I can lend (for free, of course) a nice looking not so large PS/2 MCA machine with some 486 CPU if that helps you to take on such a project.

I wish I could afford both this and Orpheus 😒 but for now I will be saving up for Orpheus, hopefully I can sign up for a later batch.

LABS,

I built my Blasterboard, but I’m having issues with it not being detected, at boot. I’d like to send you a PM, but apparently I’m not yet allowed.

I did a check of the assembly, and did find one mistake, which I corrected. I’m not seeing the LED light up, and using the SB2.0 install.exe, the board isn’t detected. I have taken high res photos of both sides of the completed board. I have compared my board to the rev.B layout, from your GitHub repo, and didn’t see anything else obvious.

Can you send me a PM with an alternate way to contact you? Or, should I just post the photos publicly, and link to them?

Thanks!
- Alex

If you post the high-resolution pictures somewhere, many people can take a look. 😀

What mistake did you make? There might be residual damage.

Thanks, Cyrix. I initially mounted IC14 backwards. Unfortunately, I don’t have a functional 74LS tester, so I can’t be sure that the IC wasn’t damaged, but it seems unlikely.

The photos are here:
https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B0i5qXGF1O4ZUq

Many thanks to anyone who wants to take a look.

- Alex

What do you mean it is not detected on boot?
SB 2.0 utility may not detect it if it is run on 486 or faster machine.
Did you solder IC14 wrong at first and powered it up? It might be damaged then.
Is OPL2 working? If the led did not light up - you will not hear any sound (check T1 MOSFET if it is ok), but you can try to detect it by a game or a tracker like Edlib.
There are no obvious mistakes on your photos, so the problem should be localized step by step.

Sorry, I should have been more clear.

The machine that I am testing in is a 286/20, so speed shouldn't be an issue. I did indeed power it up, with the IC backwards, so it is possibly damaged. I'll replace it, and see if that makes any difference. However, my history with 74LS logic makes suspect that it is fine. Do you have any particular points that I should check, when diagnosing the board?

I'll try a tracker, and see if I can see it that way.

Thanks!
- Alex

A SBPro2.0 version of this will be selling like hot cakes.
Just saying...

James-F wrote on 2020-07-24, 05:17:

A SBPro2.0 version of this will be selling like hot cakes.
Just saying...

Well.. There is Orpheus for that, so.. But if this was Pro 2.0 compatible I'd be torn between the two for sure.

LABS wrote on 2020-07-23, 11:23:

What do you mean it is not detected on boot?
SB 2.0 utility may not detect it if it is run on 486 or faster machine.

Labs,

I have this card installed on my Alaris Cougar build (IBM 486BL CPU) which is basically just a fast 386, and it sometimes doesn't detect unless I disable cache or change the clock speed from 100mhz to 75mhz.
Is there anything I can do to fix this? Like wait states or something?

DNSDies wrote on 2020-08-27, 14:12:

...it sometimes doesn't detect...

Is it some particular game or overall?
If it happens only time to time, please check your BlasterBoard firmware version using this utility:
https://github.com/labs-lv/blasterboard/blob/ … ties/BB-VER.EXE
If your version is 2.0 - try to downgrade to 1.0. Otherwise - upgrade to version 2.0. You need to reflash the MCU for that.
Firmware can be found here:
https://github.com/labs-lv/blasterboard/tree/master/Firmware

Back in stock. Due to demands PCB is green.

looking great in "classic green" 😀

Looks more eco friendly! 😉

Yes, back to basics 😀

Nice neutral Color!!! will PM when i get some money 😀

Wow, that's sexy..

Did you know that BlasterBoard's CD input can also be used as a stereo Line input? You can for example plug in your internal/external MIDI module and control its volume manually.

Here is my current perfect combo:

I use this trick with multi sound card setups a lot when the receiving card does not have a Line-In or AUX-In header, usually routing PCI to ISA for a multi boot setup. Of course you don't have the volume control like the BLASTERBOARD does but you can use the software mixer. It also makes muting the second card very easy. 😀

Whats pricing for assembled Card ? is it still same ?