Sounds really promising and worth diging into ... kinda kills the joy that I got an offer for IW78C21M1 chips 4 $4 per piece.

But hey ... the more off the shelf parts we can incorporate, the better.

If I could borrow one from a gus pnp or other I would test it for sure 😀 It doesn't break if we try 😁

Hey guys, it's a shame for me to miss such a thread here!
I've already posted about possible GUS PnP Upgrade, so let me share some ideas here also.
Sure, the IW78C21M1 chip is a 1 MiB Flash ROM. One can figure out its pinout on the GUS PnP PCB (Gravis actually provided for another - DIP - package for the onboard ROM, you may notice the solder points on the PCB, they are wired up to the IW78C21M1 chip).
I'm pretty sure that this chip can be replaced with a 4 MiB Flash ROM in some more common package - and flashed with the supplied 4 MiB image (originally intended for RAM loading). But first, the original chip should be dumped and compared with the FFF/FF8 file format (just to confirm that the file-vs-image structure will allow for the card to address the new ROM based larger image in the same way as it used the original IW78C21M1 based one).
If everything works, then we'll get an unmatched 4 MiB preloaded GUS (hopefully, it will be able to use the ROM to its full extent in DOS - some feature that could not be achieved with the RAM-based 4MiB image).
As far as RAM is concerned, of course, a fully fledged SIMM72 socket should be provided. And the newest InterWave chip will be the way to go (despite the ignorance about any changes introduced into the chip).
Thus, the ideal clone (to my mind) will be:
1. The new InterWave chip.
2. DIP socket for 4 MiB Flash ROM.
3. SIMM72 socket for 16 MiB RAM Upgrade.

I've spotted an ad on Amibay (one can easily find it), where a seller offers a damaged PnP. Already expressed my interest (actually, Marmes has done this too, but pending questions, and I would eagerly buy that damaged board - and contribute it to the project for the sake of an Ideal InterWave Clone - and one could easily use it both to dump the IW78C21M1 and to reverse its pinout).

Cheers!

hard1k wrote:

Hey guys, it's a shame for me to miss such a thread here! I've already posted about possible GUS PnP Upgrade, so let me share so […]
Show full quote

Hey guys, it's a shame for me to miss such a thread here!
I've already posted about possible GUS PnP Upgrade, so let me share some ideas here also.
Sure, the IW78C21M1 chip is a 1 MiB Flash ROM. One can figure out its pinout on the GUS PnP PCB (Gravis actually provided for another - DIP - package for the onboard ROM, you may notice the solder points on the PCB, they are wired up to the IW78C21M1 chip).
I'm pretty sure that this chip can be replaced with a 4 MiB Flash ROM in some more common package - and flashed with the supplied 4 MiB image (originally intended for RAM loading). But first, the original chip should be dumped and compared with the FFF/FF8 file format (just to confirm that the file-vs-image structure will allow for the card to address the new ROM based larger image in the same way as it used the original IW78C21M1 based one).
If everything works, then we'll get an unmatched 4 MiB preloaded GUS (hopefully, it will be able to use the ROM to its full extent in DOS - some feature that could not be achieved with the RAM-based 4MiB image).
As far as RAM is concerned, of course, a fully fledged SIMM72 socket should be provided. And the newest InterWave chip will be the way to go (despite the ignorance about any changes introduced into the chip).
Thus, the ideal clone (to my mind) will be:
1. The new InterWave chip.
2. DIP socket for 4 MiB Flash ROM.
3. SIMM72 socket for 16 MiB RAM Upgrade.

I've spotted an ad on Amibay (one can easily find it), where a seller offers a damaged PnP. Already expressed my interest (actually, Marmes has done this too, but pending questions, and I would eagerly buy that damaged board - and contribute it to the project for the sake of an Ideal InterWave Clone - and one could easily use it both to dump the IW78C21M1 and to reverse its pinout).

Cheers!

Hi!
I bought them yes 😀
I will share what i have, no problem with that!
I like when we have more people involved 😀

About that SB/SB-Pro/SB16 feature people have been talking about in this tread. Compatibility in others words.
I have an idea for a different aproach.

