LABS wrote on 2021-10-04, 10:12:

Glad to announce that thanks to your support today I shipped the 100th BlasterBoard! Was totally not expecting this when started the project back in summer of 2018. The community is growing and hope it will grow even more.
Kind regards and gratitude to everyone!

Thanks for your hard work. I like the idea of an 8 bit SB clone with clean sound. A -94dB SNR is pretty impressive when they were originally around -60 IIRC. The best card I have is an X-Fi Elite Pro with a -116dB SNR which is the exception. From Audigy on, I think they all have a -106dB SNR because they are all developments of the original Audigy. I use an Audigy 2 for recording right now because the X-Fi needs new caps. It is fine for hobby use. Plus, it has firewire, so I might stick with it to avail myself of cheap used Firewire interfaces on eBay. But I digress..
That 8 bit sound is the sound I spent the first half of the '90s with but I don't think I can tune out the noise like I used to. I am getting into electronics repair and I will be ordering the PCB soon for an educational project. I am going to try to salvage as many of the digital components as possible and make sure I order the best quality analog components. I was wondering, is it possible to use an OPL-3 chip instead? I know I have one laying around somewhere on a broken card. I am also wondering about the oscillator. That 3.57 MHz frequency sounds real familiar, like I may have seen one on some old junk I collected recently. Could using an old oscillator impact the sound quality in any way?

opticpow wrote on 2021-11-01, 05:30:

First power on and unfortunatley I saw some magic smoke. After quickly powering off, I checked for hot components, black spots etc and it all looked normal. I finally found what looks like a very small rupture in inductor L1, which seems to be the correct location based oh where I thought the smoke came from. I can see that one end connects to the ISA bus, and the other goes off towards C13, but it is hard to tell.

A smoking or blown inductor is a symptom, not a cause. The inductor acts like a fuse, and blows if too much current flows through it. It sounds like there is a short circuit on the C13 side of the inductor. Apart from solder bridges, short circuits can also be caused by electrolytic caps and integrated circuits that are inserted the wrong way around.

You can use a meter to confirm whether there actually is a short to ground, but if there are many components connected to that point, the meter won't tell you which component causes the short, though.

mkarcher wrote on 2021-11-01, 08:17:

A smoking or blown inductor is a symptom, not a cause. The inductor acts like a fuse, and blows if too much current flows through it. It sounds like there is a short circuit on the C13 side of the inductor. Apart from solder bridges, short circuits can also be caused by electrolytic caps and integrated circuits that are inserted the wrong way around.

You can use a meter to confirm whether there actually is a short to ground, but if there are many components connected to that point, the meter won't tell you which component causes the short, though.

Yep, found an IC round the wrong way. Replaced the inductor and the IC out of caution, and we are in business.

Thanks, Optic

Awesome! Care to tell us which IC was wrong way around? Lucky that it killed only two components!

opticpow wrote on 2021-11-05, 12:48:

...Replaced the inductor and the IC out of caution...

Glad you made it
As mkarcher said the inductor indeed acted as a fuse and kept the opamp from burning

HangarAte2nds! wrote on 2021-11-01, 07:06:

I was wondering, is it possible to use an OPL-3 chip instead?

OPL3 chip needs a YAC512 DAC, which needs the schematics to be modified, so cannot be used

HangarAte2nds! wrote on 2021-11-01, 07:06:

Could using an old oscillator impact the sound quality in any way?

If it provides a stable 3.579545MHz it will not impact the sound quality.
Active crystal oscillators (4-pin) of this frequency are rather hard to find and it is the rarest part in BB. The needed frequency can also be obtained by taking a 14.32MHz clock from B30 pin of the ISA bus and then dividing it by 4 using an additional 74HC74 chip. Some sound cards uses this approach, but the problem is that not every PC-compatible has this exact frequency on B30 pin. That is why a dedicated crystal is used in BB.

LABS wrote on 2021-11-09, 13:47:

Active crystal oscillators (4-pin) of this frequency are rather hard to find and it is the rarest part in BB. The needed frequency can also be obtained by taking a 14.32MHz clock from B30 pin of the ISA bus and then dividing it by 4 using an additional 74HC74 chip. Some sound cards uses this approach, but the problem is that not every PC-compatible has this exact frequency on B30 pin. That is why a dedicated crystal is used in BB.

And in my experience not all PCs have a very accurate 14.32MHz clock..

