Very true. Don't sweat the small stuff, as the saying goes. There's plenty of people selling plenty of things for plenty of reasons, and there's no sense depriving yourself of something you want just because you don't like they guy selling it, or his reasons for selling it. (Assuming the seller is otherwise trustworthy, of course.)

However, at the same time, one shouldn't underestimate the value of marketing, and if you want to convince somebody "on the fence" to buy something from you, it generally works better if you're not a dick to them.

What it comes down to for me personally... I just don't want the thing. Like I mentioned above, I just don't see how it's any better than the available alternatives, and I haven't seen anything that would convince me otherwise. If you see more value in it, then hell yeah, buy one, put it together, and post pics. 😁

Old Thrashbarg wrote:

Exactly. I really don't even understand the premise behind the project... it's billed as a cheaper alternative to rare and expen […]
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Exactly. I really don't even understand the premise behind the project... it's billed as a cheaper alternative to rare and expensive 8-bit sound boards, but there are still plenty of 8-bit AdLib compatibles out there... they're not particularly hard to find, and they're not much money either. Sure, real AdLib boards are difficult to come by, but this new board is no more a real AdLib than any of the other clones/compatibles available... so if you're not going to use an authentic card, why not just use one of the other cards? You don't have to build and beta-test those.

Granted, there is a limited supply of old sound cards out there, so eventually the sources are going to dry up. But the exact same thing can be said of the OPL2 chips being used in this project. So again... why?

I saw the same point get brought up in the thread over at VCF, and it completely glossed over there too. One guy even got bitched-out for suggesting using a SB 2.0 instead. But, I also found this little tidbit, which pretty well sums it up for me...

lynchaj wrote:

Thanks Per! Good job and ignore the peanut gallery detractors on Vogons. It is easy for them to criticize especially when they can't do anything themselves! We'll get this project working yet!

I completely agree with you. I have read OPL2 board topic on VC forum and I don't get it why this guy is so nervous. Maybe he is afraid that someone will discover that this project is useless? If his project is good and useful then it will defend itself. I think that currently this project is useless for typical user but can be excellent for a person who wants to develop its skill. If someone in the future creates OPL2 FPGA implementation and combine with luchaj board it will be very usefull.

Regards! (:

An idea would then be to make a microcontroller emulating the OPL2, while also emulating the same pinout. Then it could be used with this card.

The main reason why I want this card to be made is not because of the OPL2 compability, but because it also supports the 4-op OPM chip. Of course this will require some custom programming, but that's no porblem for me. Curently, only one single audio card uses a similar chip, and that's the IBM Music Feature Card; which is very rare and does not allow direct low-level controll of the chip.