Don't do Sound blaster compatibility. Why not do an ACE aproach, with a real OPL chip?
Then people can have an AWE + GUS + real Adlib.

How does this sound? (just a thought, have not read the entire tread)

Brostenen, that's a great idea.

We need first to make the sch to understand how it works, then, we can add what is possible to add

Marmes wrote:

We need first to make the sch to understand how it works, then, we can add what is possible to add

I understand that. Was just an idea or thought.
Gonna follow this project on the side line.
Just interesting to see what people will figure out.

brostenen wrote:

About that SB/SB-Pro/SB16 feature people have been talking about in this tread. Compatibility in others words. I have an idea fo […]
Show full quote

About that SB/SB-Pro/SB16 feature people have been talking about in this tread. Compatibility in others words.
I have an idea for a different aproach.

Don't do Sound blaster compatibility. Why not do an ACE aproach, with a real OPL chip?
Then people can have an AWE + GUS + real Adlib.

How does this sound? (just a thought, have not read the entire tread)

An Adlib DIY clone has already been done, been posted about here on vogons. Of interest would be a pas/sbpro combo clone.

If the PCB manufator could do a specific colour, when ordering say, 100 pcb's.
Why not give the final product a funky colour, that makes it stand out?
Orange? Dark purple? Anything?

brostenen wrote:

If the PCB manufator could do a specific colour, when ordering say, 100 pcb's.
Why not give the final product a funky colour, that makes it stand out?
Orange? Dark purple? Anything?

What about green?

Gravis got it right the first time, it should be red 😏

(Deleted. No longer relevant anyway)

being a clone, it should not be red. We should leave it for the real deal 😀

What about purple ? Oshpark has purple boards, they look cool !

Going with Marmes here ... red should be reserved for the original Gravis made Ultrasound cards.

Iteadstudio offers a wide range of colors for PCBs for a little extra fee.
Personally I'd probably go with purple for prototypes (;)) and blue for the finished card.

shock__ wrote:

Going with Marmes here ... red should be reserved for the original Gravis made Ultrasound cards.

Personally I'd probably go with purple for prototypes (;)) and blue for the finished card.

Agree 100% on this.

Just an idea (again), if many people want a bit different things and it might be difficult to get the chips originally used in GUS (or other sound cards), why not make a FPGA board with enough sound card features like MIDI, joystick and audio connectors, onboard DRAM memory etc, and then design the sound card in the FPGA, so some might want it to be GUS, some might want it to be Adlib, SoundBlaster, CMS, Tandy, Disney Sound Source, Covox or whatever.

As long as the ISA card (or PCI card, or PCIE card) is designed and it has basic DAC, ADC, DRAM, etc chips, it could emulate any sound card.

Then, making a different sound card is just a matter of designing (describing the logic operations) in software and loading the resulting binary file to FPGA. Of course it could still have some sockets for actual chips if one prefers to use real chips in it instead of full 100% emulation (or for verifying the emulation is 100% accurate, or also have matching two decade old analog portion instead of high-end modern DAC and stuff.

Too bad I have not yet found a normal ISA FPGA board, many of them are ISA but in PC-104 form factor and have high prices as they are industrial IO cards.

Thing is ... that would require a absolutely different kind of expertise, which I don't have 😉

While the approach is certainly better and various solutions openly available (DOSBox, various relevant synthetic chip cores, documentations) I myself like to be able to finish up projects at least theoretically on my own.
Slapping an Altera MAX10 + input/output stage on an ISA card would be something I could do, but certainly not writing cores/software for it. As CPLDs/FPGAs have been affordable for quite some time and a bunch of folks around who enjoy working with those there must be another reason why no one even attempted what you proposed.

So yeah, until then, awesome idea ... if anyone would be up for that I'd certainly be interested.

I already mentioned the idea to use an FPGA, though not as detailed.
It would probably have to be ISA - there are just so many threads talking about SB compatibility of PCI sound cards. I think for most cards you needed a software driver which needs V86 mode, and with newer mainboards this didn't work anymore. The point is ISA DMA, if you just want to do Adlib or CMS PCI or PCIe should work, but Sound Blaster and GUS need DMA (IIRC the GUS had an option to use Port-mapped IO instead, but games would have to support this).