id say it needs powaaa, the others who had this here also said it was hard to get any docs on it

I think the aux power is definitely not for floppy power input, as the pins go to +12 and -12 of the wavetable header. It might be aux power output connector for +12 and -12 volts for something, if it has those voltages coming from ISA bus (but I can't see if they come from ISA bus or not, so it could be aux +12V/-12V input as well).

It might be an input, because it has that huge stereo amplifier chip able to provide 20W output per channel, and ISA bus can't really provide enough -12V for that.

Jepael wrote:

I think the aux power is definitely not for floppy power input, as the pins go to +12 and -12 of the wavetable header. It might be aux power output connector for +12 and -12 volts for something, if it has those voltages coming from ISA bus (but I can't see if they come from ISA bus or not, so it could be aux +12V/-12V input as well).

It might be an input, because it has that huge stereo amplifier chip able to provide 20W output per channel, and ISA bus can't really provide enough -12V for that.

Thanks for the info on the card. If the AUX_POW is an input, does it seem likely that the reason why the daughterboard doesn't work with other cards is because the header has a non-standard pinout?

I didn't realize that the big IC is an amplifier. I wonder what this card was used for that would require 20W per channel? Such an oddity.

boxpressed wrote:

Jepael wrote:

I think the aux power is definitely not for floppy power input, as the pins go to +12 and -12 of the wavetable header. It might be aux power output connector for +12 and -12 volts for something, if it has those voltages coming from ISA bus (but I can't see if they come from ISA bus or not, so it could be aux +12V/-12V input as well).

It might be an input, because it has that huge stereo amplifier chip able to provide 20W output per channel, and ISA bus can't really provide enough -12V for that.

Thanks for the info on the card. If the AUX_POW is an input, does it seem likely that the reason why the daughterboard doesn't work with other cards is because the header has a non-standard pinout?

I didn't say that - I just used the wavetable header which I assume is standard to determine what the AUX_POW connections are. So one possible explanation why it does not work on DSAC is that there is no external power supplied from AUX_POW. But it does not explain why it won't work on other sound cards. It is not clear if the wavetable module even uses +12 or -12 V.

boxpressed wrote:

I didn't realize that the big IC is an amplifier. I wonder what this card was used for that would require 20W per channel? Such an oddity.

Driving normal sized speakers directly? And using only +/- 12V supplies, it's not going to give much more than about 5 to 10 watts at 0.1% distortion.

Does HDPHN (guess 😀 ) carry a signal?

I have one of these sitting in a drawer, but I don't have the wavetable module. Never bothered to test it.

I have one of these sitting in a drawer, but I don't have the wavetable module. I also have the matching modem that outputs it's audio through the DSAC-300. I pulled it out of an HP Pavilion 8240. Never bothered to test it.

Thanks for all of the replies so far. The HDPHN_MIC jack is an option, h-a-l-9000, but I'm not sure what kind of cable to use with it. I think that Descent95 is right that this card appeared in HP computers of some kind. I looked up the Pavilion 8240, and the case sticker does advertise "hardware wavetable," but the examples I saw had a different slot cover, and I didn't get a good look at the cards themselves.

This is such an oddball card. There are jacks on the left edge that say "VIDEO" and "I2S" (have no idea what this means). I'm beginning to think that the daughterboard is a proprietary design that works only with this Digitan sound card.

boxpressed wrote:

This is such an oddball card. There are jacks on the left edge that say "VIDEO" and "I2S" (have no idea what this means). I'm beginning to think that the daughterboard is a proprietary design that works only with this Digitan sound card.

Most likely, video is for audio coming out from a DVD decoder card. I2S is digital audio bus format specified by Philips, a lot of chips and devices talk I2S between each other when transferring audio.

Yep, necro-posting because I just got one of these cards with the daughter-board in a lot I purchased. I'm guessing the aux power has to be plugged in for the speaker out to work... and maybe for the card to function at all since the power (going by floppy connector here) uses both e 5v and 12v leads. I'm going to try to verify/find out if it does use floppy power or not.

Found a listing for this card where they tested it and it worked. Sent them an email with a few questions that will hopefully clarify how to get this card working.

The listing has a bracket with plugs hooked to the HDPHN_MIC port.

In any case, here is what they said about it:

The OPL3 clone on this card is actually good, providing better definition of different instruments than an OPL3 does. On the do […]
Show full quote

The OPL3 clone on this card is actually good, providing better definition of different instruments than an OPL3 does. On the downside, it doesn't work right with DN3D, and it's an obscure chipset for which drivers are hard to find.

W98SE - Windows didn't recognize the card but proceeded to load generic SBPro and OPL3 drivers: That partly worked, but wav music in Windows Media Player was mangled. Trying again using VxD drivers from the Windows 95 PnP Driver Package V1.1 (ad1812.zip) the card was better recognized: Wav music in Media Player was no longer mangled, but there was now a noticeable echo or reverb effect for which there was no control to turn it off. MIDI files played by Media Player came out with reversed channels. With either set of drivers, DOOM worked fine and SET DMXOPTION=-opl3 worked to get stereo music. The sound tests in DN3D setup sounded right but in the game itself the music was glitched.

DOS With "PNP OS Installed" set to No in BIOS setup and no drivers the card functions as an SBPro 2.0 in Mpxplay, DOOM, and DN3D. SET DMXOPTION=-opl3 works to get stereo music in DOOM.

With an MVP3 motherboard it was necessary to use the /E switch with UIDE to avoid lockups when any app tried to initialize sound.

The AD1812*SoundPort Controller is a single-chip audio sub-system for adding 16-bit stereo audio to personal computers.The ISA Plug and Play (PnP) system is compatible with applications written for Windows 95, the Microsoft Windows ® Sound System, Sound Blaster Pro ® and Ad Lib ® , and provides an MPU-compatible interface and a game port complete with timer.

