Finished working on my Tandy 1000 TL and set it up in the living room for some gaming.

Shponglefan wrote on 2023-01-23, 22:27:

Finished working on my Tandy 1000 TL and set it up in the living room for some gaming.

Space Quest II and Eye of the Beholder
You treat yourself pretty 😀

Nice setup. It makes me feel 80's vibes!

After getting my pi1541 up and running, I noticed that my C64 was screeching for a moment before booting. Few weeks later and here we are, with a pack of capacitors ordered and a bit too much lead-dust for anyone's safety.

And, luckily, I didn't mess anything up, and no longer have the screech. Once my modern PSU comes in, I'll be free to track down ways to get this thing playing the music from PAL releases without them playing too fast.

And yes, the color works. My Apple Monitor II was just the closest and easiest to use.

Finally got some sound out of the GUS MAX....

Now the fun really begins when I'm gonna add a SB16...

Just a bit of experimenting today with my Amiga 1200. I used WinUAE on my PC to setup a 16GB CF card with AmigaOS 3.9 and then transferred it across to the Amiga.

Basically I just did this to test out AmigaOS 3.9 on real hardware and see how it performs with just 8MB Fast RAM. It looked prettier than my main Workbench 3.1 install, but generally it was just a bit of fun and didn't really offer me anything special except the extra eye candy and the cost of higher RAM usage. I think I'll stick to my original install for now and maybe look into Amiga OS 3.2 at a later date.

PD2JK wrote on 2023-01-24, 15:51:

Finally got some sound out of the GUS MAX....

Now the fun really begins when I'm gonna add a SB16...

You probably want to make sure that your ULTRASND and BLASTER settings don't have overlapping base addresses, IRQs and DMA channels...

Edit: PS, you can get short audio passthrough cables, that way you can LINE OUT the GUS to LINE IN of the SB so that you don't have to mess around with switching speaker cables.

Nexxen wrote on 2023-01-23, 23:29:

Space Quest II and Eye of the Beholder You treat yourself pretty :) […]
Show full quote

Shponglefan wrote on 2023-01-23, 22:27:

Finished working on my Tandy 1000 TL and set it up in the living room for some gaming.

Space Quest II and Eye of the Beholder
You treat yourself pretty 😀

Nice setup. It makes me feel 80's vibes!

Thank you! Definitely happy with this setup so far.😁

I traded a PCI 486 motherboard for a known broken VLB 486 motherboard. It has terrible corrosion damage, I had to remove the KBC socket and will replace it tonight. I have also found four traces that were eaten away under the socket and will bodge them underneath the board. Then, I will cross my fingers and try to fire it up 🙁

Asus-mania day.
M/B Asus P3B-F, Asus PC-66 Dimm 16Mb, Asus V3000 AGP videocard, Asus TV-FM 7134 PCI tuner, Asus PCI-AXP201 soundcard and Asus PCI 100mbit Ethernet card (Intel-based).
Pre-assemble, check and install Win98.

Babasha wrote on 2023-01-25, 20:08:

Asus-mania day.
M/B Asus P3B-F, Asus PC-66 Dimm 16Mb, Asus V3000 AGP videocard, Asus TV-FM 7134 PCI tuner, Asus PCI-AXP201 soundcard and Asus PCI 100mbit Ethernet card (Intel-based).
Pre-assemble, check and install Win98.

Nice haul of Asus parts. Any fun plans for them?

Wow. That's a really cool matched set of ASUS gear. I always see them reference associated addon cards in their manuals, but I've never seen so many all in one place before.

Mu0n wrote on 2023-01-23, 14:04:

I made a Sing Along program in C for my old Mac Plus of a pretty retro song (The Last Unicorn (1982)) ✅THINK C was used (1990ish […]
Show full quote

I made a Sing Along program in C for my old Mac Plus of a pretty retro song (The Last Unicorn (1982))
✅THINK C was used (1990ish)
✅Studio Session was used (1986)
✅Apple discouraged alternate buffer hack was used
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSOBp2aMJh

It says video unavailable. 🙁

Now how will I ever be able to sing along?

chrismeyer6 wrote on 2023-01-25, 20:12:

Babasha wrote on 2023-01-25, 20:08:

Asus-mania day.
M/B Asus P3B-F, Asus PC-66 Dimm 16Mb, Asus V3000 AGP videocard, Asus TV-FM 7134 PCI tuner, Asus PCI-AXP201 soundcard and Asus PCI 100mbit Ethernet card (Intel-based).
Pre-assemble, check and install Win98.

Nice haul of Asus parts. Any fun plans for them?

Yep! In search of Asus FK-series case, FireWire and SCSI cards to complete Asus-mania rig)))

BetaC wrote on 2023-01-24, 06:11:

After getting my pi1541 up and running, I noticed that my C64 was screeching for a moment before booting. Few weeks later and he […]
Show full quote

After getting my pi1541 up and running, I noticed that my C64 was screeching for a moment before booting. Few weeks later and here we are, with a pack of capacitors ordered and a bit too much lead-dust for anyone's safety.
IMG_1255.jpg

And, luckily, I didn't mess anything up, and no longer have the screech. Once my modern PSU comes in, I'll be free to track down ways to get this thing playing the music from PAL releases without them playing too fast.
69621412641__39CEAE22-D8FF-4946-8050-BDC309C4A01C.jpg
And yes, the color works. My Apple Monitor II was just the closest and easiest to use.

it's good to have a workspace set up like this

that's another few months/years on your c64. it's the willingness and skill to do this kind of maintenance that keeps those machines going.

are you tempted to keep multiples of commonly used components to 'future proof' maintenance?

