VOGONS


IBM PS/1 Audio Card.

Topic actions

Reply 60 of 91, by Great Hierophant

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

It sounds like someone is going to have to use an oscilloscope to find the base frequency of this card or find the IBM Technical Reference or programming materials for the card.

http://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/ - Nerdly Pleasures - My Retro Gaming, Computing & Tech Blog

Reply 61 of 91, by VileR

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

Or you could run a frequency analyzer on the recordings. You'd need long, clean single notes, so the Silpheed ones aren't ideal, but the values I get from Audacity hover around a x1.11 difference in frequency (i.e. the PS/1's pitch is 1.11 times higher than the Tandy emulation)... that works out to 180 cents or so, which is actually slightly *less* than a full step, but with these recordings that's far from conclusive.

[ WEB ] - [ BLOG ] - [ TUBE ] - [ CODE ]

Reply 62 of 91, by Great Hierophant

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t
VileRancour wrote:

Or you could run a frequency analyzer on the recordings. You'd need long, clean single notes, so the Silpheed ones aren't ideal, but the values I get from Audacity hover around a x1.11 difference in frequency (i.e. the PS/1's pitch is 1.11 times higher than the Tandy emulation)... that works out to 180 cents or so, which is actually slightly *less* than a full step, but with these recordings that's far from conclusive.

I guess you could write a value to the PS/1's PSG representing a known square wave frequency. Assuming the dividers are the same between IBM's version and the SN76496, you should be able to get a much better approximation of the base frequency. The lowest frequency the chip can output using the 3.579MHz clock is 874.76Hz. Perhaps a comparison of the raw Silpheed music data would be instructive. Might it be that the PS/1 chip is using a 4.00MHz base frequency?

http://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/ - Nerdly Pleasures - My Retro Gaming, Computing & Tech Blog

Reply 64 of 91, by hottobar

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

I really would like to see the emulation of this audio card completed.
Unfortunately I don't have the needed knowledge to contribute to the Dosbox code.

But I found a copy of the Technical Reference book for the PS/1 model 2011.
In the appendix there's some documentation about this audio card.

You can find it at ps1stuff.wordpress.com

Also, I've got a real PS/1 2011 with the audio option installed, if it's needed.

I hope this will help.

Reply 65 of 91, by Great Hierophant

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

The Technical Reference gives 125KHz as the base frequency for the tone generators for the PS/1 Audio/Game Card. For a IBM PCjr. or Tandy 1000, the base frequency is 111.86078125KHz. Thus the pitch for the PS/1 is about 12% higher than for the Tandy/PCjr.

http://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/ - Nerdly Pleasures - My Retro Gaming, Computing & Tech Blog

Reply 66 of 91, by Myloch

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

Nice to see this topic raised from the dead! 😀 However unfortunately I doubt the original driver programmer will ever popup again here to fix that. And it's also good to see that my memory of the childhood and my hearing quality gave me the correct impressions, when I first talked here about the pitch that seemed wrong to me. Thankfully a nice user found the technical sheet.

*edit* Ykhwong fixed the chip frequency emulation in the latest build. Pitch is good now.
Thanks to hottobar for finding the soundcard tech docs, this made the change possible. 😀

"Gamer & collector for passion, I firmly believe in the preservation and the diffusion of old/rare software, against all personal egoisms"

Reply 67 of 91, by pleonard

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

Just wanted to resurrect this thread to say I also have a PS/1 2121-B82 with this obscure card. I can do recordings if anyone would like. Been playing around with the Sierra patcher disk that adds in support for various SCI games. Interestingly the patcher almost works with King's Quest IV -- the opening fanfare sounds but not the rest of the credits music.

Excited to try hooking up my MT-32 to this as well, which Sierra's driver also supports...

Reply 68 of 91, by Beegle

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member
pleonard wrote:

I can do recordings if anyone would like.

Yes, please!

Also, is it a physical card separate from the motherboard? If yes, pictures would be appreciated. Thank you!

The more sound cards, the better.
AdLib documentary : Official Thread
Youtube Channel : The Sound Card Database

Reply 69 of 91, by pleonard

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

Moloch has some nice pictures in this post:

Re: IBM PS/1 Audio Card.

Let's try a quick SoundCloud link -- the intro theme to Police Quest II:

https://soundcloud.com/pl212-522135920/police … -ps1-audio-card

There's a YouTube video with both the AdLib and the MT-32 here for comparison: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZXVqrSo7AA

I would say the IBM card does a passable job here of maintaining the beat of the intro (as compared with much more capable cards) Only occasionally does it have to drop (or otherwise modify) the underlying rhythm beat to follow the melody completely. If anything, the beat track is less annoying than the AdLib, which sounds unintentionally like a malfunctioning dot-matrix printer in the beat track.

