VOGONS


First post, by RealNorstein

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As the title said - I saw this card online for sale and it comes in the original box of a Terratec Maestro 32 card, with a Terratec Dream GS wavetable daughterboard, but it doesn't look like the Terratec Maestro or really any ISA sound card I know at all.

Unfortunately the picture is potato quality, but there are some things that might lead to the solution.

Hints:
- it has a wavetable connector
- it has these red and white (cinch?) audio connectors that are somewhat rare, especially among ISA cards
- the game port connector is routed to a separate ISA/PCI slot shield

At first glance one might mistake it for the Windows Sound System card, but its cinch (?) connectors are both red, and it doesn't feature a wavetable connector.

Reply 1 of 9, by Pierre32

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AWE64 Gold has red & white RCAs, but it ain't that.

Are you sure that's a Terratec daughterboard on there? Image search is a bit vague but they don't seem to have these rounded, cut out corners.

I'm wondering if this is some hybrid modem / sound card. Some of those black rear ports could conceivably be RJ12s.

Reply 2 of 9, by RealNorstein

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Pierre32 wrote on 2024-11-08, 08:37:

Are you sure that's a Terratec daughterboard on there? Image search is a bit vague but they don't seem to have these rounded, cut out corners.

Yes, the corners only look rounded, as you can see on this more detailed picture of the Terratec Dream GSWAVE daughterboard.

Reply 3 of 9, by Pierre32

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Well there you go. Odd looking board!

After another image search deep dive I've still come up with nothing. At this point you might have to buy it just to document it 😉

Reply 4 of 9, by RealNorstein

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Pierre32 wrote on 2024-11-09, 01:37:

At this point you might have to buy it just to document it 😉

Yeah I did, can't wait for it to arrive. The price was way below what any wavetable daughterboard normally costs anyway, so I couldn't help myself.

Plus, I'm definitely interested in whatever that sound card is. I hope it is a poorly documented model from Terratec, as I'm fond of that brand, but I clearly found something rare.

Hope it is of the useful kind, but even if not, I'll be happy with the wavetable board. The samples on there are a 4 MB set that got Terratec a lawsuit for ripping off the SC-55. I already have another daughterboard with the same samples (Terratec Wavesystem Professional SOWT-24), and it sounds great, so I might try to trade this for a different daughterboard or a wavetable card I don't have yet.

Reply 5 of 9, by Joseph_Joestar

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At a guess, maybe a (semi) professional sound card with a wavetable header. Likely aimed at music production.

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Reply 6 of 9, by RealNorstein

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That could be a good or a bad thing I guess. I got myself some other Terratec cards, the EWS 64 XL for instance is also partly aimed at music production but makes for a great DOS and Windows 98 sound card, too.
The EWS 88 MT on the other hand might be great for recording or so I've heard, but for me who only enjoys games and tracker music, it's practically worthless.

Reply 7 of 9, by Jo22

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Hi, the Windows Sound System looks similar, but not identical.
WSS had no wavetable header, I think.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Sound_System

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Reply 8 of 9, by Pierre32

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Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-11-09, 12:41:

At a guess, maybe a (semi) professional sound card with a wavetable header. Likely aimed at music production.

This was one of the search rabbit holes I went down. Didn't turn up anything, but it's a plausible theory.

Good work grabbing it OP, looking forward to more details.

Reply 9 of 9, by Shponglefan

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Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-11-09, 12:41:

At a guess, maybe a (semi) professional sound card with a wavetable header. Likely aimed at music production.

If that was the case, I'd expect it to have MIDI ports (like an MPU-401AT or something). Whereas those jacks all seem like they could be audio jacks.

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