list could be expanded with the information that all SB16s have problem with SB Pro compatibility. With normal SB16s playing sound in mono, but Vibra chips playing stereo but in reverse. Don't know if the AWE64 plays in stereo too.

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Re: EWS64XL : DOS MIDI playback having reverb/echo applied on it issue

Posted on 2023-03-01, 08:18

by

by Paar

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

That's something that struck me too when testing the card. The reverb/chorus effects are too pronounced which has surprised me as Terratec Maestro 32/96 is balanced perfectly. You have to change the values in the windows mixer and then save them into a file and load the file in DOS. Haven't have …

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Re: Help with repairing Formosa ESS sound card

Posted on 2023-02-27, 16:54

by

by Paar

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Checked datasheet for ES1868 and it defenitely should be a ferrite bead. So I'll just try to find one in the right package and call it a day.

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Help with repairing Formosa ESS sound card

Posted on 2023-02-27, 15:19

by

by Paar

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Hi! I have this nice card from Formosa with ES1688F chip and am attempting to fix it. Left channel is not working which I have isolated to a small ferrite bead/inductor near speaker out jack (marked L7). This bead has inifnite resistance so naturally it doesn't pass the signal. The problem is I have …

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Re: Orpheus II soundcard thread

Posted on 2023-02-24, 14:46

by

by Paar

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

That explains it. I was a little confused as CS4232 needs an external DAC but CS4237 is several generations ahead and has it's own internal one. At least you know how to put the external FM to the same volume level as CrystalFM with Orpheus II. Another step to perfection.

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Re: Orpheus II soundcard thread

Posted on 2023-02-24, 13:10

by

by Paar

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Does the CS4237 handle digital-to-analog conversion internally for the external OPL3 chip? If so I assume it's not possible to just lower the strength of the external signal going into the codec chip. But I'm glad you managed to fix it with the successor.

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Re: Orpheus II soundcard thread

Posted on 2023-02-24, 12:07

by

by Paar

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Just watched LGR's blerb video about Orpheus 1 and noticed the card has a problem with default volume of OPL3 chip vs PCM sounds. There are games (e.g. Wolf3D) that just ignore mixer settings and set all volume to max. That means almost anything newer than Sound Blaster 16 has disbalanced sound, …

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Re: Native PS/2 mouse implementation for 386/486 boards using the keyboard controller

Posted on 2022-07-12, 06:37

by

by Paar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

If we're talking about boards from 286 to Pentium era, then yes, boards without PS2 port and with a KBC situated next to ISA slots are in minority. Then let's say you're interested only in Socket 3 baords and want to build some nice 486 system. Suddenly boards which fall into those criteria are in …

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