VOGONS


First post, by vbug

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Hi, I have that old ISA card with several jack connectors, I have no clue about what it can be. The card is labelled with "LABO4", and "TMP I Clermont-ferrand" (a french city). The jack connectors are labelled with "HP 4/8 Ohms" (speaker 4/8 Ohms), "casque 8 Ohms" (headset 8 ohms), "ampli", "E magneto" (the "E" could stand for "input"), "micro 600 ohms", "E analog". There is no readable references on the main component, looks like it has been scratched to make them unreadable. Any idea of what it could be ? Thanks.

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Reply 1 of 15, by weedeewee

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Could be a soundblaster clone.
no OPL
maybe CQMCMS ?

Last edited by weedeewee on 2026-01-05, 16:57. Edited 1 time in total.

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Reply 2 of 15, by vbug

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what is "CQM" ? How can I identify it ?

Reply 3 of 15, by TheMobRules

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It's definitely not a sound card or any other consumer-level product. More likely an interface for some kind of lab equipment, just look at the input names written on the labels next to the outputs.

Reply 4 of 15, by vbug

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Yes it is what I suppose as well

Reply 5 of 15, by Thandor

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Could it be something from an observatory in Clermont-Ferrand (France) that used variometers or magnetometers? Try Googling this stuff. I see you are located in France so if it’s not far away it might be fun to take the voiture and head out 😉.

The card is probably late 1990, early 1991.

Last edited by Thandor on 2026-01-04, 18:43. Edited 1 time in total.

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Reply 6 of 15, by chriz

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There was a company called Techni-Musique et Parole Informatique (TMPI) (1984-1992) in clermont-ferrand. They made music products and speech synthesizer (Synthétiseur vocal). But there is no information about this Card.

https://cpcrulez.fr/info-techni-musique.htm

Reply 7 of 15, by Tiido

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It is definitely a sound card, but it won't be SB compatible or anything useful for anything outside whatever software this is meant to be used with.

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Reply 8 of 15, by wierd_w

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I'm gonna join in on the 'not a soundcard' camp on this one.

This looks like bespoke scientific data aquisition card for a bespoke laboratory setup.

Kinda telling is 'LAB04' on the front side, in addition to the paper labels, suggesting electromagnets, various ohmage sensors, and the like.

It's neat, but without the instruments, lab equip, and the bespoke software, not particularly useful.

Reply 9 of 15, by HwAoRrDk

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If I had to guess, it's some kind of niche, limited production audiophile wankery. 😆 The clues being paranoid removal of the markings on some of the chips, and excessive amounts of capacitance.

Maybe some kind of audio card with integrated phono amplifier?

What's intriguing is that the ISA edge connector doesn't have a lot of the pins present. What it does have are:

Side A: D0-7, A0-9, AEN
Side B: GND, -12V, +12V, IOW, IOR, +5V

So, pretty much the bare minimum going on there. No IRQs, no clock, no DMA, only uses I/O port addressing, not memory addressing. 😕

Edit:
The jumpers almost certainly set the I/O address that the card resides at. They appear to be connected to the M74HC688, which is an 8-bit equality comparator, which is connected to the ISA address pins. There is a 74LS245 buffer on the data pins.

Other chips are a smattering of TL072 op-amps, low-noise NE5534 op-amps, an AD7528 DAC, plus another AD part I can't make out the marking on. There appears to be some kind of amplifier chip with heatsink tab under two of the capacitors on the right (yeah, let's put something that gets hot under electrolytic caps, that'll end well, great job 🙄). The 'celduc' part in the lower-right corner isn't a chip but a reed relay. The two folded over TO220 parts are probably 7809 and 7909 linear voltage regulators. The big chip in the middle may be some kind of microcontroller/microprocessor, given it has what would be de rigueur crystal plus two capacitors next to it. I suspect the 5 scrubbed chips at the top are digital logic, and not analog (i.e. not to do with audio).

Reply 10 of 15, by vbug

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Thank you all for your contribution, at the end I'm still not sure what is that card, maybe someone will find that thread one day and would be able to identify it formally.

Reply 11 of 15, by Jo22

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It could be an audio card meant for voice recording/playback, maybe.
For a digital answering machine or for playing back digital voice snippets in an appliance, not sure.
There was a market for it in late 80s, I think. At the time, voice recognition and speech synthesis was a thing, too.
It's just an idea, though.

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Reply 12 of 15, by Ozzuneoj

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The terminology on it definitely seems like it is audio related, but as others have said it is most likely for some very specific studio production or recording application.

Sadly, there is probably no way to figure out anything else about it without spending a bunch of time tracing out each pin on each chip to maybe get some rough idea of their function... and even then you'd just have a guess, with no way to confirm any of it. Maybe someone else will stumble across one some day with a box, manual or some other accessories that could explain what it is for. And hopefully they are thoughtful enough to post here about it. 😁

Where did you find the card? Sometimes the origin of a part can grant some insight into what it was used for.

Now for some blitting from the back buffer.

Reply 13 of 15, by nali

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Just saying, the well known tires Michelin are made in Clermont-Ferrand 😀

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Reply 14 of 15, by st31276a

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HwAoRrDk wrote on 2026-01-06, 03:17:

If I had to guess, it's some kind of niche, limited production audiophile wankery. 😆 The clues being paranoid removal of the markings on some of the chips, and excessive amounts of capacitance.

I doubt it would be audiophile wankery, there are TL07x series opamps on the thing.

Reply 15 of 15, by nali

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st31276a wrote on Yesterday, 15:03:

I doubt it would be audiophile wankery, there are TL07x series opamps on the thing.

It depend where the TL07X are used.
The NE5534 are pretty good for audio. They are not generic Opamp like the TL and Lm324.