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Reply 1360 of 3172, by dogchainx

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Amazing work shock___ 😎

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Reply 1361 of 3172, by matze79

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Currently there'd be 3 people interested in a prototype (that is including me) ... is interest seriously that low?

I'm also intressed.

but i'm not sure what i can contribute, except testing.

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Reply 1362 of 3172, by Beegle

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shock__ wrote:

Currently there'd be 3 people interested in a prototype (that is including me) ... is interest seriously that low?

still very much interested in the card - but I have few skills for the hardware aspect - I fear receiving a prototype that I might bork it when assembling it.

I'm all down for testing though.

The more sound cards, the better.
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Reply 1363 of 3172, by gdjacobs

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I'd be interested, except time is tight and I don't think I'd be able to do enough testing to justify getting a prototype.

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Reply 1364 of 3172, by Timpanogos Slim

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I might be interested. Plenty of amateur soldering experience, I've done smt work freehand before, and have a hot air system. my career is in software QA.

I'm not currently really gaming that much but i could help test

Reply 1365 of 3172, by shock__

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Currently I'm at 10 people interested (including me), that would result in a price of 42€ per Prototype (green soldermask, silkscreen, chamfered edge connector, chemical tin surface) + shipping.
It might be possible to reduce the price by 20% by going with a random draw for the surface (which means in the worst case we could end up with leadfree HAL finish, which would suck for the InterWave and edge connectors, in the best case we'd get a 'free' ENIG finish [which usually costs 49€ + 10%]) and not having the boards chamfered (which might lead to squeezed pins inside ISA connectors, which has already happened to me with the other protoypes). I think above specs are a good in-between regarding price and overall quality for a prototype.
So whoever is interested can PM me, declaring binding interest. Please include your country or full adress where I'll have to sent the card. You'll get a full quote + my PayPal adress (or IBAN if you're in Europe) to pay then.

Current timetable would be collecting money til the 3rd of december (if you didn't pay by then, you'll be dropped from the order - but might have a slight chance to still get a prototype by means of taking overproduced cards [if any]) and then order the boards (which have an ordertime of 12 workdays). Meaning cards should be shipping around the 15th, so you might get it before the turn of the year hopefully.

As mentioned previously multiple times (but still seems some people haven't realized): This run is only open for people who previously donated or contributed to the project.
'Rules' for the prototype run are easy - you get a card and give feedback (be picky, be creative, test weird stuff) - reward is the prototype being an additional card to your overall 'credit' of 3 cards. If you got a prototype and failed to give adequate feedback, the card will count as 1 from your credit for the production run. Feedback can be given on pretty much everything related to the prototype, including hardware, found bugs, grammar errors in the documentation, confusing documentation, etc. - as said, be picky, be creative. I reserve the right to deny any low effort feedback as in "card works" or "great project". There's no need to write a full TPS report (you did not get the memo!) but writing a short summary spanning a few sentences or more in 6 months shouldn't be too much of a hassle. Knowing some of you have family or time consuming jobs and that fate might strike at any point, you'll be asked what went wrong in case you failed to even get around to fully assembling the card before having your credit reduced.
Excluded from this are people who previously contributed to the project.

Whoever orders a Prototype will get an angled SIMM connector included for free.

EDIT: In case more people hop onboard of the prototype run and the boards getting cheaper, I will either use the excess money for additional features (maybe gold surface or blue soldermask, hardgold for connectors probably isn't in with a setup fee of 150€) if everyone agrees with that or you could get a refund or donate the money once again (as I'm earning virtually nothing from a financial standpoint).

Last edited by shock__ on 2017-11-13, 09:31. Edited 1 time in total.

Current Project: new GUS PnP compatible soundcard

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Reply 1366 of 3172, by dogchainx

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I think I'm in the same boat of some others. I doubt I could put it together without making a mess of it. Testing would be wonderfully fun, but I think I'll leave prototypes to those more talented than I.

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486DX2-66Mhz-16MB-4.3GB+SpeedStar64 VLB DRAM 2MB+AWE32/SB16+SCB-55
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Reply 1367 of 3172, by Phreeze

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count me in.

