Pickle wrote on 2022-02-07, 01:48:

are you trying to make the cable match the ibm one? Maybe if possible just make it with more modern connectors?

Well, there is no modern connector so to speak, as it has to be a connector that matches the framekit. Would you consider it a problem if it was similar to the attached pictures, except with an audio jack as well? This joystick card as an example is an all-plastic case, and has a full size DB15 connector.

personally I wouldn't mind a DB15 pin connector and some stereo plug jack. The DB15 could actually be more convenient with a chill adapter any waveblaster type board could be attached.
I was assuming the other connector would be like one of the single card width ones like modems/network cards might use?

Looking forward to buying a few!

Another alternative could be to use a right angled IDC pcb socket and a standard ribbon cable (maybe a 16pin or larger one if more pins if needed and it would fit).

Thats if its just case of using the pcmcia adapter to connect to another daughter board.

Cant wait to try these in a few 486 era laptops! How close until i can buy a few?

yyzkevin wrote on 2022-02-07, 00:56:

In terms of getting dos soundblaster support on non-supported cards, I need to take a look at any source/libraries that are out there that can be used to playback audio to wss cards from dos.

I rather meant MIDI suport, as Yamaha and TDK are more about MIDI. Yet the latter and many other cards have WSS support.
Anyways, main thing to consider is how many people own the card , and if it's worth spending time on making drivers for it. Yamaha IMO is almost as common as SCP-55. TDK is also not super rare. All other cards are much less common.

The Yamaha PCC10XG?

Do you happen to have any pictures of the interior of that card? I have one here but does initial attempts to open it did not work and I was not ready to butcher it.

yyzkevin wrote on 2022-02-08, 03:48:

The Yamaha PCC10XG?

Do you happen to have any pictures of the interior of that card? I have one here but does initial attempts to open it did not work and I was not ready to butcher it.

Yes, PCC10XG.
No pictures, unfortunately. I tried to open mine too, but cannot do that without bending the cover.

I'd be in for any new repro or fpga based solution that does not use ISA or the printer port. Preferably a real swiss knife of a soundcard that covers it all.
I think a fpga solution is the way to go if people vote for all the bangs and whistles, since in theory have to worry less about old chips (only in Verilog) and can fix things or add features later on.
But I'd be in to pick up a reverse engineered opl3 only card, too.
PCMCIA is cool so I can just plug a bus adapter into PCI or PCI-E and swap it quickly between machines and laptops, so I think this is a great project.

Robertkopp wrote on 2022-02-09, 00:04:

I'd be in for any new repro or fpga based solution that does not use ISA or the printer port.

A bit off-topic, but would a parallel port sound device on a PCIe parallel port card work for you? I got some success with that, and yes, in pure DOS, even though the parallel port wasn't listening on the legacy I/O address. This was with an OPL3LPT device.

digger wrote on 2022-02-10, 17:32:

A bit off-topic, but would a parallel port sound device on a PCIe parallel port card work for you? I got some success with that, and yes, in pure DOS, even though the parallel port wasn't listening on the legacy I/O address. This was with an OPL3LPT device.

Yes it would work on my pc's that have no isa slot, but not on my laptop that only has ps/2 and usb. I'd like to be more flexible, options are good to have.
If this thing could be a whole oldschool soundcard for real DOS and DOS emulation, that would be damn great.
I have also seen some isa to usb development, but that seems to be only for the purpose of enhancing emulation. Nothing you could use in DOS.

@yyzkevin
Any chance i can buy 2x for a couple of 486 laptop projects im looking to finish and super keen to test this with dos era gaming.

I have been following this in the background and am pretty excited!

I have an IBM ThinkPad T23 which has no sound blaster support in DOS, so this would be ideal for me!

I would also love to know if one of my favourite games, Fracas, works with this. I think it supports Sound Blaster only?
https://www.myabandonware.com/game/fracas-dm3

Shoot, I've been following this thread, and wrote a lot when it came back to life because I'm looking at the Versa M/75 being one of the ultimate DOS laptops with this card. A WiFi Connected 486 Laptop with working battery, touch screen, and SoundBlaster/Adlib/WSS support - holy cow.

dekkit wrote on 2022-02-07, 08:47:

Looking forward to buying a few! […]
Show full quote

Looking forward to buying a few!

Another alternative could be to use a right angled IDC pcb socket and a standard ribbon cable (maybe a 16pin or larger one if more pins if needed and it would fit).

Thats if its just case of using the pcmcia adapter to connect to another daughter board.

Cant wait to try these in a few 486 era laptops! How close until i can buy a few?

I vote for and attached dongle too as I have a few laptops with recessed pcmcia slots

Yes, the current design is like the format of the joystick card above. it has a DB15 joystick/midi port (just soundblaster 1.5 midi port), and the stanard 1/4 audio jack.

having it with an external dongle like the ibm 3d sound etc was adding cost and complexity to manufacturing. The Compaq LTE Elite is slightly recessed and it will clear that.

yyzkevin wrote on 2022-01-09, 09:23:

Here are some examples during my compatibility testing.

https://youtu.be/rXkJjLsbWcI

If you know of any games that you think will be hard I should try let me know. Anything that requires emm386 likely will never work as it interferes with my ability to spy on DMA.

Hi yykevin,

I'd love to take part in helping you test your prototype cards.
If you want I could receive one and do some serious testing and provide valuable feedback on a continuing basis.
I might also make a video about it on my palmtop focused YouTube channel, which will show your prototype card to nearly a thousand of my subscribers, most of them are 95/100/200 LX users...

Let me know if you would like that...
Cheers,
Terrence

Sound amazing! Really looking forward to it.
A PCMCIA card with SB digital + OPL FM for DOS and win3.x/9x will be good enough for me.

Really interested in following this project.
I want one like yesterday.

I've started playing with a different design, initially intended just for my NE2000 emulated wifi card, but I am able to do the soundcard stuff on it as well, and it so far a dramatically simplified design (electrically), which is one of the reasons this project has been slow to move, not because it was not working, but bringing it to a state that was economical to manufacture was not easy and factor in general chip shortages of what normally would be easy parts.... became very discouraging and depressing.

an almost entirely pico w based design brings some hope. An even simpler design would be just using an RP2040 chip (although hard to hand solder) would make it even simpler, but given my actual motivation for pcmcia cards is communication related stuff, using a pico w is attractive. I tried to go down this road with the ESP, but interrupt latency was a problem, power consumption was not great, limited i/o required a lot of external components. Pico Solves much of that.

https://twitter.com/yyzkevin/status/157230786 … qHZIAaIdXDLqGGA

look like your headed down the similar path as the pigus.

Just saw the Hackaday report on your write-up... and then saw your demo. As I tweeted out a reply, you got a lot of interest in this.

I better buy some Pi Pico W's...