I'm currently waiting for three ES982A chips, will be intersting to compare their dumps. Hopefully it will arrive this month, it's been a long time already.

Answers:
1. Yeah, those BTC cards without wavetable parts are relatively common, definitely more common than those with it. I currently two or three in my possession and had several chances to buy more.
2. I know for sure that multimedia docking station (the one with CD-ROM) for Compaq Armada 41XX has it and Compaq Armada 77XX series has it to (the one from this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyqJZhKXkT4). The later one has it in TSOP package, marked as ES982N.

Paar wrote on 2021-08-07, 20:20:

1. Yeah, those BTC cards without wavetable parts are relatively common, definitely more common than those without it. I currently two or three in my possession and had several chances to buy more.

I'll keep an eye on them and try to grab one. That's odd - the only "empty" type of boards I've ever seen had layouts for AdMOS wavetables.

Paar wrote on 2021-08-07, 20:20:

2. I know for sure that multimedia docking station (the one with CD-ROM) for Compaq Armada 41XX has it and Compaq Armada 77XX series has it to (the one from this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyqJZhKXkT4). The later one has it in TSOP package, marked as ES982N.

Alright - if one crosses my way I'll try to pick it up for you. Also read your other topic stating that some of the laptops themselves had built in wavetable parts - so this gives me a better chance of obtaining those chips for you.

I have opened up a Nixdorf Siemens laptop which has ESS wavetable built in but it was only ES981P. It seems 2MB chips are only present in Compaq products.

Hi. I'm not sure I'll be able to finish the project, so I'll just share the dump and hope that somebody will continue. DISCLAIMER: This dump is probably corrupted, but it could be used as basis for comparison with another one.

EDIT: Dump is fine, tested on some cards successfully.

Hi everyone, new updates. I felt an urge to return the project as I have felt that my soldering skills got better. That and I don't like to leave things unfinished. On the picture below you can see the result of my work - BRB 233X card (is BRB a brand?) with ES982A ROM and ES690F synthesizer chip,. There was an ES689F chip before but I don't like dry MIDI personally. I have some spare ES690Fs and there is a convenient place for them on the card, so I had to do it. And everything finally works as it should.
These are the steps I want to do next, with dependency on the popularity of the project.

1. Make some recordings so you can hear what to bank sounds like.
2. Program a flash chip with the bank and replace the ES982A with it, perhaps try it on another card. Only if there is a demand for it.

Paar wrote on 2023-03-11, 07:49:

Hi everyone, new updates. I felt an urge to return the project as I have felt that my soldering skills got better. That and I do […]
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Hi everyone, new updates. I felt an urge to return the project as I have felt that my soldering skills got better. That and I don't like to leave things unfinished. On the picture below you can see the result of my work - BRB 233X card (is BRB a brand?) with ES982A ROM and ES690F synthesizer chip,. There was an ES689F chip before but I don't like dry MIDI personally. I have some spare ES690Fs and there is a convenient place for them on the card, so I had to do it. And everything finally works as it should.
These are the steps I want to do next, with dependency on the popularity of the project.

1. Make some recordings so you can hear what to bank sounds like.
2. Program a flash chip with the bank and replace the ES982A with it, perhaps try it on another card. Only if there is a demand for it.

Really cool project.

By the way, is the image of ES982 that you provide in this thread correctly working?
Did you also test the ES689F + ES982A together?
I'd like to see if you can also make the card to work with a flashed MX2916 Flash chip instead of the original Mask ROM.
How does the card recognize which ROM is installed? On a Soundscape the card autodetects the installed ROM.

It would be great if you can make a sound comparison between ES981P and ES982A ROM.
I am looking forward to the progress of the project.

I'm not sure what image you're referring to but the ROM from the last image works correctly. There's no need to set anything, the synth chip will recognize it properly. Perhaps there is some init info in the ROM header or something. And yes, you can use ES689F with it but I don't like it. Still, could be useful for cards where there're no pads for ES690F.

