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Reply 320 of 548, by LABS

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matze79 wrote:
Hi, […]
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Hi,

finally had time to solder it.. but i don`t get it detected as SB,
Adlib works just fine.

Checked for solder bridges etc. and found nothing 😒
ICs are correctly in position too 😒

Any Ideas what i should check first ?

The board is not working correctly because you did not finish the assembly - i.e. the board should be cleaned from flux and excessive solder bits.
Do not ignore this, as flux can conduct.

While the board is dirty, its behavior is unpredictable.

Also the places in doubt should be put to order before powering up the card.
These are the first steps to do.
It is all written in the assembly manual.

Blasterboard: DIY SB2-compatible sound card on ATmega MCU
Sonic Buster 8: New 8-bit ISA sound card

Reply 321 of 548, by matze79

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I found the Problem already.
it has nothing todo with Flux or the not so well looking Solder Joints.
The Flux is not conductive under this conditions. The Flux is handmade from rosin, 2-propanol and acetylsalicylic acid.

The Powersupply of the computer is defective and this caused weird Problems i put the card inside a other Computer and it worked perfectly.

Thanks anyway.

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

Reply 322 of 548, by LABS

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matze79 wrote:
I found the Problem already. it has nothing todo with Flux or the not so well looking Solder Joints. The Flux is not conductive […]
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I found the Problem already.
it has nothing todo with Flux or the not so well looking Solder Joints.
The Flux is not conductive under this conditions. The Flux is handmade from rosin, 2-propanol and acetylsalicylic acid.

The Powersupply of the computer is defective and this caused weird Problems i put the card inside a other Computer and it worked perfectly.

Thanks anyway.

Good to know you made it!

Blasterboard: DIY SB2-compatible sound card on ATmega MCU
Sonic Buster 8: New 8-bit ISA sound card

Reply 323 of 548, by matze79

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Yeah its really Great Work!

This Card is really a Joy with Headphones.

Thanks for making it!

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

Reply 324 of 548, by LABS

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Thanks keropi for donating an original SB 2.0 CT1350B for the project!

Which games to try CMS with?

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Blasterboard: DIY SB2-compatible sound card on ATmega MCU
Sonic Buster 8: New 8-bit ISA sound card

Reply 325 of 548, by keropi

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😁
Monkey Island comes to mind immediately, start with: monkey g
then there are the classic Sierra adventures like Codename Iceman , Larry1, SQ3... there is a list on mobygames: https://www.mobygames.com/attribute/sheet/att … et,0/p,2/so,0a/

🎵 🎧 PCMIDI MPU , OrpheusII , Action Rewind , Megacard and 🎶GoldLib soundcard website

Reply 326 of 548, by root42

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I think the Sierra games (SCI0 EGA, early SCI1 VGA) have the most support. Like Keropi said: LSL2 & 3, KQ1 SCI, KQ4, Codename Iceman, SQ3 & 4(!), Conquest of Camelot, Silpheed, Thexder, PQ2 and several more that I forgot.

Indy3 and Monkey 1 as well and also Loom EGA. Lord of the Rings by Interplay comes to mind.

I wonder what people could have tickled out of those buzzing Philips ICs if the CMS would have persisted somewhat longer...

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Reply 329 of 548, by MrSmiley381

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LABS wrote:

Which games to try CMS with?

Bubble Bobble, if you can hack the Blasterboard to implement the autodetection routine of the CT-1302 chip on the original Game Blaster. If you could do that then I think you'd have a clone card that completely surpasses the original in every way, except for the game port which is a perfectly acceptable trade to have those extra volume pots. I'll throw another vote for Silpheed. Ultima VI also sounds great via CMS.

So where does the project go from here? Some spiffy firmware updates and heavy duty user testing?

I spend my days fighting with clunky software so I can afford to spend my evenings fighting with clunky hardware.

Reply 330 of 548, by LABS

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New firmware version 2.0 is available for download -- the link is on the first post of this thread.

This firmware is a result of learning the original SB2.0 firmware and follows the original code logic in many ways where possible.
Some bugs were fixed, some code rewritten completely and now it is more tolerant to fast (and some slow) machines and behaves better overall.

All REV B cards are already flashed with the latest firmware.

I finished sending out the second batch of cards. However, some kits are still available, so if anyone else is interested -- please drop me a message.

At this point I can say that BlasterBoard's design is finished.
All intentions to extend its hardware functionality like CMS, PSG, Waveblaster, stereo DSP - transformed into a new project, which will keep high-quality, low-noise and simple design principles and is also ATmega-based. Will say more after the working prototype.

However, there is still work going on with the BlasterBoard's software (test-bb.exe) and I'll also keep firmware up to date.

Blasterboard: DIY SB2-compatible sound card on ATmega MCU
Sonic Buster 8: New 8-bit ISA sound card

Reply 331 of 548, by pan069

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Received my BlasterBoard this week (big thanks to @labs) and introduced it to an 8 bit ISA slot in my 286. They seem to like each other!

Mood shot of the said BlasterBoard in the LED glow of a CF/IDE adaptor:

xTsYEw8.jpg

Reply 332 of 548, by canthearu

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I'm having a bit of trouble updating the firmware on the ATMega328P.

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I derpedly screwed up the fuse settings on the ATMega328P, so I just want to now confirm if i am setting it up right according to fuses.bin.

Reply 333 of 548, by LABS

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The settings on your screenshot are not correct, fuses.bin from repo looks like this:

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Why don't you use fuses.bin?

Blasterboard: DIY SB2-compatible sound card on ATmega MCU
Sonic Buster 8: New 8-bit ISA sound card

Reply 335 of 548, by MJay99

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canthearu wrote:

I derpedly screwed up the fuse settings on the ATMega328P, so I just want to now confirm if i am setting it up right according to fuses.bin.

You actually just mixed up the fuse's high and low byte.

Reply 336 of 548, by canthearu

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I didn't find a way to load fuses.bin in XGPro (the eeprom burning software).

But it is working now, so thanks very muchly for your help! I tried a whole heap of different options, I though i had tried swapping the high and low fuse bytes, but I obviously made a mistake or didn't properly test.

Reply 337 of 548, by LABS

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canthearu wrote:

I didn't find a way to load fuses.bin in XGPro (the eeprom burning software).

Indeed, XGPro does not have 'Config' memory option when loading data. That's weird. Thanks for pointing this out.

Blasterboard: DIY SB2-compatible sound card on ATmega MCU
Sonic Buster 8: New 8-bit ISA sound card

Reply 338 of 548, by root42

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Hm, I will have to hack together something to program the MCU. I think I can use an ESP or RasPi for that?

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Reply 339 of 548, by pentiumspeed

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From your study on making this blasterboard, what is your design that promotes clean output? what did creative goofed up on quality of audio so I'll study my creative sound cards and search for paths of noise to make mine quieter. Modding, I have scope and frequency generator and some experience in electronics, and art of electronics book.

Cheers, pentiumspeed

Great Northern aka Canada.