What would it take to get full dss and covox compatibility?

I think nothing for DSS, signals should be the same in LPT port. About covox - the diff is in FIFO stack, I dunno how it does with covox sw. The board is even not alpha, it's pre-alpha prototype, didn't tested yet. If anyone has a wish to test - welcome, I have DIY IC only (RCL you should find yourself) kits.

A Covox has no FIFO at all, the 8 datalines from the LPT are passed through the resistor ladder DAC immediately.
So if you want Covox compatibility, you'd need some way to bypass the FIFO. A simple switch on the PCB perhaps?

may be next time, but the glue is to has better sound, which offers DSS.

Dimitri wrote:

may be next time, but the glue is to has better sound, which offers DSS.

Better in what way? DSS is limited to 7 kHz audio. Covox can go as fast as your CPU allows. Playing 44.1 kHz is possible on a fast 386 or 486.
The main advantage the DSS has is that its FIFO makes it less CPU-intensive for low-end systems. But even a 8088 at 4.77 MHz can easily get better than 7 kHz audio from a Covox.

Now, if your DSS would not have a fixed 7 kHz clock, but you could get it to 44.1 kHz at least, then you may have the best of both worlds. But you wouldn't have any software that supports it, unlike the Covox, where there's quite a few games, demos and trackers that support 44.1 kHz.

oh, common! Covox and quality sound in 44KHz is impossible. What we're talking about? It is mono source of dinosaur epoch. For kind of freaks who's remember 2400 baud sound 😁

Dimitri wrote:

oh, common! Covox and quality sound in 44KHz is impossible.

Say what?
See here: https://scalibq.wordpress.com/2017/11/28/the-covox-years/

Yea, it's mono, and it's 8-bit, but within those parameters it delivers excellent fidelity. 44.1 kHz 8-bit mono sound is not that bad really. Sounds better than an SB2.0 really.

Ok, I may especially for you ship DYI kit with double russian ICs (for sure), you pay shipping only. Build, report and next iteration will include ur name in board.

Agreed. Some clones do do it justice - I have an Aztech Sound Galaxy NX Pro, which not only does SB(Pro)2.0 but offers Covox support as an aside. It's a horribly noisy (or rather: unshielded) card in general, but as it has a real OPL3 it's a good side-by-side comparison between Covox and SB, and I was surprised by how good the Covox sounded. It's limited, both in terms of being mono and its extremely primitive and timing-sensitive interface, but within those limits it was far better than I had expected.

by the way ISA8 bit OPL3 on the way 😁

I love DIY projects like this. 😀 Great job so far.

Some things I would very much like to see in a DSS-on-steroids:

* 100% downwards compatibility with the actual Disney Sound Source (duh)
* A Covox Speech Thing (and possibly also stereo-on-one) compatibility mode by bypassing the FIFO buffer, as suggested by others here already
* A mode that allows it to coexist and work concurrently with an OPL2LPT or OPL3LPT on a single parallel port
* An advanced mode that allows the FIFO buffer to be configured for arbitrary bitrates other than just 7kHz, including the more common 11kHz used in most DOS games that supported sound cards
* An even more flexibly programmable FIFO buffer that could offer configurable larger buffer sizes and/or stereo support
* Optional ADPCM decompression support in hardware
* The leveraging of the IRQ of the parallel port to provide some level of hardware assistance to a software-based Sound Blaster emulator tailored for this "DSS Plus" device

These are probably crazy ideas, but hey, a geek can dream, right? 😉

shock_ also has made a combo stereo/mono/dss Plug which is switchable.

I`m now waiting for PCBs to arrive from him. Dunno how long it will take 😀

Reversing the Disney Sound Source

->
* A mode that allows it to coexist and work concurrently with an OPL2LPT or OPL3LPT on a single parallel port

i don`t think this will be possible without breaking DSS combatiblity.

Eg using OPL2 and Digital on Wolfenstein..

Dimitri wrote:

by the way ISA8 bit OPL3 on the way 😁

SB Pro1 Music (dual OPL2 stereo) is also supported by many games but cards rare.

Seems like this thread belongs in Sound, right?

matze79 wrote:

I`m now waiting for PCBs to arrive from him. Dunno how long it will take 😀

Waiting for the PCBs myself ... according to the PCB manufacturer they should have arrived already, which they didn't. Let's hope they didn't get lost.

While I do like high quality covox stuff, I fail to see the point of this project. The only case where one should care about DSS is backward-compatibility which you're breaking by going with a FIFO that has a larger depth unless you're filling/dropping the second half or "stuffing" every other word (original has 16x8bit) - in that case it's a cool project as the 74HCT40105 I'm using are only 4bits wide and probably soon to be discontinued (if they aren't already). Going high quality when the software expects ~7khz output also seems a bit overengineered 😉
On the other hand - best of luck. Reverse engineering the DSS was one of my first serious projects 😀

shock__ wrote:

While I do like high quality covox stuff, I fail to see the point of this project. The only case where one should care about DSS is backward-compatibility which you're breaking by going with a FIFO that has a larger depth unless you're filling/dropping the second half or "stuffing" every other word (original has 16x8bit) - in that case it's a cool project as the 74HCT40105 I'm using are only 4bits wide and probably soon to be discontinued (if they aren't already).

Yes, I think first and foremost the device has to have a 100% DSS-compatible mode.
It would be an interesting feature if it can also switch to Covox-compatible mode, and even moreso if there's an advanced mode with a deeper FIFO and higher playback rates than the original DSS.
It would be interesting for people developing new games and demos. But the primary focus should be on compatibility with existing games and demos, because that's what most people would be using it for.

Whats up with this ?
Does it work ?