Scali wrote:

Fagear wrote:

For fully-assembled cards I also need to know, what SID will be installed in it. Because with 8580 there must be a 78L09 reg and filter caps 6.8nF, but for 6581 there must be short on +12 and 1nF caps.

Would it be possible to design this in a way that you can easily switch between SID types using a jumper or something?
I can imagine that people may want to swap between a 6581 and a 8580 from time to time.

Just add "sockets" for the caps, that way you can switch them as easy as the SID. The HardSID Quatro was like that: http://pics.studiorepair.de/Interfaces/slides … Quattro_ISA.jpg (might be hard to see)
Hard-wiring the voltage for the SID is a good thing in my eyes, that way less 8580s will get killed by accident.

Yes, I suppose the cards are not that expensive anyway, so you could just buy two cards, one with 6581 and one with 8580, and swap the cards, not the chips 😀

carlostex wrote:

Oh you had to tease with the AdLib Gold, huh? 😈

yeah... not really I just took what I had on my desk at the moment 😀
Good catch!

I have ordered my SID chip, and I was told to be super careful with it, apparently they're super sensitive to static electricity.
Aside from grounding myself when touching and manipulating it, anything else I should know or do?

Scali wrote:

Would it be possible to design this in a way that you can easily switch between SID types using a jumper or something?
I can imagine that people may want to swap between a 6581 and a 8580 from time to time.

I think current board is final.
I'm thinking about another SSI-2001-compatible board: smaller, SMD, more SID clock options and easily configured. But that's just a thought right now.

Beegle wrote:

I have ordered my SID chip, and I was told to be super careful with it, apparently they're super sensitive to static electricity.
Aside from grounding myself when touching and manipulating it, anything else I should know or do?

Well, common precaution working with ESD-sensitive devices. Wear minimum clothes from synthetic fabric, minimize fast motions of your body. Use grounding strap or regularly touch grounded parts with your hand (PC case, back of power supply) before touching everything else inside PC. Store and handle ESD-sensitive device (SID) in static-dissipative package and/or with shorted legs (put them in metal foil).

Typical scenario:
1) You take package with your SID (presumably packed into static-dissipative, "silver" packet) with one hand;
2) Go to your test PC with your replica, down touch it yet;
3) With another hand touch case of your PC or power supply casing (shortest path to grounded power outlet): warning, spark may occur! 😈
4) While touching grounded part (keeping potential of your body near ground level, also SID in you other hand will be equalized with that potential safely as well) sit down and put your SID onto PC.
5) While regularly contacting your body with grounded part, unpack your SID and put it in the board; avoid fast motions of your body;
6) Put the board into PC;
7) Done!

Thanks for the tips !

Another tip: Make sure to only touch the plastic/ceramic of the chip, not the pins itself whenever possible.

In any case, even that may not help. I just picked up 5 SIDs for Fagear, which were new (not _like_ new, virtually new, unused old stock - late '92 datecodes, pins still slightly bent outwards, according to the seller old stock they bought at the German Commodore plant in Braunschweig) ... guess what - 2 of them were broken. Getting free replacements tho 😀

But yeah, we're talking about 23+ year old chips which weren't the most reliable even back in the day.

is it a good idea to fix a heatsink on the SID? If I remember correctly I saw some users doing that on their C64s...

I ordered mine and have a SID on the way too.

I suppose no one is interested in writing a DOS or Windows 9x SID player so we use this card as a playback device for HVSID.

Great Hierophant wrote:

I suppose no one is interested in writing a DOS or Windows 9x SID player so we use this card as a playback device for HVSID.

Fagear wrote:

And I have some examples of sound: Lambada.sid and 1988_Top_40_MEGAMIX.sid.
Real hardware, new board with MOS6581R4 in it. Playing *.SID file with bristlehog's alfa-version software.

bristlehog is working on it, but he has very little time for this now.

UPD.
And I tested some HardSID-compatible software and of course it doesn't recognize the replica and doesn't play.

keropi wrote:

is it a good idea to fix a heatsink on the SID? If I remember correctly I saw some users doing that on their C64s...

It certainly doesn't harm. Even though it's probably not the cure of all problems either. It probably has a slight positive effect on long term usage as lower heat means lower stress on the DIE inside the package - being that heat should always be within specs anyways it's doubtful that a heatsink might save a chip from otherwise catastrophic circumstances ... just be aware there's a lot of tell-tale and folklore surrounding the SID.

Great Hierophant wrote:

I suppose no one is interested in writing a DOS or Windows 9x SID player so we use this card as a playback device for HVSID.

I'm already writing a DOS player. However, it turns out that this player requires a 500 Mhz CPU to operate properly (otherwise it would play slower than normal). Is it that a big problem for the community?

^ really? 500mhz?!
there goes the dream to use the card in my p200mmx build

keropi wrote:

^ really? 500mhz?!
there goes the dream to use the card in my p200mmx build

Perhaps if I use another, less demanding C64 emulation library, there's hope to make a player suitable even for a 386. But the current version (based on libsidplayfp) requires a 500 Mhz CPU.

bristlehog wrote:

Perhaps if I use another, less demanding C64 emulation library, there's hope to make a player suitable even for a 386. But the current version (based on libsidplayfp) requires a 500 Mhz CPU.

I need to say: it requires exactly 500 MHz or a little faster CPU. Because on faster CPUs it plays faster than normal. 🤣 At least version that I have.

Fagear wrote:

I need to say: it requires exactly 500 MHz or a little faster CPU. Because on faster CPUs it plays faster than normal. 🤣 At least version that I have.

Yes, I am working on time sync that would allow it to work on CPUs faster than 500 Mhz, but I can't do anything for slower ones (apart from writing it from scratch with another C64 emulator).

why do you need a c64 emulator? how does the player works?

That makes sense because you need to accurately emulate the 6510 CPU, the 6569 VIC-II and the 6526 CIA. A SID file is mostly 6502 program code plus data, so it utilizes 6502 based instructions and relies on either the VIC or the CIA for timing.

Of course, many SID files are written for PAL timing in mind, which the Innovation does not support.

keropi wrote:

why do you need a c64 emulator? how does the player works?

As Great Hierophant already mentioned, SID files are C64 binary code. The player has to create a virtual C64 environment for that binary code to work. Thus, some open source C64 emulator can be taken, extra parts (like SID emulation) thrown out of it, and interaction with SSI-2001 added.

ah, now I get it. it's a shame.... I thought that sid files where something like midi files.

Great Hierophant wrote:

so we use this card as a playback device for HVSID.

What is HVSID by the way?