Most sound cards have a 15pin gameport connector where you get the MIDI I/O with a special gameport to MIDI cable or an adaptor such as this one : https://www.serdashop.com/DB15MIDI

That port carries the MIDI signal too. You need a so-called "Gameport MIDI cable", which can be found in all kinds of places for a few bucks. Like this:

As for which sound card on a 386, anything that has MPU-401 compatibility would do fine. Any common ES1868F card, OPTi 82c929, Aztech, Sound Blaster AWE64 Value, etc. Avoid the Sound Blaster 1/2/Pro, as they use their own MIDI standard which wasn't as well supported, and some (most) iterations of the Sound Blaster 16 have a nasty "hanging note" bug during MIDI playback. You generally don't have to worry about MPU401 "intelligent mode" for GM stuff on a Sound Canvas (and you can always use the SoftMPU driver if needed.)

I've never heard of the "3D Melody" card you linked to, but it looks awefully low-end. Might be fine, might have issues. You can get something better for the same money.

The thing in your link is a regular ISA sound card. It has a DA15 joystick port that also supports MIDI over some unused pins. This is by far the commonest way people used to get MIDI output out of a computer in the day. You can use a joystick-to-MIDI (DIN) cable with it. Cheapest option is to make one yourself, otherwise you need to buy one.

Note that MIDI implementations were not all equally good, and you should never expect pro musician quality from a consumer sound card. Common issues were hanging notes, incorrect notes, delays etc. The Soundblaster 16 line was particularly notorious for these problems, but a lot of other cards also suffered from them to greater or lesser degree. If you want good MIDI, you need to do some research into which sound card you choose. Personally I'd recommend something based on the C-Media CMI8330 chip, but YMMV.

Note that sound cards like this only support UART mode MIDI, not intelligent mode. For intelligent mode you would need a TSR like SoftMPU.

It is possible to find proper MIDI interfaces supporting all MPU401 features for the sort of budget you mention, but you need a lot of patience. In the retro computing/gaming community things like Roland's own cards and their MusicQuest clones are much sought-after and command a hefty price premium, but to musicians they are generally considered old useless crap and are sold at prices to match. I've picked up two MusicQuest cards within your budget that way, one for EUR 7.50, the other for EUR 15. Both have native DIN connectors you are expecting. But finding these requires a lot of patience. If you want one NOW you pay very high prices and are better off getting a replica - but including shipping that would come to 10x your budget.

But to keep it simple and get an authentic 386 experience: just buy a period-correct ISA card (avoid ISA PnP on a 386, so get something with jumpers for address, IRQ and DMA - the one you link to is a PnP card) and hook it up via the joystick-MIDI cable. Just be aware it may also be an authentically buggy experience.

Many thanks for the great advice, now I have enough keywords and basic understanding to continue the research. Oh well, Why did I think something as simple as digital MIDI output could simply work on any card 😀

xjas wrote:

I've never heard of the "3D Melody" card you linked to, but it looks awefully low-end. Might be fine, might have issues. You can get something better for the same money.

The chip's an ALS100+ rebrand so it's not too bad. It does have MPU401.

Is this ES1869F a good card? The datasheet for the ES1869F IC itself claims MPU-401 support, but I'm not sure if the header on the back is for IRQ configuration or if it's a PnP card (which, if I understand correctly, is undesirable because it doesn't work reliably?). Or is not for jumpers at all but an I/O connector of some kind...

P. S. Looks like that header is routed directly to the ISA bus connector?

Yes, that's a good card. It can either use PnP or software configuration via ESSCFG.EXE.

Oh! I thought no jumpers = no manual configuration, good to know. Thanks! So now it's time to ask the seller if it's working or not 😀

While I'm waiting for a response from the ES1869F seller, I found a T2 Labs Wavetable128 card. It seems to be decently common, but I found zero info on whether or not it supports MPU-401 / SoftMPU. Could you please confirm it doesn't? Otherwise I'd grab it, the price is low.

Tangentially related: is there a list of games somewhere that use the default instruments of the MT-32?

maxtherabbit wrote:

Tangentially related: is there a list of games somewhere that use the default instruments of the MT-32?

Maybe this? https://www.mobygames.com/attribute/sheet/att … ibuteId,35/p,2/

VioletGiraffe wrote:

While I'm waiting for a response from the ES1869F seller, I found a T2 Labs Wavetable128 card. It seems to be decently common, but I found zero info on whether or not it supports MPU-401 / SoftMPU. Could you please confirm it doesn't? Otherwise I'd grab it, the price is low.

Never heard of that specific card (and neither has Google, it seems), but generally all sound cards support MPU-401 UART mode, they just don't necessarily do it well. It's the chipset on the card that determines behaviour (in the case of the SB16, the DSP version determines which bugs you get).

ES1869F isn't exactly period correct for a 386 (the ES688 would be a better match there), but it's a very solid chip, with perfect SBPro2.0 compatibility, pretty bug-free MPU-401 UART and decent non-PnP config if desired. The only 'issue' is that it's ESFM FM synth isn't a 'real' Yamaha OPL3, but it's by no means the worst FM synth and you'd only notice the difference when comparing side-by-side, which isn't what you're talking about here. Only caveat is that some ES1869F chips were used on crappy unshielded, unfiltered cards - but that applies to most chipsets.

As for the 'Wavetable128" card, it sounds like it has onboard wavetable i.e. MIDI playback. That needn't be a problem if you can disable it, but if you have your own SC-88 you definitely don't need onboard wavetable; unless it's one of the very best (i.e. Korg or Yamaha OPL4 with decent-sized ROM) it won't hold a candle to the SC-88, and most cheaper onboard wavetables are very disappointing at best.

Another alternative: for an SC-88, you can connect it to your serial port with the appropriate cable and use SoftMPU: https://github.com/bjt42/softmpu/wiki/Serial- … I-Cable-Pinouts

Obviously not the best solution if you already have a sound card, but great for laptops or other machines without ISA slots.

But as others have already said, the "best" solution is to find an inexpensive ESS or SB16, and you'll be sweet.