Moved

If Tandy is emulated, PS/1 should be easy to do. But since there's so little support for the PS/1, I'm not sure what the use would be.

jal wrote on 2024-04-16, 10:13:

If Tandy is emulated, PS/1 should be easy to do. But since there's so little support for the PS/1, I'm not sure what the use would be.

Just nostalgia (and adding one more sound card to the supported list, the more the merrier).
With regards to usefulness an awesome addition to PicoGUS would be SB AWE 32/64 support.
Thanks jal

Not sure if AWE 32/64 support is doable. Perhaps 32, but recall that the "64" was just 32 + the other 32 in the Windows driver, so for DOS games it's useless. I think the feature set of AWE 32 already exceeded that of the GUS, but it supports both wavetable and OPL3, and I don't think a RP2040 is capable enough to emulate both (it already struggles with OPL3 alone, I've read).

jal wrote on 2024-04-16, 15:43:

Not sure if AWE 32/64 support is doable. Perhaps 32, but recall that the "64" was just 32 + the other 32 in the Windows driver, so for DOS games it's useless. I think the feature set of AWE 32 already exceeded that of the GUS, but it supports both wavetable and OPL3, and I don't think a RP2040 is capable enough to emulate both (it already struggles with OPL3 alone, I've read).

Gotcha. And what do you think about emulating SB Pro and SB16? Should be doable I think

Well, they're 16-bit cards, and the PicoGUS is 8-bit. Come to think of it, that would also prohibit proper AWE emulation. Not sure why the didn't opt for a 16-bit ISA card, perhaps it's the limit to the number of the RP2040's GPIO pins.

jal wrote on 2024-04-16, 15:50:

Well, they're 16-bit cards, and the PicoGUS is 8-bit. Come to think of it, that would also prohibit proper AWE emulation. Not sure why the didn't opt for a 16-bit ISA card, perhaps it's the limit to the number of the RP2040's GPIO pins.

That's right, it's an 8 bit ISA port but SB Pro for example I tested in such a port with decent results on the OPL functionality. I'm not sure about all the limitations of running an SB Pro (for example) in an 8 bit ISA port.

As Wikipedia writes, "The Sound Blaster Pro cards are basically 8-bit ISA cards, they use only the lower 8 data bits of the ISA bus. While at first glance it appears to be a 16-bit ISA card, it does not have 'fingers' for data transfer on the higher "AT" portion of the bus connector. It uses the 16-bit extension to the ISA bus to provide the user with an additional choice for an IRQ (10) and DMA (0)m channel only found on the 16-bit portion of the edge connector."

So the SB Pro uses just 8 bits for communication with the host. It could only play 8-bit samples. That's different from the SB16 and onwards, that could play 16-bit samples.

jal wrote on 2024-04-17, 14:24:

As Wikipedia writes, "The Sound Blaster Pro cards are basically 8-bit ISA cards, they use only the lower 8 data bits of the ISA bus. While at first glance it appears to be a 16-bit ISA card, it does not have 'fingers' for data transfer on the higher "AT" portion of the bus connector. It uses the 16-bit extension to the ISA bus to provide the user with an additional choice for an IRQ (10) and DMA (0)m channel only found on the 16-bit portion of the edge connector."

So the SB Pro uses just 8 bits for communication with the host. It could only play 8-bit samples. That's different from the SB16 and onwards, that could play 16-bit samples.

Ok great info! Thx jal

You're most welcome 😀.