Is OPL3 "perfectly" backward compatible with OPL2 ? Basically, do we need to bother with both OPL2 and OPL3 on the board, or just OPL3 is enough ? Of course, it's always possible to disable additional features of OPL3, so software would detect it as OPL2...

Scali wrote: mistakes that Creative made in the SB16. What are they ?

Scali wrote: I've never heard perfect OPL2 and OPL3 emulation yet Reverse engineered OPL3 looks quite accurate...

What is “perfect emulation” ? It’s very difficult to draw a line - the question is very philosophical... If I use real OPL3 chip, but instead of an original DAC make one inside of FPGA - is it perfect enough ? Then, there is OPL3 emulation thar uses real ROM from OPL3 chip and accurate algorithms - …

If we are talking about using original tune chips, everything is much easier. I played a lot with different concepts for universal sound card recently, even partially recreated CT1320 schematics to understand it better. I don’t have any experience with MCS51 MCUs, but don’t think it takes too much …

FPGA would be the best option for such an inclusive project Of course, it’s most flexible approach, especially because you can create a MCU inside of FPGA and have “two in one”. Probably, biggest downside - a price. I think to get everything listed in FPGA will require something around 20 - 50 K …

There is nothing difficult in such a project, except finding time and motivation to finish them... Actually, at the moment I have two different designs of such cards - one is based on my universal FPGA card, and another - mostly on STM32 controller.

I’m entertaining similar idea for some time and even completed relatively simple project of this kind - http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?46427-Modern-XT-compatible-PC-on-FPGA-with-real-8088&p=426939#post426939 At the moment I have a half completed design of the board that can work with 8088 …

Also, if you have any suggestions for a good FPGA starter board (up to 200 euros) I'd be interested to hear your opinions. To be honest, it's usually impossible to answer such questions :) without further clarification... Really depends on what do you need - more connectors (which ones ?), lights, …

The problem is mainly that the hardware design for a single ISA card with FPGA is not easy. You have to level convert between 5V TTL signals on ISA and 3.3V signals on FPGA, and large enough FPGAs tend to be in huge BGA packages not soldered on by a hobbyists for prototyping any more. It can be …