shock__ wrote on 2019-07-08, 15:07:

erek wrote:

i wonder how many of these Innovation SSI 2001s really exist in the wild ?

I'm currently aware of 2 (owned by people on this forum, being the one with the "sid 6581" written near the socket with a marker and the one with a 6581R4AR) and one being "semi-lost" (should be on loan to someone in this city ... but that info is 8+ years old, with no update since - being the card with all pads present on the slot connector).

My "guesstimate" would be that the card never was widespread and is likely one of the rarest PC soundcards that was ever professionally made in a very limited volume.

All estimates I've heard is up to ten thousand made, but only two thousand sold... 90% of them have been recycled//destroyed : (

Nitroraptor53 wrote on 2020-03-06, 19:09:

All estimates I've heard is up to ten thousand made, but only two thousand sold... 90% of them have been recycled//destroyed : (

That makes me wonder how many days it required to make all of them. Maybe ~14 days ? A month ?
Anyway, the most important thing is that the schematic has survived - thanks to those two cards and all the people involved saving them! 😀
The off-the shelf parts aren't rare, either, gratefully. Especially in case of the SID chip by MOS.
What did Commodore once say ? They made stuff for the masses, not the classes ? 😉

Jo22 wrote on 2020-03-06, 19:52:

That makes me wonder how many days it required to make all of them. Maybe ~14 days ? A month ? Anyway, the most important thing […]
Show full quote

Nitroraptor53 wrote on 2020-03-06, 19:09:

All estimates I've heard is up to ten thousand made, but only two thousand sold... 90% of them have been recycled//destroyed : (

That makes me wonder how many days it required to make all of them. Maybe ~14 days ? A month ?
Anyway, the most important thing is that the schematic has survived - thanks to those two cards and all the people involved saving them! 😀
The off-the shelf parts aren't rare, either, gratefully. Especially in case of the SID chip by MOS.
What did Commodore once say ? They made stuff for the masses, not the classes ? 😉

I guess we need to build a time machine to find out!

Nitroraptor53 wrote on 2020-03-06, 20:11:

Jo22 wrote on 2020-03-06, 19:52:

That makes me wonder how many days it required to make all of them. Maybe ~14 days ? A month ? Anyway, the most important thing […]
Show full quote

Nitroraptor53 wrote on 2020-03-06, 19:09:

All estimates I've heard is up to ten thousand made, but only two thousand sold... 90% of them have been recycled//destroyed : (

That makes me wonder how many days it required to make all of them. Maybe ~14 days ? A month ?
Anyway, the most important thing is that the schematic has survived - thanks to those two cards and all the people involved saving them! 😀
The off-the shelf parts aren't rare, either, gratefully. Especially in case of the SID chip by MOS.
What did Commodore once say ? They made stuff for the masses, not the classes ? 😉

I guess we need to build a time machine to find out!

Sounds reasonable. And just in case if we can't, we simply have to "hack" time instead. 😉
https://youtu.be/bS5P_LAqiVg?t=592

Nitroraptor53 wrote on 2020-03-06, 19:09:

All estimates I've heard is up to ten thousand made, but only two thousand sold... 90% of them have been recycled//destroyed : (

Estimates made by whom? These numbers seem to be completely plucked out of the air.

Jo22 wrote on 2020-03-06, 20:22:

Nitroraptor53 wrote on 2020-03-06, 20:11:

Jo22 wrote on 2020-03-06, 19:52:

That makes me wonder how many days it required to make all of them. Maybe ~14 days ? A month ? Anyway, the most important thing […]
Show full quote

That makes me wonder how many days it required to make all of them. Maybe ~14 days ? A month ?
Anyway, the most important thing is that the schematic has survived - thanks to those two cards and all the people involved saving them! 😀
The off-the shelf parts aren't rare, either, gratefully. Especially in case of the SID chip by MOS.
What did Commodore once say ? They made stuff for the masses, not the classes ? 😉

I guess we need to build a time machine to find out!

Sounds reasonable. And just in case if we can't, we simply have to "hack" time instead. 😉
https://youtu.be/bS5P_LAqiVg?t=592

heh

derSammler wrote on 2020-03-06, 20:37:

Nitroraptor53 wrote on 2020-03-06, 19:09:

All estimates I've heard is up to ten thousand made, but only two thousand sold... 90% of them have been recycled//destroyed : (

Estimates made by whom? These numbers seem to be completely plucked out of the air.

Some guy I talked to who (claimed he) was an ex-Microprose Employee. Microprose distributed it under the name 'The Entertainer.'

Just a curiosity, here's Legend of Kyrandia running on Innovation SSI-2001 with Bristlehig's custom AIL driver:

Legend of Kyrandia -- Innovation SSI 2001

I think it sounds good. Of course the 3 voice limitation is quite noticeable, i don't know how much the driver could be improved to support SID advanced features such as changing waveforms on the fly. I also wonder if a modified driver to work with the DuoSID, would result in 6 independent voices. The second SID had to be put on a different address and the driver should take that into account so extra voices could be played. All in all i like how the SID chip sounds in Kyrandia.

Where can I order this? Or maybe even better, a DuoSID? I've been looking around this thread and the Youtube channel, but to my understanding there is no website where I can order?

carlostex wrote on 2020-03-23, 22:39:

Of course the 3 voice limitation is quite noticeable, i don't know how much the driver could be improved to support SID advanced features such as changing waveforms on the fly. I also wonder if a modified driver to work with the DuoSID, would result in 6 independent voices. The second SID had to be put on a different address and the driver should take that into account so extra voices could be played. All in all i like how the SID chip sounds in Kyrandia.

Nothing is impossible. One can modify the driver so that it uses DuoSID; a second port address is not a problem, another parameter like IRQ or DMA may be used to pass it. It's kind of a crutch, but at least it can be done without reinventing the whole AIL driver parameter scheme, which is I/O port, IRQ, DMA, DRQ. Turtle Beach Multisound Classic AIL driver is already using a similar crutch, passing SMA (a RAM address mapped to the card's internal memory) instead of a DMA.

As for SID advanced features - not impossible either, but it would require a deep knowledge of SID, and some kind of a timbre file must be then made so that there are different SID timbres. One could make such a timbre file with General MIDI-compatible mapping, so that any GM MIDI file could be played. However, it's a huge chunk of work from what I can see. Not as titanic as inventing the whole AIL from scratch, though.

bristlehog wrote on 2023-04-03, 06:53:

Nothing is impossible. One can modify the driver so that it uses DuoSID; a second port address is not a problem, another parameter like IRQ or DMA may be used to pass it. It's kind of a crutch, but at least it can be done without reinventing the whole AIL driver parameter scheme, which is I/O port, IRQ, DMA, DRQ. Turtle Beach Multisound Classic AIL driver is already using a similar crutch, passing SMA (a RAM address mapped to the card's internal memory) instead of a DMA.

I guess that would be the most straightforward option. 6 voices would be enough for all tunes sounding pretty good without losing too much. Another cool thing would be translating/creating a Sierra SCI driver for SSI. Maybe this could be derived from the Tandy driver. This would easily increase the number of games supported by SSI. Unfortunately, without using the advanced features of the SID, it wouldn't sound much better than Tandy.

About Turtle Beach Multisound: I wish there was an AIL(.ADV) digital driver for the Multisound Classic/Tahiti. I know there's a DIGPAK(.COM) driver, but an ADV digital one would be awesome, since a lot of games used AIL. A MSS (.DIG) driver would be nice too.