isa sound card with removable chip \ VOGONS

isa sound card with removable chip

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First post, by f34rthereaper

Posted on 2021-10-20, 15:23

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Bought a small lot of isa cards and this was among them, interesting thing about it that the crystal cs4239 chip is in a socket. Cant say ive ever seen a sound card with a socketed chip before. Was this a thing on sound cards, and why would you need a socket?

IMG_20211020_111640_474.jpg

IMG_20211020_111831_217.jpg

Sorry for the potato image quality, my phone camera is terrible.

Reply 1 of 11, by cyclone3d

Posted on 2021-10-20, 16:23

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That almost for sure is a pre-production / development board.

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Reply 2 of 11, by Grzyb

Posted on 2021-10-20, 16:41

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Socketed chips were common on early sound cards, see eg. Sound Blaster 1.x, with a bunch of socketed chips: OPL2, DAC for OPL2, DSP, 2 x CMS
But I've never seen sockets on those late-ISA single-chip cards.
So yes, I'm also inclined to believe it's development, not retail.

Nie tylko, jak widzicie, w tym trudność, że nie zdołacie wejść na moją górę, lecz i w tym, że ja do was cały zejść nie mogę, gdyż schodząc, gubię po drodze to, co miałem donieść.

Reply 3 of 11, by Tiido

Posted on 2021-10-20, 17:11

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That's definitely the official development card for the Crystal sound chipsets. Very cool to see it !

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Reply 4 of 11, by RetroGamer4Ever

Posted on 2021-10-20, 17:21

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Coooooooooool! That's some very good swag you landed there.

Reply 5 of 11, by f34rthereaper

Posted on 2021-10-20, 17:59

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Interesting! That may explain why i could find much info on the card model #. Thanks for the replies! Ill have to pop it in a pc and give it a try

Reply 6 of 11, by the3dfxdude

Posted on 2021-10-20, 18:11

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Sockets were used in cards in the early days for expansion and servicing. They got dropped over time due to chip integration and cost cutting. And a QFP socket is not something I've seen in a consumer product. They are expensive, take up space, and fragile. I use a tool when handling QFP in a socket so not to damage the pins, so really a bad thing for an end user, honestly.

Reply 7 of 11, by matze79

Posted on 2021-10-20, 19:22

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Well i have socketed 386SX, finding a "Not Bend" 486SLC is pain in the Ass i once tried to bend all Pins so i could put it in but.. yeah i just put back the 386SX.

Last edited by matze79 on 2021-10-20, 20:31. Edited 1 time in total.

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Reply 8 of 11, by keropi

Posted on 2021-10-20, 20:28

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yep - as other have wrote above this is a Crystal reference board , this one: http://ebook.pldworld.com/_semiconductors/Cir … ubs/4235rd6.pdf

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Reply 9 of 11, by Shreddoc

Posted on 2021-10-20, 20:38

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Very interesting specimen, nice score.

Reply 10 of 11, by AppleSauce

Posted on 2021-10-20, 23:16

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Wasn't the GF1 chip socketed on the original gravis ultrasound?

Reply 11 of 11, by Grzyb

Posted on 2021-10-21, 02:59

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AppleSauce wrote on 2021-10-20, 23:16:

Wasn't the GF1 chip socketed on the original gravis ultrasound?

It was.
Even in the late 90s there were cards like Creamware TripleDAT/CutMaster with socketed chips - but this was high-end digital audio workstation stuff...

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