Impulse Tracker driver for the Blasterboard is available:
https://github.com/labs-lv/blasterboard ... er%20(DOS)

To use the driver:

1) Place ITBB.DRV file into your Impulse Tracker folder containing IT.EXE file.
2) Use /s command line switch to force Impulse Tracker to use the driver:

IT.EXE /sITBB.DRV /m50000

/m switch sets the playback rate. Up to 62500Hz is supported, which is the default if the /m switch is omitted. Current playback rate can be checked by pressing Shift+F5 inside the Impulse Tracker.

Happy holidays everyone!

Hi! I'm planning my 386 build and this card matches it perfectly. Hope to order it soon (if there will be no war, for sure 🙁).

Is it possible to get it in yellow PCB? Seems like every board I have is yellow - Motherboard, MIO card, video and network. It just happened so, like this color was quite common for that era (1990), though original SB cards are green.
If so, I would gladly paid few more bucks for such an option.

rkurbatov wrote on 2022-01-17, 22:46:

Hi! I'm planning my 386 build and this card matches it perfectly. Hope to order it soon (if there will be no war, for sure 🙁).

Is it possible to get it in yellow PCB? Seems like every board I have is yellow - Motherboard, MIO card, video and network. It just happened so, like this color was quite common for that era (1990), though original SB cards are green.
If so, I would gladly paid few more bucks for such an option.

Hi and thanks for your interest. The only color currently available is green.

A new batch of Blasterboards will ship next week

It took 6 revisions to finally get rid of the cropped top left corner and look more mature than ever 😉

LABS wrote on 2022-09-02, 16:42:

A new batch of Blasterboards will ship next week

It took 6 revisions to finally get rid of the cropped top left corner and look more mature than ever 😉

rev-g-small.jpg

Still proud to own a Rev-A 😀

Salient wrote on 2022-09-02, 19:21:

Still proud to own a Rev-A 😀

Ah yes, the very first batch in 2019
Hope it serves you well 😀

Great.

I still have to debug mine 😀
I started to work on an Hardware project as well. (Raspberry Pi Pico based ISA Board)

You have no difficulty to find OPL2 chip ?

FreddyV wrote on 2022-10-04, 14:09:

You have no difficulty to find OPL2 chip ?

They became more expensive now, but it is still possible to source them. Need to check each one though as some arrive unusable.
Good luck with your project!

LABS wrote on 2022-10-04, 16:10:

FreddyV wrote on 2022-10-04, 14:09:

You have no difficulty to find OPL2 chip ?

They became more expensive now, but it is still possible to source them. Need to check each one though as some arrive unusable.
Good luck with your project!

Not hard at all.
Yeah all those Adlib Clone Sellers make them expensive.

I wonder where do the providers pull them from in such quantities. Seems like they have an infinite flow of old adlibs, sound blasters and cheap pianos. Taking a random bunch from the last order - all chips are used and have different manufacturing stamps, so they are originals I assume. An infinite circulation of OPL2's in the world. Seems like in near future they will be pulled from current adlib clones, blasterboards and opl2lpt's.... 😉

Chinese recycling operators pull chips in bulk and sort later.

The OPL2 was long produced.
It was in several Yamaha Keyboards, Arcade Machines and Karaoke Boxes etc.

LABS wrote on 2022-09-04, 07:36:

Salient wrote on 2022-09-02, 19:21:

Still proud to own a Rev-A 😀

Ah yes, the very first batch in 2019
Hope it serves you well 😀

Same here. I have to admit I am using the SnarkBarker, as I like it quite much, but the BlasterBoard sits in my shelf of special things and can be seen in most of my videos in the background. 😀

appiah4 wrote on 2021-11-09, 21:10:

LABS wrote on 2021-11-09, 13:47:

Active crystal oscillators (4-pin) of this frequency are rather hard to find and it is the rarest part in BB. The needed frequency can also be obtained by taking a 14.32MHz clock from B30 pin of the ISA bus and then dividing it by 4 using an additional 74HC74 chip. Some sound cards uses this approach, but the problem is that not every PC-compatible has this exact frequency on B30 pin. That is why a dedicated crystal is used in BB.

And in my experience not all PCs have a very accurate 14.32MHz clock..

Yeah i discovered this with sn76489, some PCs seem to play detuned.
With Oscilator this disappears.