VOGONS


First post, by frisky dingo

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I been wanting to do the 16mb ram mod on my GuS PnP pro for a long time now. Until now I held off on it do to the fear that I might fudge it up some how. But I know I'm more then good enough to do it. But before I jump the gun does anyone have any advice on what ram to use? Or any advice on the mod? It seems straight foreword, Just solder the ram on the back of the card and wire up the jumpers right.

Reply 1 of 9, by hard1k

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*secretly* We have designed a beautiful GUS PnP Pro SIMM72 adapter here...
We don't have a lot of them, so I haven't made up my mind to start selling them here and there.
But you may consider a purchase, if you want.
Please have a look at the attached pics.

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Reply 2 of 9, by Stojke

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^ Thats amazing. Whats the cable for?

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Reply 3 of 9, by hard1k

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😀
I knew you would love this.
Actually we produced a small batch of those almost a year ago. The total quantity was 50 PCBs. As we had only 10 SIMM holders, only 10 adapters have been completed - and we divided between the two of us who carried out the whole project.
The cable has been designed to get the 3 CAS lines from the infamous GUS PnP Pro JP8 block - actually, there you can find all 4 lines. But that's a good idea for a "rev.1.01" adapter - current initial revision takes 1 line from the slot where it is installed and the other 3 from JP8. It results in that one has to install it ONLY in the far edge slot - otherwise it will duplicate one CAS line that will be taken both from the slot AND JP8 - the whole setup will fail (without any damage however).
Also we've messed up with the PCB a little bit - it resulted to be thinner than an ordinary SIMM one would suppose to insert. So we had to re-solder the contact edge of the adapter so that it would sit firmly in the slot by the means of additional metal soldered.
And also the PCB design could be slightly improved - we had to do a little cut so that the SIMM holder would take the adapter.
Initial revision - it has to be like that, I suppose 😀

But apart from all that it is a really cool adapter working like a charm - and making your GUS PnP Pro ready for the UTOPIA sound bank without any need for soldering.

P.S. Actually I am thinking of producing the second revision, but it will take time.

P.P.S. Only 2 completed adapters left in stock. As far as the blank PCBs are concerned (but they lack all the reworks mentioned above!), I still have some (around 25-30, I guess).

Fortex, the A3D & XG/OPL3 accelerator (Vortex 2 + YMF744 combo sound card)
AWE64 Legacy
Please have a look at my wishlist (hosted on Amibay)

Reply 4 of 9, by brostenen

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hard1k wrote:
*secretly* We have designed a beautiful GUS PnP Pro SIMM72 adapter here... We don't have a lot of them, so I haven't made up my […]
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*secretly* We have designed a beautiful GUS PnP Pro SIMM72 adapter here...
We don't have a lot of them, so I haven't made up my mind to start selling them here and there.
But you may consider a purchase, if you want.
Please have a look at the attached pics.

Wow!!! That's amazing. Wonder if such thing would be possible on the Awe-32?

Don't eat stuff off a 15 year old never cleaned cpu cooler.
Those cakes make you sick....

My blog: http://to9xct.blogspot.dk
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001100 010010 011110 100001 101101 110011

Reply 6 of 9, by hard1k

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Thanks to all of you!
I will create a separate topic here when I have time - I'll upload some more hires pics as well as the board schematics.
Would be very grateful for any ideas to be added to a possible improved revision (as it will surely be the final one - even a small batch of 50 PCBs does cost enough).

Answering to brostenen's question: yes, it is possible. Please refer to this article: http://www.ixbt.com/multimedia/sb32_72pin.html
It is in Russian, but you can translate it with Google Translate or just take a look at the pictures of a homemade adapter. As you may see, a PCB for an AWE32 adapter will be a little bit more complex due to the additional active elements that should be used.
The main incentive for the GUS adapter design consisted in that almost no one these days wants to mod expensive and rare original GUS cards - and such adapter makes possible to install 16Mb without any soldering. And it looks cool too 😀
But AWE32 is a different story - there are lots of them available out there, and no mod is required to install 32Mb - just pay a little more for 2 16Mb SIMM30 modules. Taking into consideration the increased price of a possible adapter (due to increased complexity) the whole project would be hardly justified from the economic point of view.

Fortex, the A3D & XG/OPL3 accelerator (Vortex 2 + YMF744 combo sound card)
AWE64 Legacy
Please have a look at my wishlist (hosted on Amibay)

Reply 7 of 9, by brostenen

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Thanks. Will do some translation.
Seems as If they used a couple of stripped memory modules.

Don't eat stuff off a 15 year old never cleaned cpu cooler.
Those cakes make you sick....

My blog: http://to9xct.blogspot.dk
My YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/brostenen

001100 010010 011110 100001 101101 110011

Reply 8 of 9, by sliderider

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Has anyone tried this with the GUS PnP compatible card that Compaq sold with some of it's machines?

Reply 9 of 9, by hard1k

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Actually, that's exactly where my initial quest started (I've had a discussion in Russian here that led to my fruitful collaboration with hyperborean on that adapter).
Such adapter will work on any InterWave-based card, but it will require hardware modifications made to the host card (the only one that can be used without any soldering is the GUS PnP Pro thanks to its JP8 header that contains all the needed signals in the most useful form).
So, generally speaking, you'll have to do the following in order for the adapter to work on a generic InterWave-based card equipped with at least one SIMM30 slot:
1. Check if your card already has any embedded memory (your Compaq card should have 512KiB in a SOJ). Identify what bank(s) it will be assigned to (0-3).
2. Install any working SIMM30 in the slot and identify what bank it will be assigned to (0-3).
3. Remove the embedded memory chip (I guess, disconnecting its power lines should be enough, but I may be wrong).
4. Install the SIMM72 adapter into the slot.
5. Connect the three wires (CAS1-3) from the adapter to any combination of the following pins of the main InterWave chip (remember, that one BKSEL is already assigned to the SIMM30 slot, thus you shall not connect any wires to the corresponding pin of the InterWave chip; also you may connect 2 CAS wires to the relevant SOJ soldering spots as it should be easier - that's why you had to identify the way your GUS incarnation interprets its slots and chips):
Pin 94 - BKSEL0,
Pin 95 - BKSEL1,
Pin 97 - BKSEL2,
Pin 98 - BKSEL3.
6. If everything has been connected correctly, enjoy your 16Mb GUS PnP clone card!

DISCLAIMER: DO AT YOUR OWN RISK
The pin assignment given above has been taken from *PRELIMINARY* AMD InterWave datasheets (attached):
AMD Am78C200 InterWave LC - the chip used in Expertcolor MED3201 board,
AMD Am78C201A InterWave - the chip used in Compaq Ultra-Sound 32 board (the latest revision of the InterWave),
AMD Am78C201 InterWave - the chip used in all boards except the two mentioned above. This datasheet also includes data on a non-PnP edition of the InterWave named Am78C202, which I have never seen in any production boards.
According to these datasheets the pin assignment is the same as far as the BKSEL0-3 signals are concerned (except the smaller Am78C202 edition).
I haven't actually checked if all other pins are the same, but they are, it could give us some ground for a possible upgrade for original Gravis boards (replacing original Am78C201KC chips with the more advanced AM78C201AKC revision, but if you ask me what the differences are - I have no idea).

Fortex, the A3D & XG/OPL3 accelerator (Vortex 2 + YMF744 combo sound card)
AWE64 Legacy
Please have a look at my wishlist (hosted on Amibay)