Indeed, it was a relief to hear audio! Especially as there were a couple of corroded legs on a component on the SCSI card. The quality of the music it played was decent enough, so if the hiss can be toned down or cancelled that would be great. The mixer doesn't seem to help much on this count, unlike others' experience with the PAS mixer. Hopefully others have a better experience than this with their cards.

The cards were installed in two systems:

1. Osborne 386SX, based on a Beam Systems motherboard, with a Seventeam power supply (original). Card was installed into the middle slot, with at least 2 empty slots on either side to minimise noise from other cards. Motherboard has electrolytics.

2. Soyo Socket 3 with 486DX2/66 Overdrive, with a generic "Low Noise Power Supply" of unknown wattage. Card is in the end slot (VLB) but it won't fit anywhere else on the board due to length; it's sitting next to the video card. Motherboard has tantalum caps.

Full driver install wasn't done on the 486 system, but it exhibited the same hiss from the time it was switched on. I'd be inclined to say it's a design issue, but don't really have better gear at the moment to be able to improve power filtering. Was thinking of a re-cap with audio grade caps, but that's a project for another time. Will see if I can get SCSI working next, and source a copy of Dune.

Dune II also has an Adlib Gold option.

Going to have to test with my stuff once mine gets here.

Another thing I recommend trying is a MOD player. This one supports the Ad Lib Gold, so might work. I was surprised at the difference in quality, when compared to a Sound Blaster Pro, even at 22050 Hz playback rate. The YMZ263 also supports stereo playback at 44100 Hz.

There are a few things to know about that player. On every system I have tried, some sampling rates don't produce proper playback if the /M switch isn't used to specify the DMA buffer size (8192 bytes usually seems to work for me). On the Gold, it also incorrectly sets some of the control chip registers, so that software run afterwards reads incorrect resource assignments. The simplest solution to that is to re-boot before running other software that supports the Gold directly.

Definitely will try that MOD player. My card is supposed to arrive tomorrow but who knows if it will be on time.

Mine arrived today. Unfortunately the volume pot was either already damaged or was damaged in shipping.

I already contacted the seller and I already order some new pots with volume knobs as well.

cyclone3d wrote on 2020-04-07, 02:36:

Mine arrived today. Unfortunately the volume pot was either already damaged or was damaged in shipping. […]
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Mine arrived today. Unfortunately the volume pot was either already damaged or was damaged in shipping.

I already contacted the seller and I already order some new pots with volume knobs as well.
IMG_20200406_181220.jpg
IMG_20200406_181250.jpg

That's no good - was the outer packaging damaged? That does sort of look like it could be bent back into shape, if you're getting a replacement pot that might be worth a try to get it up and running now.

Also, were the box contents complete? I'd be keen to see what disks came with yours.

The circuit board material on the front potentiometer is broken in half. No way to fix it unless I drill the shaft to get it apart and even then I kind doubt it would work. Not sure about the back circuit board.

I'll take a pic of the hilariously not original disks that came with it after I reboot and see if I can actually access them.

Edit: So here is the pic of what came with my card. Documentation is completely missing. Just sent the seller another message about that and the fact that the contents of the disks are not even for this card.

Well... think I found the company that marketed these cards although the archived web pages don't go far back enough to have anything about them:
Look at 79 years. The logo also matches the logo on the box.
http://web.archive.org/web/20160926065253/htt … /CompanyHistory

The company is still around:
http://www.tnc.com.tw/en-global/Home/Index

1997 home page:
http://web.archive.org/web/19970601145803/http://tnc.com.tw/

And their old download page under their electronics division page - last page that has a working link to their electronics division is from 1999:
http://web.archive.org/web/19981206193918/htt … ec/download.htm

A newer page by the same company but different URL.. only has links to download for USB cameras.
http://web.archive.org/web/20010128130000/htt … onics/index.htm

Their electronics division page from 2002 gives a bit more info about their electronics division:
http://web.archive.org/web/20020203212918/htt … onics/index.htm

T.N.C bought Gainward in 1997:
http://web.archive.org/web/19990221141401/htt … lec/english.htm

Gainward separated from T.N.C in 2004 as T.N.C was taken over and all electronics division investments were shut down:
https://hexus.net/tech/items/industry/3028-ga … r-investor-tnc/

Just saved that page to the wayback machine in case it ever goes away:
https://web.archive.org/web/20200407052218/ht … r-investor-tnc/'

If you want to take a look at all the files save for the old TNC page, go here. You can even find some old product photos:
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.tnc.com.tw/*

@JidaiGeki

Would it be possible for you to make high quality scans of all the documentation?

It looks like the booklets are just using a couple staples for the binding so it would be super easy to unbend the staples and then feed them through a copier to scan them.

300dpi would be good if 600dpi isn't possible.

No need to do anything about editing the PDFs in order to organize the pages as I can do that.

