VOGONS


First post, by pullasuti

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Greetings. New user, old nerd asking for id help.

A midi card caught my eye, and had to pick it up. Would be interesting to know what this was called back in the day. Has the 4110/4111 and 9203 set of chips, among others. Couldn't get it to work with a SB 2.0, even though no resource conflict should be going on. Works fine on its own, thought

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Reply 2 of 24, by cyclone3d

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Sweet looking card

Is there anything on the back of the card? Maybe an FCC ID?

Could be a prototype card if there isn't.

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Reply 3 of 24, by Tiido

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This card does only MIDI, there's no SB or WSS compatibility on it.

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Reply 4 of 24, by pullasuti

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I know, that's why I called it a midi card 😀

The back doesn't reveal much, but it does have a serial number, so it's not alone.

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Reply 5 of 24, by badmojo

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That's cool! I'm going to go ahead and call it "Crystal SCC1"

Have you tried it? I'm wondering if it's an MPU-401 or if you need special drivers.

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Reply 6 of 24, by appiah4

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Look at that S/N 153437 - where are those other 150,000 cards!!!

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Reply 7 of 24, by pullasuti

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badmojo wrote:

That's cool! I'm going to go ahead and call it "Crystal SCC1"

Have you tried it? I'm wondering if it's an MPU-401 or if you need special drivers.

Yes, works without drivers. Thank goodness 😀

Reply 8 of 24, by root42

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Extremely cool and obscure card. I suspect it collides with the MPU interface of the Sound Blaster? Can you disable that? The older ones at least have a disable MPU jumper.

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Reply 9 of 24, by Scali

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I was somewhat confused by 'MIDI card'.
I suppose you mean it contains a wavetable synthesizer, and I assume it would be compatible with the (dumb) MPU-401 interface.
It seems like this uses components commonly found on WaveBlaster boards (Dream MIDI synthesizer and effects processor), such as the Terratec WaveSystem.
However, the fact that it has 3 jacks seems to imply that it also has audio input capability.

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Reply 10 of 24, by appiah4

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Scali wrote:
I was somewhat confused by 'MIDI card'. I suppose you mean it contains a wavetable synthesizer, and I assume it would be compati […]
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I was somewhat confused by 'MIDI card'.
I suppose you mean it contains a wavetable synthesizer, and I assume it would be compatible with the (dumb) MPU-401 interface.
It seems like this uses components commonly found on WaveBlaster boards (Dream MIDI synthesizer and effects processor), such as the Terratec WaveSystem.
However, the fact that it has 3 jacks seems to imply that it also has audio input capability.

My understanding is that it has a hardware mixer so you can input audio from a regular soundcard, mix with the wavetable music and output as a mixed audio.

Very, very cool card!

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Reply 11 of 24, by pullasuti

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root42 wrote:

Extremely cool and obscure card. I suspect it collides with the MPU interface of the Sound Blaster? Can you disable that? The older ones at least have a disable MPU jumper.

Ah, could be. Though I did try different addresses for the card itself, but could see what happens if I set the SB 2.0 to disable "game port".

appiah4 wrote:
Scali wrote:
I was somewhat confused by 'MIDI card'. I suppose you mean it contains a wavetable synthesizer, and I assume it would be compati […]
Show full quote

I was somewhat confused by 'MIDI card'.
I suppose you mean it contains a wavetable synthesizer, and I assume it would be compatible with the (dumb) MPU-401 interface.
It seems like this uses components commonly found on WaveBlaster boards (Dream MIDI synthesizer and effects processor), such as the Terratec WaveSystem.
However, the fact that it has 3 jacks seems to imply that it also has audio input capability.

My understanding is that it has a hardware mixer so you can input audio from a regular soundcard, mix with the wavetable music and output as a mixed audio.

Very, very cool card!

Yes, the card has line in, line out and spk out. Very loud by default, and somewhat noisy. Don't know if there has been software to control these.

Reply 13 of 24, by Scali

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pullasuti wrote:

Yes, the card has line in, line out and spk out. Very loud by default, and somewhat noisy. Don't know if there has been software to control these.

I would expect that there are SysEx commands to control this, if it can be controlled at all.

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Reply 14 of 24, by appiah4

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pullasuti wrote:

Yes, the card has line in, line out and spk out. Very loud by default, and somewhat noisy. Don't know if there has been software to control these.

You definitely need some kind of software driver for that I would think.

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Reply 15 of 24, by pullasuti

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keropi wrote:

interesting card, how does it sound?

I suppose it's OK. Did some quick recordings, because this system was originally for FM/MT-32 era, and didn't have that many SC/GM games. Others seem fine, but the intro to UFO/XCOM is completely messed (could be because I just threw versions 1.2 and 1.4 over the original). Should record the same tracks with SB16 and a Dream waveblaster board when have more time.

Sounds of dossy music (Doom, Doom 2, Dune 2, Hand of Fate, Raptor, Sam & Max, UFO).

Reply 17 of 24, by CHiLL72

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Could this be an Orchid card? I see similarities between this card and this one: members.home.nl/c.kersten/WaveBlaster%2 ... 03-17).png
A predecessor to the Orchid GameWave 32 perhaps?

Last edited by CHiLL72 on 2019-04-14, 12:52. Edited 1 time in total.

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Reply 18 of 24, by tpowell.ca

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badmojo wrote:

Sounds great to me, nice find.

Gah, now I want to play Dune2 again 😒

I agree with both these statements.
It really does sound great and well balanced.

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Reply 19 of 24, by cyclone3d

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CHiLL72 wrote:

Could this be an Orchid card? I see similarities between this card and this one: members.home.nl/c.kersten/WaveBlaster%2 ... 03-17).png
A predecessor to the Orchid GameWave 32 perhaps?

Fixed your link for you.

Very interesting. If it were Orchid, I would think that it would have it silk screened on the card though.

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YMF7x4 Guide
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