You can get all the features your card would provide, as well as the generic SBPro/WSS card on a single ISA card if you get a setup made from the Orpheus sound card, the PCMIDI MPU interface and a WP32 McCake board installed? The availability of this alternative might make it commercially not viable to develop another MT32-compatible ISA card, but if you do it as hobby project just for fun, you might just go for it anyway.

mkarcher wrote on 2021-07-24, 21:03:

You can get all the features your card would provide, as well as the generic SBPro/WSS card on a single ISA card if you get a setup made from the Orpheus sound card, the PCMIDI MPU interface and a WP32 McCake board installed? The availability of this alternative might make it commercially not viable to develop another MT32-compatible ISA card, but if you do it as hobby project just for fun, you might just go for it anyway.

Ah! Thank you, I was not familiar with the McCake.

I'm on the waiting list for an Orpheus, but haven't heard anything back.

They need to hurry up and ship! Not much point in me designing anything if there's already a solution out there, but that presumes I can ever get it! 😁

It sounds like a good project - purely in terms of technical merit, and the fun of the journey - but I believe you would need to stay realistic about the extremely small commercial niche* it would occupy. (for example, there's no money to be made by doing it).

I can only speak for myself, but my own built mt32-pi setup (with SoftMPU if necessary, which - for me - it almost never is) already has my MT-32 needs 100% covered forever, plus a three course meal, for easily under $100. And no waiting.

*I suspect many MT-32 enthusiasts would follow my own progression. That is: 1. Buy real hardware, if you're early enough to do so, but 2. When the hardware gets too rare/expensive, discover Munt, then 3. DIY Munt/mt32-pi devices, or use Dosbox's inbuilt Munt. Your target demographic therefore is people who like MT-32 but haven't done + been satisfied with any of the above - which you must imagine is Very Few - plus, anyone who has done the above steps but regardless, still desires and/or has money to burn on a specialist product like yours.

Yah, I didn't really want to sell them or anything-- just hoped I'd not be the only person in the world to use it. Since it seems like there's a better path above (if I can ever buy it...) that seems great.

(I don't want a real MT32. I know how those kinds of progressions go with me: I'd end up with 30 synths and my wife would leave me and divorce is expensive...)

I like the idea, too. 😃👍
It reminds me of a certain MPU401+CM-32L board of the past.

However, thanks to its nature of being based on a SBC,
this new card might be expanded in the future.
There several things not emulated yet, like the classic Casio keyboards (MT-540, CT-460, CSM-1 etc) and the IBM Music Feature Card.
Maybe somewhen, people will write emulators for those, too.

By the way, I do own a real MT-32, too.
However, I nevertheless enjoy using Munt and building things! 😎
So my physical MT-32 mainly serves as a valued artifact. And for testing purposes. 😉

PS: I really recommend playing the first two Trek games (TOS) on DOS.
Some locations have fine MT-32 tracks. 😉

icee wrote on 2021-07-24, 21:15:

I'm on the waiting list for an Orpheus, but haven't heard anything back.

Will PM you soon.

Cheers

Instead of an RPi, why not attempt an FPGA implementation? Maybe branch it out to a general purpose Midi/Sound card emulator on FPGA that can be loaded with new instruction sets via a DOS utility and re-initialized.
Granted, I don't know how viable this is, or how expensive it would be, but it would set it apart from the McCake as its own thing.

Maybe it would end up as a general purpose ISA development kit?