Reply 70 of 91, by pleonard

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

Let's try some tracks from The Colonel's Bequest. I've split up the intro into three bite-sized pieces: The signing of the will, the introduction of the characters on the stage, and then the cutscene where Laura is sitting outside on the Tulane campus:

Will signing

Stage

Tulane

I realize now this thread is in the DOSBox Development forum -- perhaps I should move my posts to Marvin...?

Reply 71 of 91, by pleonard

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie
pleonard wrote:

Been playing around with the Sierra patcher disk that adds in support for various SCI games. Interestingly the patcher almost works with King's Quest IV -- the opening fanfare sounds but not the rest of the credits music.

Turns out this was the same problem mentioned by Great Hierophant here:

http://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/2014/09/g … with-patch.html

Another benefit to the newer versions is that you can hear the IBM Music Feature Adapter music from the Yamaha FB-01. The Yamaha FB-01 is supported if you copy a driver over from another game. The old versions use slightly different sound drivers and all Yamaha FB-01 drivers are too new to work with the old versions.

KQ IV 1.000.111 won't work with the PS/1 driver (AUDIOJOY.DRV), whereas 1.006.003 works just fine. A shame, given the worse graphics of the newer version....

Reply 72 of 91, by Myloch

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
Great Hierophant wrote:
Myloch wrote:

there is an inaccuracy in the gamelist: King's quest 5 also uses DAC, start a game and go 2 or 3 screens to the west (where there are the gypsies) and wait, you'll hear a cow bellow sometimes.

Actually, I do not think the cow bellow sound effect is a digital effect but an FM effect, because it can be heard using the Adlib driver as well as the Sound Blaster driver. I cannot hear the cow bellow using either the PS/1 Audiocard or Tandy TL/SL/RL driver.

After A LONG time, I managed to solve this mistery: french, italian and other more recent floppy versions (000.000.148/9) added some new effects like cow bellow and a lot of other effects are different like water, doors, the rattlesnake...), you can hear them with ps1 too, unlike with older english only versions. However there is an annoying short static sound when whatever effect starts, and some of them like the ding effect is totally garbled (the one played when getting objects or making some points). Bug of the game or bug in ps1 dac part emulator. Someone with real hardware should check...

"Gamer & collector for passion, I firmly believe in the preservation and the diffusion of old/rare software, against all personal egoisms"

Reply 73 of 91, by Great Hierophant

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t
Myloch wrote:

After A LONG time, I managed to solve this mistery: french, italian and other more recent floppy versions (000.000.148/9) added some new effects like cow bellow and a lot of other effects are different like water, doors, the rattlesnake...), you can hear them with ps1 too, unlike with older english only versions. However there is an annoying short static sound when whatever effect starts, and some of them like the ding effect is totally garbled (the one played when getting objects or making some points). Bug of the game or bug in ps1 dac part emulator. Someone with real hardware should check...

Good find. Fortunately the digital sounds play with the Sound Blaster driver. They appear to play with the Tandy DAC driver as well, but DOSBox frequently crashes. The foreign language versions appear to be using the same interpreter as the CD-ROM version, and use the same sound effects as well. The interface appears to be between the original English versions and the CD-ROM version, it lacks the multi-colored icons and embossed text.

http://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/ - Nerdly Pleasures - My Retro Gaming, Computing & Tech Blog

Reply 77 of 91, by fjk61011

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie
pleonard wrote:

Interesting... what driver did you use?

There was a self extracting file on an IBM bbs site, ps1audwd.exe. Expanded it gave a ps1.dll, minidd.sys,ibmmme.drv, audiover.exe.

Reply 78 of 91, by Myloch

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

if someone can test a dos game with real ps1 card hardware, please contact me privately.

Here is a video explaining the bug I previously found in kq5 it-fr-ge-sp floppy releases (000.000.148/9 or similar).
When dealing with dosbox-x ps1 emulation, this happens when getting objects: fuckin ugly garbled sound, see the video here. Game bug or ps1 emulation flaw? This is why a check with real hardware is essential.

"Gamer & collector for passion, I firmly believe in the preservation and the diffusion of old/rare software, against all personal egoisms"

Reply 79 of 91, by matze79

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

Is there any Documentation how the DAC works ? 😀

Ahh i see..

These two activate the IBM PS/1 Audio Card. It is always situated at ports 0200, 0202-0204, so there's no need for a "base" value. 

is it dma driven ? or more like a covox device ?

https://www.retrokits.de - blog, retro projects, hdd clicker, diy soundcards etc
https://www.retroianer.de - german retro computer board