I can compare it my GUS 2.4. If I've read correctly, I can dump the ROM from my GUS2.4 and put it onto the prototype ?
If you ever have a materials-list from a german shop, it would be nice 😉 (sth like reichelt, conrad, kessler, pollin,...)

If you don't have one, I'll create one and try to save it publicly, if this is possible on those sites. I'll PM this to you

ArGUS Parts list: http://bit.ly/2Ddf89V

Reply 1368 of 3172, by shock__

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ROM needs to be read from another InterWave based card (i.e. GUS PnP, Compaq UltraSound32, STB SoundRage, Reveal WAVExtreme32, Philips PCA761AW, Core Dynamics Dynasonix, etc.)
GF1 based GUS cards don't have a wavetable ROM to my understanding.

Current Project: new GUS PnP compatible soundcard

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Reply 1369 of 3172, by 640K!enough

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The traditional GF1-based cards don't have a ROM, but it isn't really required to make an initial contribution to testing the board; they work just fine with no ROM at all. The obvious exception would be software that specifically checks for the presence of a ROM. All software that uses GF1 compatibility mode should work, as long as a few MiB of memory are installed. Some InterWave software will work also, if configured to use an FFF bank (which can be found on the installation CD) via IW.INI.

Reply 1372 of 3172, by Phreeze

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ok nice.
now for the 4pin connectors, i suppose they are like line-in connectors, which one is prefered:
68016-404_tmb.jpg
¨
or 70555-0038_tmb.JPG

2nd one is the typcial cd-audio-in style. According to the layout, a standrd 4pinheader bend to 90° should be used

for the midiport, i chose:
https://www.digikey.lu/products/en?keywords=609-1498-ND

Last edited by Phreeze on 2017-11-14, 11:17. Edited 1 time in total.

ArGUS Parts list: http://bit.ly/2Ddf89V

Reply 1374 of 3172, by Phreeze

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do you have the sizes of U30, U40, U60, U70 ? U30 can vary, digi has the following e.g:
https://www.digikey.lu/products/en/integrated … d=0&pageSize=25

8-SOIC (0.209", 5.30mm Width)
or
8-SOIC (0.154", 3.90mm Width)

allthough i recomend buying ICs from aliexpress, i still link some from digikey.
Don't worry about the .lu domain, digikey exists all over the world.

Once i gathered all the parts, forum members can doublecheck them. I have everything in an excelsheet with links to digikey and quantity i will order for 3 boards. Quantities have to be adjusted. I'll create a separate sheet, once I got confirmation that the parts are correct (e.g correct size etc.), with parts and links for 1 board, and for 3 or 4.

just saying that it won't be cheap if we don't get the cheap SIMM sockets 😉

ArGUS Parts list: http://bit.ly/2Ddf89V

Reply 1376 of 3172, by gerwin

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Nice previews, The initial design looked very similar to my humble but useful Philips GUS PnP clone.

shock__ wrote:

Currently there'd be 3 people interested in a prototype (that is including me) ... is interest seriously that low?

Hope You have sufficient testers by now, as your last count was 10. I am not sure I should dive in with several unfinished projects surrounding me already, unless you think it would help.

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Reply 1377 of 3172, by hard1k

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That's not a coincidence - this project started as a replica of the Philips PCA761AW which is in turn extremely close to the known AMD InterWave reference board.

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Reply 1378 of 3172, by shock__

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gerwin wrote:

Hope You have sufficient testers by now, as your last count was 10. I am not sure I should dive in with several unfinished projects surrounding me already, unless you think it would help.

I have a wide range of competences in the current prototyping team, therefore you can pass without regret if you're unsure 😀

Current Project: new GUS PnP compatible soundcard

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Reply 1379 of 3172, by Jepael

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Phreeze wrote:

Once i gathered all the parts, forum members can doublecheck them. I have everything in an excelsheet with links to digikey and quantity i will order for 3 boards. Quantities have to be adjusted. I'll create a separate sheet, once I got confirmation that the parts are correct (e.g correct size etc.), with parts and links for 1 board, and for 3 or 4.

I could volunteer for double checking those, if there are schematics and PCB footprint info available in some form.

Just out of curiosity since you order for multiple boards, are you placing a collective order for many people?