Sorry to hear that the card was so bashed up, and incomplete - hope the seller does the right thing by you as that doesn't match the listing at all.

Sure thing re the manual, I'll get on to it later tonight. It'll have to be 300dpi as I don't think our home MFP goes higher than that.

And I got that same set of copied disks in one box, it's the SoundMedia Pro drivers. With the physical attributes of the card, and the poor sound quality it really seems like these cards were a rush job by TNC for the vendor.

Your coverage of TNC is useful - and Gainward were not too bad a vendor as well, I have another TNC-made card, a Soyo Tseng ET4000 VLB card, which is OK, and when I was researching them a few years back their FCC listings showed they supplied other brands e.g. Paradise.

Will test out the MOD Player when I can, and have also procured Dune II.

cyclone3d wrote on 2020-04-07, 03:47:

Edit: So here is the pic of what came with my card. Documentation is completely missing. Just sent the seller another message about that and the fact that the contents of the disks are not even for this card.

I feel sorry for you - that's really a bummer. I made that experience many times before, too. And that's why I keep telling people to ignore "NOS", "New", and the like on ebay for retro hardware. It's scam most of the time. Apart from very few exception, no NOS retro hardware exists. No one would have spent lots of money back then for hardware only to never use it.

oh man what a bummer
hope you can get at least some replacement docs/disks from the seller cyclone3d but I kinda doubt it at this point... most likely he sent the good stuff to the person that bought a bunch of them

hope you can get it fixed @cyclone3D I doubt the seller still has anything to replace it with...

derSammler wrote on 2020-04-07, 08:31:

And that's why I keep telling people to ignore "NOS", "New", and the like on ebay for retro hardware. It's scam most of the time. Apart from very few exception, no NOS retro hardware exists. No one would have spent lots of money back then for hardware only to never use it.

that's just not true, there's plenty of NOS retro hardware that are just leftover stocks from stores that closed down or never sold in the first place... and also a lot of stock from companies that bought spares and never used them, especially if there's multiple items like this the chances are high that it's just leftover stock.
and I have bought a few NOS items from ebay myself that definitely were.

why the one cyclone3D got is missing stuff can have many reasons... and is probably the sellers fault.

imi wrote on 2020-04-07, 10:17:

that's just not true, there's plenty of NOS retro hardware that are just leftover stocks from stores that closed down or never sold in the first place... and also a lot of stock from companies that bought spares and never used them, especially if there's multiple items like this the chances are high that it's just leftover stock.

Well, for you it's "plenty", for me these are the very few exceptions mentioned, because there aren't that many (and not counting any stuff from China, because we all know what they sell). Also, just because someone tells you it is old stock, there's no guarantee it really is. Try asking where the stuff is actually coming from (name and site of the company) and you won't get any answers.

More than 90% of the stuff I bought as NOS on ebay was used and since then, I rather buy things that are used and tested instead of paying extra. Hardware doesn't show signs of wear, so a card, a CPU, RAM, etc. can be used for a decade and still look new. And when stuff like that is sold, as NOS of course, the box is often beaten. And the sellers will tell you that's because of storage. Sure...

well I can of course only speak from my experience, but everything I have bought as NOS was indeed that, and I have no reason to believe otherwise... those include original packaged mice, AT cases, external and internal CD-rom drives... so mostly peripherals and the like.

but what makes you believe that it wouldn't be leftover stock if someone is selling 12 of the same card in box, why would they even have 12 of the same card in box if it is anything else but leftover stock.

but I'm with you that I'd rather buy used stuff that I know works for cheap than something overpriced NOS... but seeing the price for the card in this thread it wasn't anything outrageous.

I received my card yesterday but had it in "quarantine." I'll have to check it out to see if I have the same problems as cyclone3d.

I've bought a few things form the same seller previously and never had a problem.

The fix should be fairly simple as the pot used is a really common one and was easy to find. If TNC had actually installed the washer and nut for the pot on the card in the first place it would have been immensely harder for it to be damaged.
The new pot will have the washer and nut installed as well as a knob... though I am pretty sure the knob will not be able to be installed until after the card is installed as it looks like it will interfere with the card slot in the back of the case because the shaft is very near the edge of the slot instead of centered.... probably was made that way because the standard size pots were much easier to get and probably way cheaper than weirdly sized pots.

The pot and volume knob on mine seems okay. But there are four velcro strips on the back of the card! The card does look unused, however--no marks on the contacts and no screw marks at the top of the slot cover. Weird. Will test tonight.

I popped in the card into my 98SE 440BX system and did the Add New Hardware search for non-PNP hardware. I was happy to see this pop up:

Haven't messed with the driver disks yet. Duke3D works with Adlib music and listening to Tyrian 2000 jukebox right now. Sounds good!

The pot and volume knob really are non-standard. The knob keeps the top of the slot cover from moving over the screw hole, so my card is not secured to the case.