This might be an obvious question, but why? What are the benefits over an existing Soundcard with OPL2 or OPL3 chip?

For fun! And it's an opportunity for someone like me to strengthen my knowledge about electronics and hardware design. My day job consists mostly of writing / maintaining business and web applications so I don't get many chances to really dive deep into hardware. It also seems simple enough that I can appreciate and understand the design.

Also, original AdLibs are pretty expensive on eBay.

and also some day, the world is going to run out of sound blasters

leileilol wrote:

and also some day, the world is going to run out of sound blasters

And OPL2 chips 😀

Seriously, the project is concentrating on using OPL2 chips. I think it would be more useful to use OPL3 chips (although somewhat more difficult). In its current form, it is essentially remaking an Adlib card with better output characteristics.

I don't know where to find an OPL2 chip, I'm hoping that will come together soon.

Cool, but useless project.

Might be fun to design such a card if you want to get yourself familiar with electronic design, but then again there are Soundblaster 2.0 cards readily available for small money ($5 vs. roughly $30 for such a DIY card).
If you want to do something useful, reverse engineer the 3rd chip required on the SB 2.0 for CMS compatibility or put an OPL3 on your card while remaining SB Pro compatible while sticking with the 8 bit ISA bus.

I've taken a short look on the PCB files available already ... is there any way to manage the output volume? I don't see a variable resistor common on these cards and nothing indicating a software mixer.

shock__ that is a good point!

What about a Gameblaster clone? I mean these two Philips Chips are readily available...

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

What about a Gameblaster clone?

What about an ¡Audio Loca! Bitchin' Retro 5.1 2000 sound card?

Might be fun to design such a card if you want to get yourself familiar with electronic design, but then again there are Soundblaster 2.0 cards readily available for small money ($5 vs. roughly $30 for such a DIY card).
If you want to do something useful, reverse engineer the 3rd chip required on the SB 2.0 for CMS compatibility or put an OPL3 on your card while remaining SB Pro compatible while sticking with the 8 bit ISA bus.

I personally haven't found SB 2.0 cards for 5$. Where is this? Also it's possible to put an OPM chip on it which would make it distinct, though you'd have to code your own apps.

I've taken a short look on the PCB files available already ... is there any way to manage the output volume? I don't see a variable resistor common on these cards and nothing indicating a software mixer.

There was some talk of that on the vintage-computer.com forums so there might be one in the final revision. I'm not the designer, I'm just interested in building it to learn from the experience.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

This might be an obvious question, but why? What are the benefits over an existing Soundcard with OPL2 or OPL3 chip?

This card can also be fitted with an OPM chip which would make it different. I'm not really interesting to create something better, it just seems like a fun project to me.

leileilol wrote:

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

What about a Gameblaster clone?

What about an ¡Audio Loca! Bitchin' Retro 5.1 2000 sound card?

This makes me realize two things:

1. How dumb the word retro sounds
2. I should never use it again and edit the word retro out of the original post