I was mucking about with my Pentium 3 system and moved SB Live from PCI slot 4 to 5. The result was the loudest continuous BEEP I might have ever heard, pulled the cord off my headphones right quick. Turns out the slot 5 shares bus master control signals with the ATA/100 IDE controller and by the sound of it you really shouldn't put a soundcard in a slot like that. Manuals, who needs them.

My ears hurt.

gerry wrote on 2023-01-26, 09:19:

it's good to have a workspace set up like this […]
Show full quote

BetaC wrote on 2023-01-24, 06:11:

After getting my pi1541 up and running, I noticed that my C64 was screeching for a moment before booting. Few weeks later and he […]
Show full quote

After getting my pi1541 up and running, I noticed that my C64 was screeching for a moment before booting. Few weeks later and here we are, with a pack of capacitors ordered and a bit too much lead-dust for anyone's safety.
IMG_1255.jpg

And, luckily, I didn't mess anything up, and no longer have the screech. Once my modern PSU comes in, I'll be free to track down ways to get this thing playing the music from PAL releases without them playing too fast.
69621412641__39CEAE22-D8FF-4946-8050-BDC309C4A01C.jpg
And yes, the color works. My Apple Monitor II was just the closest and easiest to use.

it's good to have a workspace set up like this

that's another few months/years on your c64. it's the willingness and skill to do this kind of maintenance that keeps those machines going.

are you tempted to keep multiples of commonly used components to 'future proof' maintenance?

If I had parts available locally I would. Currently, though, my SID is missing a single audio channel.

Fixed this Roland CM-64 today.

It was only outputting sound on one channel. Took it apart and didn't see anything immediately obviously wrong.

I cleaned the audio connectors with some DeoxIT and reflowed the solder joints on them for good measure. That appears to have done the trick as it now is working perfectly.

Shponglefan wrote on 2023-01-27, 17:59:

Fixed this Roland CM-64 today.

It was only outputting sound on one channel. Took it apart and didn't see anything immediately obviously wrong.

I cleaned the audio connectors with some DeoxIT and reflowed the solder joints on them for good measure. That appears to have done the trick as it now is working perfectly.

What is the purpose of the memory card?

Baleog wrote on 2023-01-28, 08:12:

Shponglefan wrote on 2023-01-27, 17:59:

Fixed this Roland CM-64 today.

It was only outputting sound on one channel. Took it apart and didn't see anything immediately obviously wrong.

I cleaned the audio connectors with some DeoxIT and reflowed the solder joints on them for good measure. That appears to have done the trick as it now is working perfectly.

What is the purpose of the memory card?

These pages explain it pretty well...
https://soundprogramming.net/synthesizers/rol … /roland-cm-32p/
https://soundprogramming.net/synthesizers/rol … d/roland-u-110/

The CM64 is a combination of a CM-32L (LA Synthesis like the MT-32) and the CM-32P (PCM synthesis). Think of the PCM synth as early wavetable, but without being General MIDI or LA compatible. Compared to LA synth, the instruments can be much more realistic, but they are only useful for production and recording. I don't believe any games make use of PCM synths like this.

To be honest, and I'm not sure if you can really even find MIDI tracks that utilize them, and if you did you'd have to have the correct card to make them sound right. I think they only make sense if you compose and record your own music, and in that area they probably are outpaced by a Sound Canvas most of the time.

EDIT: Wow, these PCM samples are so cool.
https://www.synthmania.com/u-110.htm
The "wide piano" that pans from right to left depending on key pitch is fantastic for the late 1980s... very impressive!

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2023-01-28, 08:39:

These pages explain it pretty well... https://soundprogramming.net/synthesizers/rol … /roland-cm-32p/ https://soundprogramming.n […]
Show full quote

These pages explain it pretty well...
https://soundprogramming.net/synthesizers/rol … /roland-cm-32p/
https://soundprogramming.net/synthesizers/rol … d/roland-u-110/

The CM64 is a combination of a CM-32L (LA Synthesis like the MT-32) and the CM-32P (PCM synthesis). Think of the PCM synth as early wavetable, but without being General MIDI or LA compatible. Compared to LA synth, the instruments can be much more realistic, but they are only useful for production and recording. I don't believe any games make use of PCM synths like this.

To be honest, and I'm not sure if you can really even find MIDI tracks that utilize them, and if you did you'd have to have the correct card to make them sound right. I think they only make sense if you compose and record your own music, and in that area they probably are outpaced by a Sound Canvas most of the time.

That makes sense - just like the better synthesizers used. My first guess would have been for recording midi like with the Roland sound brush.