mmmh, that demoseq program has italian text in it. as if it was compiled by a compiler in the italian language.

After we now know that these are reproductions, here is a Pro Tip to the maker of the boards :
Tell JLCPCBWAY to put the internal fabrication number below a chip on the next batch... 😉

weedeewee wrote on 2023-10-23, 20:25:

mmmh, that demoseq program has italian text in it. as if it was compiled by a compiler in the italian language.

The cards come from an italian seller...

mattw wrote on 2023-10-23, 20:22:

Hey, I know you from the SB DSP thread and I know that you can solder and have a programmer. So, please, let take the investigat […]
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S95Sedan wrote on 2023-10-23, 20:07:

I own the same card aswell

Hey, I know you from the SB DSP thread and I know that you can solder and have a programmer. So, please, let take the investigation to a next level:

test 1) de-solder the ROM and dump it, i.e. we check if it's Music Quest ROM or not
test 2) if it turns out not to be Music Quest ROM, burn yourself a new ROM chip with the Music Quest ROM (it's available in the Music Quest ZIP 'music_quest_mpu_ih9mq9.zip' on vogonsdrivers)

test2 will answer if the board schematic is exactly the same as Music Quest card, because on pictures it looks like it. Also, Music Quest ROM is highly compatible.

What you think about it?

Which one do you need dumped, the MDR-401x marked one i assume?
I can but it will take a couple days as im waiting for some (soldering) equipment to come in.

I do have 27c512 laying around though so i can just pop in the other rom once socketed.

DerBaum wrote on 2023-10-23, 20:27:

After we now know that these are reproductions, here is a Pro Tip to the maker of the boards :
Tell JLCPCBWAY to put the internal fabrication number below a chip on the next batch... 😉

It costs almost nothing to have it removed though, thats what i do on my own boards.

weedeewee wrote on 2023-10-23, 20:25:

mmmh, that demoseq program has italian text in it. as if it was compiled by a compiler in the italian language.

yeah, but the demoseq is more or less irrelevant now, because yesterday, based on the tests @keropi and posted here, we proved contrary to any other Intelligent MPU-401 program it doesn't check the Revision number of the MPU-401 interface, i.e. basically it will run on any system with any card. if was "locked" to some specific card based on the Revision number, then we at least will know it's specific to MDR-401, but it's not. So, for example Midiman MM-401 (like "401test") software and Music Quest software (like MADIAG) they check the revision number and will not run otherwise. In fact if my memory serves right, Midiman "401test" can even detect and tell you what card you have, e.g. "your card is not Midiman, but it's Roland this and that model".

S95Sedan wrote on 2023-10-23, 20:32:

Which one do you need dumped, the MDR-401x marked one i assume?

yes, it has to be 27C064, 27C256 or 27C512, etc based on the size, but all those Zilog Z8 design use such 27-series PROMs.

S95Sedan wrote on 2023-10-23, 20:32:

I do have 27c512 laying around though so i can just pop in the other rom once socketed.

great, you can prepare it, i.e. flash it with the "IH9MQ9_firmware_v010.bin" from the ZIP archive I mentioned. In fact if the board is compatible with the MusicQuest ROM it will be probably huge upgrade to the work of that card and instead running something we don't know what it is - get yourself relatively cheap MusicQuest-clone.

[EDIT] after put the MusicQuest ROM on the card you can test the following way if it's at least running:

Re: Roland LAPC-N / I question

if it's running you will get the following response:

Re: MDR-401 cards - are they really existed or are they an elaborate hoax?

mattw wrote on 2023-10-23, 20:33:

yeah, but the demoseq is more or less irrelevant now...

maybe its not important for reverse engineering the card... but it is probably important to reverse engineer its origin...
---
As the cards that are now available also come from italy...
---
We now have a direct connection between the italian seller and the software especially made for this card (made with italian tools)...

