sluggo wrote on 2021-12-30, 06:38:

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

Thanks for the info... I think I'll use this for a secondary DOS build because Wavetable support is more important to me for my purposes.

cyclone3d wrote on 2021-12-30, 06:53:

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

I did this, it did not kill the card... Now that sluggo has revealed the pinout, I see that all I did was plug 5V where -12V should have been plugged into.

The amp became REALLY really hot after a minute or two, but I did have some faint audio coming out of the card.

mockingbird wrote on 2021-12-30, 08:48:

Thanks for the info... I think I'll use this for a secondary DOS build because Wavetable support is more important to me for my […]
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sluggo wrote on 2021-12-30, 06:38:

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

Thanks for the info... I think I'll use this for a secondary DOS build because Wavetable support is more important to me for my purposes.

cyclone3d wrote on 2021-12-30, 06:53:

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

I did this, it did not kill the card... Now that sluggo has revealed the pinout, I see that all I did was plug 5V where -12V should have been plugged into.

The amp became REALLY really hot after a minute or two, but I did have some faint audio coming out of the card.

The wavetable connector is standard, so any daughterboard you have will work. Might be an odd fit mechanically, but a ribbon cable solves many problems.

Hard to say what happened to the amp with +5 on Vee, but a couple of those 470uF electrolytics would have been reverse biased, so don't leave it that way for too long!

So, this is all about retro gaming? A revival of the old mod scene? I'm genuinely curious - care to fill me in?

sluggo wrote on 2021-12-30, 09:06:

The wavetable connector is standard, so any daughterboard you have will work. Might be an odd fit mechanically, but a ribbon cable solves many problems.

Hard to say what happened to the amp with +5 on Vee, but a couple of those 470uF electrolytics would have been reverse biased, so don't leave it that way for too long!

So, this is all about retro gaming? A revival of the old mod scene? I'm genuinely curious - care to fill me in?

The caps are fine... Who was responsible for specifying the cap brand, was that you? You did a terrific job with these high quality Elnas that still look good after all these years.

Are you certain about the wavetable module (WT100) being standard? This is at least one report to the contrary.

Personally, this is about a repudiation of modern computing. The industry and its consumers has missed the point of what computers are meant to do and are instead focused on cranking out Chinese goods designed by Asian children, with the games we play being produced by unimaginative hacks.

I can play the most wonderful games of the past on a conservatively-priced machine, or pay thousands of dollars for nVidia's table scraps just for the privilege of joining a Fortnight server filled with high school drop-outs.

sluggo wrote on 2021-12-30, 09:06:

The wavetable connector is standard, so any daughterboard you have will work. Might be an odd fit mechanically, but a ribbon cab […]
Show full quote

mockingbird wrote on 2021-12-30, 08:48:

Thanks for the info... I think I'll use this for a secondary DOS build because Wavetable support is more important to me for my […]
Show full quote

sluggo wrote on 2021-12-30, 06:38:

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

Thanks for the info... I think I'll use this for a secondary DOS build because Wavetable support is more important to me for my purposes.

cyclone3d wrote on 2021-12-30, 06:53:

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

I did this, it did not kill the card... Now that sluggo has revealed the pinout, I see that all I did was plug 5V where -12V should have been plugged into.

The amp became REALLY really hot after a minute or two, but I did have some faint audio coming out of the card.

The wavetable connector is standard, so any daughterboard you have will work. Might be an odd fit mechanically, but a ribbon cable solves many problems.

Hard to say what happened to the amp with +5 on Vee, but a couple of those 470uF electrolytics would have been reverse biased, so don't leave it that way for too long!

So, this is all about retro gaming? A revival of the old mod scene? I'm genuinely curious - care to fill me in?

So pretty much all the info floating around on the web about the daughterboard having a proprietary pinout is incorrect. That is good to know.

This is mostly about retro gaming.

There are also a few people that have done pretty extensive testing between different wavetable boards. I plan to do this as well at some point as I do have some that aren't generally on other comparisons and sometimes the equipment used for recording is lacking.