I'll make some recordings soon but I probably won't make any for the ES981P chip as there are plenty floating on the web already. You can listen to Serdaco's EWave wavetable board recordings too as it's basically ES690F and ES981P integrated into one chip.

I've prepared and flashed a MX29F1610MC chip to test it as this project is only a curiosity otherwise. It's the only way to make the soundfont widely available as ES982A/ES982N chips are pretty rare and only used in some Compaq HW. You cannot source it either as it's probably a custom part made for Compaq. I've never seen an ES982 chip present in a non-Compaq device.

Will make some reports soon.

Soldered the flashed ROM to another 233X card I had and success! Glorious MIDI music emitting from my speakers. Well, glorious in a sense that I'm happy the work was worth it. But it sounds better than regular 1MB ESS soundbank, at least to my ears. It definitely has the ESS vibe as the 1MB version but the music feels more quality. And no more redundant guitars in E1M1 – when using more robust sound banks, you can hear that the guitar that starts on one channel and the second guitar that follows on the different channel sound different. With small soundbanks both guitars often sound identical.
Had to solder a small wire from WE pin (pin 1) to VDD to set the ROM to read mode as the pin 1 is normally NC on ES981/ES982. It's possible to route it in the way it's almost invisible so I'm OK with that.
Since the mod worked great I retroactively swapped the chip on the first card as I want to have the original chip at my disposal. Perhaps use it with some nicer card than 233X.
Now onto some recordings. Hopefully I'll have them ready soon.

great job!!!
so does this mean that the es982a_rom.zip dump posted above is not corrupted? can be used to do the same to cards lacking the wavetable portion?

Yeah, the dump is ok, just my soldering skills were lacking. But everyone makes mistakes.

By the way, here are some samples. May do more if there is a demand.

Very nice!
It is not a secret: just like everything in life soldering needs practise and experience gained from said practise 😀

Next step could be a wavetable daughterboard, in a form of open source project.

Paar wrote on 2023-03-12, 14:55:

Soldered the flashed ROM to another 233X card I had and success! Glorious MIDI music emitting from my speakers.

Very good work.
I will give it a try and exchange the ES981P with ES982 written to a MX29F1610 Chip.
I do have the same 233X card.
Hope I will be able to make it work. Anyhow the card has the ES689 Chip onboard. But I guess for a first test that should be fine.

ES689 works just fine, don't worry about it. The only benefit of ES690 is reverb/chorus, apart from that it's the same. But I believe that 2MB bank is of enough quality that it deserves the added effects. Amplifies the experience.

Sounds great to my ears, nice work! I really like that ESS sound, very raw and lively.

Too bad it's not possible to make generally usable wavetable daughterboard with ES690F chip. It just doesn't have proper digital line out for connecting to external DAC. You can only do it with ES689F but that chip lacks reverb/chorus. It is possible to create board with ES690F but it would be usable only on ISA cards with ESS chip.

Paar wrote on 2023-03-12, 14:55:

SAnd no more redundant guitars in E1M1 – when using more robust sound banks, you can hear that the guitar that starts on one channel and the second guitar that follows on the different channel sound different. With small soundbanks both guitars often sound identical.

One of the guitars is Overdriven the other is Distortion, these are not the same instrument in MIDI terms but not all soundbanks can differentiate enough due to sample size restriction..

The only 1MB wavetable that I heard that had those two instruments different is Samsung one found for example on Aztech Waverider card. However those samples are heavily compressed.

Great work Paar. I have one of the BTC cards you posted on the first page but unfortunatley its a really noisy card. I do also have a non working Compaq Armada 7730MT which may be a possability to salvage the chip from.

Thanks for the input. Just remember the Comaq Armada laptop you mentioned has the ES982N chip inside, in a TSOP package. You'd have to create a TSOP->SOP adapter for it to work. You'd have to find out the pinout of the chip as it's not documented anywhere. Shouldn't be too hard though, you can just check which pin goes to which pin on the synthetizer chip.