DerBaum wrote on 2023-10-23, 20:38:

connection between the italian seller and the software especially

Oh, I see, then I agree with your comment. What I would be OK with, is if MDR-401 really existed and it was some obscure Italian clone of MPU-401 interface, rather than just some recent invention in an attempt for very elaborate hoax in the retro-computing community. In such case reproduction is even desirable as way to preserve the hardware. I guess we need some Italian members to chime in and tell us if they have ever heard for such a card in the past. I guess maybe old Italian computer magazines are a good lead - because I expect there is at least one advertisement - if really such hardware existed.

mattw wrote on 2023-10-23, 20:42:

DerBaum wrote on 2023-10-23, 20:38:

connection between the italian seller and the software especially

Oh, I see, then I agree with your comment. What I would be OK with, is if MDR-401 really existed and it was some obscure Italian clone of MPU-401 interface, rather than just some recent invention in an attempt for very elaborate hoax in the retro-computing community. In such case reproduction is even desirable as way to preserve the hardware. I guess we need some Italian members to chime in and tell us if they have ever heard for such a card in the past. I guess maybe old Italian computer magazines are a good lead - because I expect there is at least one advertisement - if really such hardware existed.

My theory is that "the italian seller" took an existing clone and modified the design and wrote some software for it.
Maybe the seller modified the existing design to use more chips that are availabe with old date codes? I dont know.

On vogons you can find the weirdest hardware and also people that are happy to search the last corner of the internet and / or their home to find evidence ... but until now we only have pictures of newly reproduced cards... Thats a strong indicator...

mattw wrote on 2023-10-23, 20:35:

great, you can prepare it, i.e. flash it with the "IH9MQ9_firmware_v010.bin" from the ZIP archive I mentioned. In fact if the bo […]
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great, you can prepare it, i.e. flash it with the "IH9MQ9_firmware_v010.bin" from the ZIP archive I mentioned. In fact if the board is compatible with the MusicQuest ROM it will be probably huge upgrade to the work of that card and instead running something we don't know what it is - get yourself relatively cheap MusicQuest-clone.

[EDIT] after put the MusicQuest ROM on the card you can test the following way if if's at least running:

Re: Roland LAPC-N / I question

if it's running you will get the following response:

Re: MDR-401 cards - are they really existed or are they an elaborate hoax?

I mainly use it in windows 98, there its detected as a Roland MPU-401 and uses the default windows drivers+works on a fresh install. (windows 98 second edition)
Heres what the debug comes up with.

mattw wrote on 2023-10-23, 20:33:

weedeewee wrote on 2023-10-23, 20:25:

mmmh, that demoseq program has italian text in it. as if it was compiled by a compiler in the italian language.

yeah, but the demoseq is more or less irrelevant now, because yesterday, based on the tests @keropi and posted here, we proved contrary to any other Intelligent MPU-401 program it doesn't check the Revision number of the MPU-401 interface, i.e. basically it will run on any system with any card. if was "locked" to some specific card based on the Revision number, then we at least will know it's specific to MDR-401, but it's not. So, for example Midiman MM-401 (like "401test") software and Music Quest software (like MADIAG) they check the revision number and will not run otherwise. In fact if my memory serves right, Midiman "401test" can even detect and tell you what card you have, e.g. "your card is not Midiman, but it's Roland this and that model".

unless I missed someone disassembling the program and verifying what it does, we haven't actually proven a damn thing aside from that it doesn't do a revision check.
There is also the text "STANDARD MIDI INTERFACE CARD" in the program.
Has anyone tested the program on a normal soundcard with midi support yet ?

and yes, DerBaum is correct, I was going for the origin.
and I also agree with that this is a altered clone of some existing card, sold off as NOS/vintage, while actually new reproduction, with possibly fake dated chips etc...

Yeah this is not MQ
Running mqdiag would work too, no need to desolder to find if it is or not

Italy was very popular in the 80s and 90s in arcade board cloning, it was almost an industry there... Perhaps it expanded to other regions like pc stuff

DerBaum wrote on 2023-10-23, 20:54:

Thats a strong indicator...

and to add another observation the software says "by MIDI System, Inc.", but I've checked and in Italy, "Inc." is "S.R.L." like in Germany it's "GmbH", etc. So, I don't know someone would say it was just translated to English, but from legal point of view I am not sure that if it's real it's not supposed to be left as "MIDI System, S.R.L." in any language, if it was real Italian company.

