VOGONS


Reply 20 of 30, by Tronix

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After a year, a small update here. A user from one russian old-hardware forum trace the new PCB and recently I soldered it. Started checking without an amplifier:
P90713-200103.jpg

Digital f***n noise still present, because SAA1099 has an open-collector PWM output, which we pull-up to +5V power rail and collect all the interference. So, i make new +5V analog path with help 78L05 linear regulator from +12V, as is done in many sound cards:
P90811-125954.jpg

The interference is all gone! The sound immediately improved and became clear. Finaly, replace 78L05 TO-220 package with TO-92 and mount ampliefier. Sound quality still good without noise. Waiting for variable 10k resistor....
P90901-075436.jpg

Last edited by Tronix on 2019-09-23, 04:02. Edited 1 time in total.

https://github.com/Tronix286/

Reply 21 of 30, by digger

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Great job!

We can't have enough retro sound card projects going on. 😀 I'll continue following your progress with great interest.

Reply 22 of 30, by Fagear

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Tronix hello. I've implemented your circuit in "CMS" debug block for FMonster.
I can send you blank debug board if you are interested.

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New BIG soundcard: FMonster.
Covox Sound Master replica
Innovation SSI-2001 replica & DuoSID.
My audio/video collection.

Reply 23 of 30, by maxtherabbit

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Tronix wrote on 2019-09-22, 19:16:
After a year, a small update here. A user from one russian old-hardware forum trace the new PCB and recently I soldered it. Star […]
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After a year, a small update here. A user from one russian old-hardware forum trace the new PCB and recently I soldered it. Started checking without an amplifier:
P90713-200103.jpg

Digital f***n noise still present, because SAA1099 has an open-collector PWM output, which we pull-up to +5V power rail and collect all the interference. So, i make new +5V analog path with help 78L05 linear regulator from +12V, as is done in many sound cards:
P90811-125954.jpg

The interference is all gone! The sound immediately improved and became clear. Finaly, replace 78L05 TO-220 package with TO-92 and mount ampliefier. Sound quality still good without noise. Waiting for variable 10k resistor....
P90901-075436.jpg

Is this project still alive? Are the EDA files for the board shared publicly somewhere?

Reply 24 of 30, by Tronix

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Recently I thought - that if i take the source codes of SoftMPU, modify them a little so that there is internal processing of midi commands and output of frequency and octave to the hardware port of cms. I thought this would allow games like Doom or Duke3d to run with "general midi" device selected in the settings. So, here we are: https://github.com/Tronix286/softmpu - pre-alpha _test_ version of SoftMPU/CMS.

Run with such options:

softmpu.exe /mpu:330 /output:cms

This seems to work in most cases only with real-mode DOS games/applications. For example, it work with PX midi player with genmidi.adv driver, LOTUS game (terrible sound). Unfortunately, DOS4GW Doom and Duke3d can not initialize MPU401 port. As far as I understand, the problem is in the SoftMPU itself and I don't know what to do about it.

While playing with SoftMPU, I found one typo in the sources of Miles CMS drivers from first post. In CMS.INC procedure CmsSound() mixed voice_n and voice variable, only the voice_n variable should be used. So, new Miles CMS drivers (.ADV and .MDI) in attachment.

https://github.com/Tronix286/

Reply 25 of 30, by Tronix

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I added auto detect for CMS port (210h - 260h) to Miles drivers and SoftMPU/CMS. Also i fix another stupied typo in SPKR.INC. And I create repo for Miles drivers, so no need ZIP archives anymore. You can download last version from:
https://github.com/Tronix286/AIL2
https://github.com/Tronix286/softmpu

https://github.com/Tronix286/

Reply 26 of 30, by digger

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Tronix wrote on 2021-02-27, 15:02:

I added auto detect for CMS port (210h - 260h) to Miles drivers and SoftMPU/CMS. Also i fix another stupied typo in SPKR.INC. And I create repo for Miles drivers, so no need ZIP archives anymore. You can download last version from:
https://github.com/Tronix286/AIL2
https://github.com/Tronix286/softmpu

Wow! Nice work. And that's a clever trick to use SoftMPU as a way to get many more games to output music through a CMS/Game Blaster.

Has this also been done yet for the Innovation SSI-2001 card? (It's a PC sound card with a Commodore SID chip that saw very little support in games back in the day, even less than CMS.)

Reply 27 of 30, by Tronix

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digger wrote on 2021-02-28, 08:15:

Has this also been done yet for the Innovation SSI-2001 card? (It's a PC sound card with a Commodore SID chip that saw very little support in games back in the day, even less than CMS.)

Probably yes, but I don't have SSI-2001....

So far I have made CMS/Game Blaster support in the DOSMid player. All three CMS projects (Miles drivers, SoftMPU and DOSMid now) use similar CMS-sound code, so don't expect anything new from it - there still no envelope control and noise generators.

I created a repository on github and I hope I did everything correctly and did not violate the rights of the DOSMid author - Mateusz Viste.
You can download DOSMid with CMS support here: https://github.com/Tronix286/DOSMID

New DOSMid options:

/cms=XXX Force dosmid to use Creative Music System / Game Blaster
on port XXX. The port part is optional, that means you can use "/cms"
to just force CMS usage on default 220h port.

https://github.com/Tronix286/

Reply 28 of 30, by Tronix

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Made some fixes and changes to SoftMPU which finally allowed to run games with acceptable sound quality. A small video recorded from the emulator demonstrating the launch of a couple of games: https://youtu.be/OsUSNzIlkYY

https://github.com/Tronix286/

Reply 30 of 30, by kirikl

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Cool stuff!
I'm trying to find windows driver or any driver which can work with midi keyboard
Please let me know if you know where?
Goal is to play and compose music with CMS
Trying to achieve the same with Tandy, haven't found anything, looks like Tandy tracker there is only option which is without Midi (in/out) support.
Thank you all!

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