ISA PnP Interface:
The chip is complete with all necessary PnP bus interface logic. This includes address decoding for on-board resources, control and signal interpretation, DMA selection and control logic, IRQ selection and control logic, all interface configuration logic. The AD1812 can support two, or three DMA channels. Included are dual DMA count registers for full-duplex operation, enabling simultaneous capture and playback on separate DMA channels. The AD1812 is configurable according to the Plug and Play ISA Specification. Table 1 lists the logical devices supported by the AD1812 that ROM coded in its PnP space. For a non-Plug and Play environment, the built in PnP services allow theAD1812 to operate under a user-defined fixed address space.

Table 1. Emulated Logical Devices

Logical Device Number Emulated Device
0 Windows Sound System
1 Sound Blaster Pro v.2.01
2 OPL3 Music Synthesizer
3 MIDI MPU-401 port
4 Game/Joystick port

Multimedia Support:
The SoundPort Controller combines an embedded 16-bit fixed-point Analog Devices signal processor and dedicated hardware to emulate all Sound Blaster version 2.01 functions. The ROM-coded music synthesis algorithms imitate industry-standard OPL3 FM synthesizer chips and can deliver 20 voice polyphony.

MPU-401:
The primary interface for communicating MIDI data to and from the host PC is the emulated MPU-401 interface, which includes a built-in FIFO for communicating to the host bus.

Game Port:
The chip includes an IBM-compatible game port interface, capable of supporting up to two joysticks. Connecting the game port to a 15-pin D-sub connector requires only a few capacitors and resistors.

Ok, a bit more info.. maybe getting somewhere.

This card originally came in an HP Pavilion 8160.

Models it probably came in - this is going by what sound drivers were used by these systems.
8100
8111
8120
8130
8140 - definitely came in this model per an eBay listing (without the wavetable daughter-board).
8155p
8160
8175
8176
8180
8190

The HP part number for this card is:
5182-8816

The daughter-board is indeed not compatible with a waveblaster header.
http://wavetable.web.fc2.com/wt100.htm

Here is a great pic that shows the HDPHN_MIC wiring.

I'll post drivers here.

This is the one that I am guessing came straight from Digitan. (DOS/WIN95)

I need to test the driver sets I have from HP before I post them here.

cyclone3d wrote on 2018-05-22, 02:09:

I'll post drivers here. […]
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I'll post drivers here.

This is the one that I am guessing came straight from Digitan. (DOS/WIN95)
dsac300-win95.zip

I need to test the driver sets I have from HP before I post them here.

Hey cyclone3d, did you ever get around to testing this?

Is the auxiliary floppy connector needed to get the sound working or will connecting it fry the card?

I'm also considering building an interposer for the wavetable so that I can use it on other cards... If it's just a different pinout, which must be the case, then it's a matter of re-routing the signals.

Hah.. Nope, I haven't tested it yet. I did get a couple more of the cards though. One with the wavetable and one without.

cyclone3d wrote on 2021-10-06, 06:02:

Hah.. Nope, I haven't tested it yet. I did get a couple more of the cards though. One with the wavetable and one without.

Maybe you can help with the wavetable as well please?

This uses the common two-chip combo... If you have something similar, would you consider tracing the pins of the regular model with a multimeter so that I can compare it to the WT-100? I can then take two female IDC connectors and re-wire the pins.

Hi - This is a card I designed long ago, so some of this stuff is a bit fuzzy.

The ADI Soundport's analog outputs are tied directly to a pair of inputs on the TL074 quad op-amp. The outputs of the op-amp drive Line Out (middle 3.5mm). If the TL074 is not powered, you will not get a signal from the Line Out connector. You have to provide power to the TL074 via the Aux Power connector for any to the back-end to work. The rest of the op-amp package was used for a set of sallen-key filters for the amp/speaker customization (see below).

The AUX Power connector is looking for (left-to-right): -12V ... gnd ... gnd ... +12V

In the original design, the +/- 12V were taken straight from the power supply via a custom connector off the supply's harness. If you're using an ATX supply of that period, you should have about 18 Watts of -12 available. The only thing -12 was used for in those days was the bottom of the RS-232 drivers, so you should be okay if you can find a supply with clean -12. Just fab up a harness hacking into the blue wire for -12 and yellow for +12 and any black for GND.

The larger use for the Aux Power was to supply the LM1876 Overture amp in the middle of the board. This is a good quality amp, used later in what came to be known as "Gainclone" designs. In this board, with just +/- 12V on tap, you can get 7-8 watts per channel into 4 ohms with very low distortion and noise. The speakers were custom eq'd with the filter network - iirc, it was about +6db at 100hz with a fairly high Q, and a broad, low-Q 2db dip centered at 5k .

The MIC/Headphone header was a harness that connected internally to a special keyboard connector - you could plug your headphones into the keyboard, which would mute the speakers via an impedance sensor. The microphone connector had to be placed elsewhere on the back panel due to some idiotic marketing decisions.

This was all pre-AC97, so we made up a lot of stuff as we went along. It was a great-sounding system and worked as I had hoped but it was the last real inventive bit of work to be done once Intel "wrote the spec". If you have any other questions just post here and I'll answer what I can. Cheers.

Hi sluggo. Welcome!

I hope the cards I have haven't been hooked up to a regular floppy power connector in the past.

Do you have an insight into the wavetable daughterboard?

Okay, so I got a little curious and went out to the garage and found an old card in a box of stuff. The wavetable equipped on it is the Samsung KS0174-1M05 (1M set). It has has George Sanger's "FAT" logo on it, fwiw. I recall it sounding nice on brass, but it's been quite a while since I've listened to it.