S95Sedan wrote on 2023-10-23, 21:01:

Heres what the debug comes up with.

as @keropi already said that is not MQ ROM running at the moment - it returns the Roland Revision numbers, i.e. "1.5A" - as I already mentioned in this thread, end of the post here:

Re: MDR-401 cards - are they really existed or are they an elaborate hoax?

such scenario returning the Roland number is highly suspicious and I doubt anyone in 1991 would have done it and even dare to do it. I mean all other MPU-401 card use their own Revision numbers - I guess for 2 reasons - avoid legal actions from Roland side, plus they are not cloning any Roland card, but just re-implementing MPU-401 intelligent MIDI protocol (in that sense no any such card made in the past was Roland card hardware clone). So, I am back to SoftMPU/HardMPU recent port to Zilog Z8 hypothesis I said many times, because "1.5A" is what SoftMPU is using.

[EDIT]

keropi wrote on 2023-10-23, 21:03:

no need to desolder to find if it is or not

yes, but you need to desolder it if you want to try the card with MQ ROM, i.e. see if the board layout is fully compatible with MQ or not. in fact looking at the card, even if it's not fully MQ compatible it can be made with some rework - after all both cards are Zilog Z8-based and use almost the same layout and chips.

I can also try to make ROM dump from this thing. I have friday off, but bunch of other plans, so no guarantees here, but if I can squeeze in this somewhere in friday or next weekend, I will post the dump here.

It won't hurt even if S95Sedan submits his findings here before that. We can at least analyze if there are changes in the software as between possible different batches.

CharlieFoxtrot wrote on 2023-10-24, 06:00:

It won't hurt

in any case, I think one possible future for those cards is to make them work with the MQ ROM - maybe they will work out of the box with the MQ ROM I mentioned to @S95Sedan, if there is some different connection - for example between the Zilog Z8 and the MIDI ports (for example the wires for IN and Out are switched), etc, we can trace the differences between the MQ card and the MDR401 one and fix them - the schematic of MQ cards is in the ZIP that again I mentioned in my post to @S95Sedan. So, no matter of everything this thing can be made to be cool, i.e. potentially be made 2 in 1 card, i.e. MDR401 (or whatever it is) and MQ card and be able to switch - because currently we don't know if there are no cases when it's better that MQ. In fact believe me if that is possible to be modded to MQ - I as one of its biggest critics, will buy myself such MDR-401 card.

looking at the MQ schematic here:

Re: Music Quest PC MIDI Card MPU IH9MQ9 : info , drivers and tests

it's not that many lines, i.e. connections that need to be checked to confirm if there is any difference.

if the point is to get as cheap as possible MQ PCMIDI maybe it is a good chance for me to get rid of some of these:

several years ago due to a mistake these got ordered without gold isa fingers , otherwise everything is fine
if someone does not plan to do a bazillion insertions (so the isa connector will need cleaning) then things will be fine.
these can go at the same price as the ebay ones to anyone interested.

keropi wrote on 2023-10-25, 09:07:

if the point is to get as cheap as possible MQ PCMIDI maybe it is a good chance for me to get rid of some of these: […]
Show full quote

if the point is to get as cheap as possible MQ PCMIDI maybe it is a good chance for me to get rid of some of these:

several years ago due to a mistake these got ordered without gold isa fingers , otherwise everything is fine
if someone does not plan to do a bazillion insertions (so the isa connector will need cleaning) then things will be fine.
these can go at the same price as the ebay ones to anyone interested.

I bet these go like hot cakes and I'm also interested, although I have no immediate need for one! PCMIDI is great interface. I have one PCMIDI from you couple of years back, as well as Orpheus II. Both are stunning products and worth every penny!

I suggest you put these on a proper thread and/or update your web page that these are available for purchase. I think there are lot of folks who don't necessarily read this thread and yet they are interested to purchasing PCMIDI which is available right away.

thanks for the kind words CharlieFoxtrot 😀
for now I will keep these here for people that know exactly the deal, I don't want to complicate things in the site with subversions

keropi wrote on 2023-10-25, 09:07:

if the point is to get as cheap as possible MQ PCMIDI

thanks, but my main goal is still an answer: what MDR-401 is as hardware and as ROM? we already know as ROM it's not MQ.