Just ordered an Orpheus 2 LT. So excited!

And I just put my name down for an Orpheus 2! ☺️

Should have done it back with the first batch, but got sticker shock. After mulling it over for a few months though (and seeing eBay prices for the retro cards it replicates) its value proposition is now something I can get on board with. Just should have pulled the trigger before the LGR vid! 😂

ubiq wrote on 2023-06-25, 20:40:

And I just put my name down for an Orpheus 2! ☺️

Should have done it back with the first batch, but got sticker shock. After mulling it over for a few months though (and seeing eBay prices for the retro cards it replicates) its value proposition is now something I can get on board with. Just should have pulled the trigger before the LGR vid! 😂

I remember that episode as well. LGR made a good argument that it's actually a good value compared to the cost of buying vintage hardware; an Ultrasound especially.

The Ultrasound is also, in my opinion, a companion card, since you really want something with better Sound Blaster compatibility, and possibly a genuine OPL3 as well. But the Orpheus II puts it all on one card. This also increases your choice of motherboard if you only need a single ISA slot for sound. There are quite a few distinct advantages.

What's the card length of the LT? I have an HP desktop PC I'd like to put one of these in but the manual says the max size for the available slot I have is 16cm or 6.3". I could tell that the Orpheus I fit based on the card edge aligning with the connector but this one seems real close. Thanks!

Kahenraz wrote on 2023-06-26, 04:33:

The Ultrasound is also, in my opinion, a companion card, since you really want something with better Sound Blaster compatibility, and possibly a genuine OPL3 as well. But the Orpheus II puts it all on one card. This also increases your choice of motherboard if you only need a single ISA slot for sound. There are quite a few distinct advantages.

I purchased it just because of the GUS option - it's non-fake, non-emulated, native and with the maximum possibilities. Everything else is rare, expensive and not so cool. But everything else, including good MPU implementation was a nice addition, for sure.

jroman wrote on 2023-06-26, 09:39:

What's the card length of the LT? [...]

PCB is 16.6cm - 6mm longer than orpheus1 that is exact size of 16bit isa slot

My experience with PCMidi, Orpheus and MK8330 cards is one of simple joy 😄

In particular Orpheus II and MK8330 (complete with pcmidi add-on) are incredible cards.

These boards have everything I wished a board had back in the day.

The question arises: what more could you ask for in the future? 😁
(sorry for the off-topic)

igna78 wrote on 2023-06-26, 11:16:

The question arises: what more could you ask for in the future? 😁

Possibly something with A3D or a Yamaha FX or GM chip. There is already the Fortex project, but they have different goals.

Fortex, the A3D & XG/OPL3 accelerator (Vortex 2 + YMF744 combo sound card)

The biggest advantage of the Orpheus cards is the addition of the PCMIDI circuitry for intelligent mode MIDI in addition to whatever chip they decide to use for the sound card itself.

I'd like Keropi to mess around with an ISA card that has just has an FPGA on it, then code cores for different sound cards..

I also wouldn't mind seeing him do a PCI CS4624/4630 sound card with an OPL3 chip - that would be my dream PCI card.

You can't have a driverless OPL3 chip on the PCI bus. That only works on the ISA bus. OPL3 is only possible with drivers, and most of those only work under protected mode.

Kahenraz wrote on 2023-06-26, 15:24:

You can't have a driverless OPL3 chip on the PCI bus. That only works on the ISA bus. OPL3 is only possible with drivers, and most of those only work under protected mode.

What prevents a PCI card from "rouguely" claiming I/O writes to ports 388-38B even if not configured using a BAR? This should be enough to get the OPL3 to the PCI bus and driverless DOS support. The PCI card can at the same time add enough wait states to make the "read the status port N times" loops slow enough, even though the PCI bus is faster than the ISA bus.

Scuse me, but Yamaha YMF 7x4 is a chip with OPL3 core that work on PCI bus, is correct?

Create a sound card around this chip whit a wavetable headline and A3D component, will can be the next step (no add-on card, but a real sound card) 😁

igna78 wrote on 2023-06-26, 17:46:

Scuse me, but Yamaha YMF 7x4 is a chip with OPL3 core that work on PCI bus, is correct?

Create a sound card around this chip whit a wavetable headline and A3D component, will can be the next step (no add-on card, but a real sound card) 😁

I believe it only works with drivers while in protected mode.

Kahenraz wrote on 2023-06-26, 18:18:

igna78 wrote on 2023-06-26, 17:46:

Scuse me, but Yamaha YMF 7x4 is a chip with OPL3 core that work on PCI bus, is correct?

Create a sound card around this chip whit a wavetable headline and A3D component, will can be the next step (no add-on card, but a real sound card) 😁

I believe it only works with drivers while in protected mode.

This is exactly what PCPCI is for.

That connector is very uncommon. And most motherboards where it appears already have an ISA slot. The number of motherboards with a PC/PCI connector and no ISA slot is even fewer.

Kahenraz wrote on 2023-06-26, 18:43:

That connector is very uncommon. And most motherboards where it appears already have an ISA slot. The number of motherboards with a PC/PCI connector and no ISA slot is even fewer.

Yay, moving goal posts..

let's not get overboard here 😀
the truth is that we are not done with ISA yet and there are no plans or even thoughts at the moment to do something for the PCI bus
maaayybeeeee in the future - but it will be some far future...

..we are not done with ISA yet..
Wonderful words, dear Keropi 😄
But now..what is the meaning of your words? Please spoiler! 😁

igna78 wrote on 2023-06-26, 11:16:

The question arises: what more could you ask for in the future? 😁

What I 'd like to see eventually is a modular board to accept different add-ons instead of having different fully made ones.

So the board itself acts as a soundcard motherboard including all the high quality analogue routes, backplate and ISA connector. The digital processing part will be added on top of it so there won't need to design another card from scratch each time a new variant is going to be produced.

In this case we can have for example only GUS add-on or GUS + AWE add-on or any combinations we'd like to have as optional purchase. Reducing the production time and cost by increasing modularity. I believe there is no room to improve analogue part further so we can stop here and just focus on digital add-on boards.

Moreover, as this idea makes some portion of boards to overlap, it makes the final length of the cad shorter, (of course with the trade-off of it being a bit thicker).

Sounds like you’ve reinvented ISA.