Nowadays, all the sound and music is pretty much the same no matter what computer you have... It is really kinda boring and newer games that have what I would call excellent soundtracks are few and far between.
It is usually easier to find indie games with really good soundtracks than it is to find AAA titles with good soundtracks.

I buzzed the pinouts on the host and wt boards I have and everything looks okay. The "odd" row is dedicated to grounds, and the pin 1 square pad is correctly placed on both the host and daughterboard. Supply lines are correct and the analog and data lines route correctly. The silkscreens on both boards are also correct. Scratching my head on this one. I will say I wish they had thought to include a friggin' key pin on this spec.

"Personally, this is about a repudiation of modern computing. The industry and its consumers has missed the point of what computers are meant to do and are instead focused on cranking out Chinese goods designed by Asian children, with the games we play being produced by unimaginative hacks."

Amen. And thanks, I get it now. I still don't want to configure an ISA machine ever again (although it was satisfying when it all worked), but I get it.

When I was in the business I tried to push our marketing team to include in our software bundle packages that would really amaze and delight our customers with capabilities that wouldn't have been possible just years before at nearly any price. The response of that team w/r/t audio features? "Karaoke - our customers really want good karaoke". That was kind of the end of the road for me.

sluggo wrote on 2021-12-30, 07:49:

The wavetable equipped on it is the Samsung KS0174-1M05 (1M set).

Don't suppose you have any Samsung Omniwave developer documentation in that box? I've been looking for developer documentation for Samsung KS0164 (or equivalent design stuff from Sequoia Development Group). All I've ever turned up are datasheets, maybe a patent.

sluggo wrote on 2021-12-30, 17:58:

I buzzed the pinouts on the host and wt boards I have and everything looks okay. The "odd" row is dedicated to grounds, and the pin 1 square pad is correctly placed on both the host and daughterboard. Supply lines are correct and the analog and data lines route correctly. The silkscreens on both boards are also correct. Scratching my head on this one. I will say I wish they had thought to include a friggin' key pin on this spec.

I just want to confirm that it does not work, I just tested it, but yes, the pinout does in fact look correct.

sluggo wrote on 2021-12-30, 06:38:

Hi - This is a card I designed long ago, so some of this stuff is a bit fuzzy.
...
If you have any other questions just post here and I'll answer what I can. Cheers.

This is so fricking cool! Can you share what other products/hardware design you were involved in? Any anecdotes from that era, stories about R&D and manufacturing would be highly appreciated.

Hey, new to the site. I also have this card with the wave table. Actually I have 3. I have my original HP pavilion 8176 that was my family first PC in 1997, that later became mine. I have a spare card I bought off ebay as I couldn't get mine working correctly some 20 years ago. I also have another one in a HP 8160 I bought to use for parts to rebuild my original computer. Seems somewhere around 2000, we had our computer updated with windows 98 and sound and all the multimedia stuff never worked again. I ended up putting some generic sound card in it to get it going again and never did get the drivers figured out back then. I got the old HP out of the attic and have purchased that 8160 for parts as my case is in poor shape. Both systems still work tho and appears the 8160 still has its original installation of win95. My 8176 has a very unstable win98 I'm sure 15 year old me ruined downloading music back in the day. Anyways, very cool to see the original designer of this card here! I hope to locate all the drivers etc and get this card back going. I have the original monitor mounted speakers, keyboard and all etc. I want to get this thing going and pretend its 1997 again. I literally sat and listened to that quantum bigfoot grind and peck away for hours back in the day so I guess I'm super nostalgic.

Here is a pic showing the Aux plugged in. It comes straight from the power supply.

coleborman wrote on 2022-03-06, 13:17:

Here is a pic showing the Aux plugged in. It comes straight from the power supply.

Can you test the wavetable please?

I can't think of any game in particular to try, I personally use the enhanced "talkie" edition of monkey islan run with the "r" parameter (adds general midi support)... But you need to sort of assemble the files yourself from the original and the update to produce a working copy.

I also have this sound. It's being detected by Win98SE and it installs drivers correctly, however the card won't make a sound. Auxilliary power connector is not connected - was it confirmed it's necessary for the card (amp) to work?