Made the eBay seller an offer to buy a smaller amount first and if everything works out a complete drypack (120 chips) for $100 ... we'll see how things go 😀

Anyone need SOJ DRAM 256x16 chips (i.e. for GUS Classic/ACE/non-pro PnP)? I salvaged 39 of those from older gfx cards I wouldn't use anymore earlier today:
http://i.imgur.com/nySisT2.jpg

EDIT: Got a quick and nice reply 😀 Sampling 1-3 chips before hand shouldn't be a problem.

I haven't read the whole thread yet (which I will do!) but I am also interested in a Gravis Ultrasound compatible Interwave card 😀
It is just a matter of price 😁

Price will be something around $40 if all goes well.
Keep in mind this is still a semi-private project with finished cards/pcbs only being distributed among folks who contributed in one way or another. Donations (as in $$$) might possibly be an easy way to opt in for those who can't contribute, if I decide to accept those.

EDIT: Also contacted voice crystal about licensing their older soundbank for private use - that would add $15 or less to the total price.

Would donating my Compaq/STB clone of a Gravis PnP Pro help you?

Kodai wrote:

Would donating my Compaq/STB clone of a Gravis PnP Pro help you?

I'm already having one of those shipped to my place as a donation from another VOGONS member.

Getting 3 chips for a sample shipped here ... by fedex (!) til monday.
Sadly the seller did decide on that without asking me first, which is pricing in on a hefty $78 - which is a decent bit more than what I intended on paying for shipping. Furthermore the prototype PCB and/or chips will be around another $100 each ... so yeah, a having a total amount of $170-$270 covered would be awesome (take $170 as a sure thing as the chips may or may not work for this project). Basically any amount over $0.80 (I've said InterWave chips would be free to donors if everything works out) will help.

So yeah, money donations are welcome as of now (any donator's nickname will be put into the "contributions by:/thanks to:"-section on the PCB, unless they don't want to and will be mentioned by nickname in the documentation) - and will of course enable you to obtain a PCB (or PCB with the InterWave chip pre-soldered) once this project goes final.

Just PM me for my paypal and/or SEPA (wire transfer) details - I'll keep an anonymous total amount raised updated in this thread.

EDIT: $263 raised + 3 more donations coming

Brand new GUS compatible cards sound like an excellent idea. I've been thinking the same though from time to time, but I figured it probably wouldn't be doable, but hopefully I'm wrong 😀

Layout for a prototype basically been cloned (except for some finetuning) and sources for InterWave Chips have been found 😀
Only remaining issue is the ROM, which should be solved soon-ish.

First time I actually soldered with solder paste & hot air today 😀
Worked out quite okay-ish for SOJ (not 100% aligned and the joints could look nicer ... but they work perfectly) ... QFP was a mess tho (but then again I used an old chip on an old board with just roughly cleaned pads).

http://i.imgur.com/L7fAx1T.jpg

Use flux, or non conductive soldering paste

I'll see what I can do ... the soldering paste I'm using actually should have a sufficient amount of flux. Using my iron and desoldering wick I have managed to quite reliably fix up bridges for now.
Good thing I took a bunch of waste PCBs from my parents' place with me so I can practice some more, as things might work as of now, but I don't feel too confident yet.

Probably I should take care of my cold first, but hey ... lying in bed is boring.

Can't wait to read the flash 😁

I don't think one can send stuff faster than with fedex ... less than 48 hours from FL, USA to Berlin, Germany.

http://i.imgur.com/T7hvuBX.jpg

Yeah, Tyco Electronics (I've already mentioned them earlier in this thread) also sent me samples of SIMM72 sockets with FedEx (but for free, thank God). It took them 3 days to show up at my doorstep in Moscow 😀

I woul use a cheap pal and a cheap 16mb sdram
That chip is strange, with the bank select pins they could acheive 16 4 mb banks 😁 making usound pnp to have 64 mb 😁

Unfortunately InterWave doesn't support SDRAM due to its age. Only FPM and EDO memory is supported.

hard1k wrote:

Unfortunately InterWave doesn't support SDRAM due to its age. Only FPM and EDO memory is supported.

That's where the PAL would come in. But not too keen on that idea either. 16MB RAM & 16MB ROM should be enough (considering those are the limits set by AMD in hard- and software).

A first success on the QFP front tho ... http://i.imgur.com/KHrkPHh.jpg
Keep in mind that's a chip I unsoldered and resoldered (after cleaning up the pads) ... luckily on the clone everything will be new and a lot nicer to work with ... also smaller pin pitch 😀 Interwave suddenly felt giant after I soldered that Trio64+ chip (160 vs. 200 pins)

This project is getting more exciting with each new post. I'll see if I can donate to the cause when the time to do so arrives 😁.

Just some 72-pin SIMMs would be sufficient, or add double-RAS 512kx16 RAM chips or even regular EDO\FPM RAM chips like 1Mx16 😀

shock__ wrote:

That's where the PAL would come in.

Didn't catch that, sorry! 😀