Re: MDR-401 cards - are they really existed or are they an elaborate hoax?

Posted on 2023-10-21, 14:01

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by mattw

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

So, anyone with any information such MDR-401 card existed in reality around 1991? at least, thanks to @Tiido we sorted out without any doubt that what is currently circulating in the retro-gaming community is - at best modern reproduction, fraudulently sold as "1991 NOS".

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Re: MDR-401 cards - are they really existed or are they an elaborate hoax?

Posted on 2023-10-21, 13:59

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by mattw

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Tiido wrote on 2023-10-21, 13:55: The Z you showed is something they used in 80s I see and so at least the Zilog chip might be legit, even though its datecode is from few years ago - maybe someone still has license or something to make them.

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Re: MDR-401 cards - are they really existed or are they an elaborate hoax?

Posted on 2023-10-21, 13:38

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by mattw

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Now as far as that card goes on one of the photos in this thread, it is definitely modern, you can see the typical chinese PCB fabs code on it. exactly, that actually is enough to show that it's a scam as far as "1991 NOS" goes, but I think it goes even further, because in Reality such MDR-401 card …

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MDR-401 cards - are they really existed or are they an elaborate hoax?

Posted on 2023-10-21, 12:27

by

by mattw

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Let me begin with explaining what I mean by "elaborate hoax" - I see those cards are circulating in the last 1-2 years or so and are sold as "1991 NOS" (i.e. New Old Stock from 1991), I first encounter such card in the blog here: https://gameroomramblings.com/2021/11/30/midi-for-the-486-with-a-mdr- …

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Re: The Soundblaster DSP project

Posted on 2023-10-18, 07:49

by

by mattw

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

... might make the highest ADPCM rates that works on an SB 1.0 fail on an SB16 if the DSP clock isn't increased. interesting, maybe I add 2 crystals (12MHz and 24MHZ) and switch between them, that allows easy way of testing what works and what not in 12MHz case - like the "oscillator-switch-mod" I …

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Re: How Roland CM-300 works: no Control ROM and no SoundBank ROM?

Posted on 2023-10-18, 07:23

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by mattw

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Cloudschatze wrote on 2023-10-18, 03:25: The discrete GS program and wave ROMs are on the opposite, unphotographed side of the RLP daughterboard. thank you! so, it's all on the other side of "RLP-3037".

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How Roland CM-300 works: no Control ROM and no SoundBank ROM?

Posted on 2023-10-18, 02:07

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by mattw

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

So, how Roland CM-300 is supposed to work - where on the boards are the ROM chips located - nowhere to be found?! I don't understand, because I see no any ROMs on the pictures of what is inside Roland CM-300: roland_cm300_01.jpg yet it has the exact same add-on (daughter) board as CM-500: roland_ …

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Re: The Soundblaster DSP project

Posted on 2023-10-18, 01:00

by

by mattw

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I've noticed that on previous generation cards (DSP v3.x and DSP v2.x) the crystal of the 8052 MCU is 12MHz - I wonder is it possible Creative engineers made some bug similar to this one: https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=86257 i.e. forget to fix some clock-dividers in the code, when they …

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Re: Ensoniq OPUS PNP EEPROM dump

Posted on 2023-10-17, 14:54

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by mattw

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

that is the instrument rom, I was talking about the pnp configuration eeprom (128 bytes 24c01) you're probably right, but the file "ssromdmp.bin" in the archive is only 256 bytes, I don't know what it is, as it's bigger than 128 bytes, but it cannot be the SoundBank ROM. anyway, I hope someone will …

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Re: Ensoniq OPUS PNP EEPROM dump

Posted on 2023-10-17, 14:42

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by mattw

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I don't have such card, but here: http://www.os2museum.com/wp/dumping-ensoniq-soundscape-roms/ there is tool that is capable to dump those ROMs. So, it maybe helpful information... [EDIT] I've just realized the dump tool ZIP file: https://www.os2museum.com/files/ssdump-20180905.zip contains a ROM …

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Re: The Soundblaster DSP project

Posted on 2023-10-17, 13:11

by

by mattw

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It's a toy. Very nice toy, but toy. it might be so, but if it can be even of minimal help then building MAME from source and thus be able to add debug messages, etc. turned out to be ultra simple, I documented it here: https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?p=1203347#p1203347 (I guess the command …

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Re: MAME Roland MPU-401 Emulator

Posted on 2023-10-17, 12:46

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by mattw

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

OK, here is something like a Guide and my current findings. That will save time of other people in case they want to join and help with the effort. I am using the latest MAME 0.259 and apart of that, you need only 6 other files (that you can find and download online), you put them in sub-directory …

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Re: The Soundblaster DSP project

Posted on 2023-10-16, 08:40

by

by mattw

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

MAME runs the DSP code in their own 'I80C52'-emulator: I80C52(config, m_cpu, XTAL(24'000'000)); https://github.com/mamedev/mame/blob/master/src/devices/bus/isa/sb16.cpp isn't in that regard MAME better to collect logs from their 'I80C52'-emulator directly, i.e. logs that are coming from the …

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Re: The Soundblaster DSP project

Posted on 2023-10-15, 14:36

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by mattw

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Still waiting for last 2 tests to be checked))) they are here: https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?p=1202599#p1202599 in case people already with PLCC-44 sockets installed missed them. BTW, maybe end of the next week my PLCC-44 sockets and MCUs will arrive and I will be able to do such tests too.

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Re: The Soundblaster DSP project

Posted on 2023-10-15, 13:56

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by mattw

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

PS: No noticeable difference regarding clicking between 12T and 6T. I think there may be other factors than DSP code execution time causing it. I start to think the same. maybe only capture in the 'digital domain', i.e. see the 'click' case and 'no-click' case as PCM bytes sequence of the same …

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Re: The Soundblaster DSP project

Posted on 2023-10-15, 12:00

by

by mattw

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I haven't tested 6T mode of STC89/90 family. I believe such test worth to be done, because as I understand it - the test you've done is on average higher performance of the MCU than just 2 times. So, it's good we see what happens in 6T mode, i.e. with just 2 times the speed, especially with the …

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Re: Heads Up: Roland Sound Canvas VA VSTi Plugin!

Posted on 2023-10-15, 10:11

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by mattw

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

SCVA contains the ROM of a real device, even we did not identify which real device exactly, because it doesn't match exactly any of the ROM dumps we had from a real device, you can read up and down from this post for details: https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?p=918535#p918535 that of course …

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Re: The Soundblaster DSP project

Posted on 2023-10-15, 09:47

by

by mattw

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

However, with this faster MCU can you say how much faster STC12C5A60S2 compared to regular 8052 MCU in "6T" is in that case? I just wonder what are the speed limits when those problems start to emerge. Also, thank you for giving so much good details about STC chips and how and with what programmers …

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Re: The Soundblaster DSP project

Posted on 2023-10-14, 17:55

by

by mattw

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I ended up using a STC90C58RD+ what programmer do you use for those MCUs? some special one made by "STC" as well? I found their software "STC-ISP" and I see that STC90C58RD+ has an option to enable "6T mode" via the programmer and without a need to make changes in the firmware, i.e. without a need …

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Re: Audigy 2 ZS: SB16 Emulation Driver Not Loading

Posted on 2023-10-14, 00:13

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by mattw

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

C:\>SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 F330 F330?! that has to be wrong. unless, it's not a typo when you wrote the post, in any way the correct one is P330, i.e. IOPort 330, maybe that's why it cannot open, because it doesn't know the IOport.

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