For my info:
Mobygames list of Tandy supported games: https://www.mobygames.com/attributes/attribute/32/
Mobygames list of Game Blaster (CMS) supported games: https://www.mobygames.com/attributes/attribute/42/

polpo wrote on 2023-02-22, 16:44:

Just a day after v0.5.x, firmware v0.6.0 is released! https://github.com/polpo/picogus/releases/tag/v0.6.0

Not much in the way of release notes for this one... just one line: it adds CMS/Game Blaster emulation support! Here's a video of it playing the Monkey Island title song: https://youtu.be/ZYp9p7xOD0A

Woah, how awesome, thanks a lot. This is going to be my first time experiencing these (Tandy, CMS) sound cards in person, quite excited about the CMS in particular.

Separately, a quick note that the labelling of components C9 and C10 is swapped between the online BOM helper and the physical v1.1 PCB. It's no great issue, but can be a point of minor confusion or error if someone is religiously following those BOM references while soldering. (not that anyone would ever do that! 🤣 "don't-ask-me-how-I-know!" 🤣)

Shreddoc wrote on 2023-02-22, 22:02:

Separately, a quick note that the labelling of components C9 and C10 is swapped between the online BOM helper and the physical v1.1 PCB. It's no great issue, but can be a point of minor confusion or error if someone is religiously following those BOM references while soldering. (not that anyone would ever do that! 🤣 "don't-ask-me-how-I-know!" 🤣)

Thanks for mentioning this... I need to resolve the BOM. The online BOM helper, BOM CSV, and preconfigured Digi-Key and Mouser carts match the cards I made for myself, but I accidentally swapped C9 and C10 on the board before re-generating the final gerbers. It's not really detrimental to the card's operation if they're mixed up, but C9 (by the PSRAM chip U8) should be 1uF and C10 (by the open drain inverter U9) should be 100nF.

BTW, SuperIlu (author of DOjS) pointed out to me on Mastodon that PicoGUS actually works with the Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 GUS drivers! I'm utterly shocked at this.
In Windows 98, playing Quake 2: https://mastodon.social/@dec_hl/109885576885344252
In Windows 3.11, playing WinPlay3: https://mastodon.social/@dec_hl/109892008957281895

I need to set this up myself, just so I can bask in the glory of canyon.mid being played in Windows Media Player with GUS patches... 😉

And one more thing, I've released Firmware v0.6.1 which fixes an issue that would cause Descent to hang when starting: https://github.com/polpo/picogus/releases/tag/v0.6.1

I haven't read most of replies here. I tried to search in google but didn't find anything.
Does PicoGus drivers/setup software work on XT class machines like Tandy 1000.?If not will upgrading to NV20 help?

I don't have an XT class machine of my own to test in, but pgusinit.exe is compiled with OpenWatcom for the DOS/16 platform, and in 86Box in 8088 emulation mode, can print the help text and fail to detect a PicoGUS.

Yeah I checked the wiki and see you use OpenWatcom to compile. It looks like it has some optimization option for 286/086.
If I ever build the card I will test it on my Tandy 1000, I have 100 projects on wait list to order PCB and source parts.
It will be a cool add-on at least for experimenting different 8 bit cards like adlib and MPU401 on XT machine.

Btw did you measure or know how much delay let's say the MPU-401 has compared to real hardware?

polpo wrote on 2023-02-28, 06:47:

I don't have an XT class machine of my own to test in, but pgusinit.exe is compiled with OpenWatcom for the DOS/16 platform, and in 86Box in 8088 emulation mode, can print the help text and fail to detect a PicoGUS.

terryfi wrote on 2023-02-28, 07:02:

Yeah I checked the wiki and see you use OpenWatcom to compile. It looks like it has some optimization option for 286/086. If I e […]
Show full quote

Yeah I checked the wiki and see you use OpenWatcom to compile. It looks like it has some optimization option for 286/086.
If I ever build the card I will test it on my Tandy 1000, I have 100 projects on wait list to order PCB and source parts.
It will be a cool add-on at least for experimenting different 8 bit cards like adlib and MPU401 on XT machine.

Btw did you measure or know how much delay let's say the MPU-401 has compared to real hardware?

polpo wrote on 2023-02-28, 06:47:

I don't have an XT class machine of my own to test in, but pgusinit.exe is compiled with OpenWatcom for the DOS/16 platform, and in 86Box in 8088 emulation mode, can print the help text and fail to detect a PicoGUS.

You can use GUS as well on the tandy 1000

terryfi wrote on 2023-02-28, 07:02:

Yeah I checked the wiki and see you use OpenWatcom to compile. It looks like it has some optimization option for 286/086. If I e […]
Show full quote

Yeah I checked the wiki and see you use OpenWatcom to compile. It looks like it has some optimization option for 286/086.
If I ever build the card I will test it on my Tandy 1000, I have 100 projects on wait list to order PCB and source parts.
It will be a cool add-on at least for experimenting different 8 bit cards like adlib and MPU401 on XT machine.

Btw did you measure or know how much delay let's say the MPU-401 has compared to real hardware?

polpo wrote on 2023-02-28, 06:47:

I don't have an XT class machine of my own to test in, but pgusinit.exe is compiled with OpenWatcom for the DOS/16 platform, and in 86Box in 8088 emulation mode, can print the help text and fail to detect a PicoGUS.

Adding

1-0

to the compiler options would fix that, not?

Adding -0 should not be necessary, as 8086 instructions are the default. 186/286/386+ optimizations are only added if you add the compiler options for those. Likewise for x87 instructions.

terryfi wrote on 2023-02-28, 07:02:

Btw did you measure or know how much delay let's say the MPU-401 has compared to real hardware?

I have a real Roland MPU-IPC-T so I could do some comparisons. I could probably rig up some kind of capture with my logic analyzer to compare the delays. There is an outgoing MIDI data buffer on the Pico but unless SysEx delays are enabled, it is drained as quickly as possible, limited by the MIDI baud rate.

Was gonna suggest Logic Analyzer, didn't because you know your thing. I also think delay will not be significant and that is another selling point for this card.
I am not sure if it is discussed here but next natural step for this to have a PCMCIA version of the card. It will be very useful to connect MT-32 to a laptop without joystick MPU401 port.

Btw someone suggested running GUS mode on 8086 I guess everyone is curious to know how complex of tracker file 8086 can handle.

polpo wrote on 2023-02-28, 16:42:

terryfi wrote on 2023-02-28, 07:02:

Btw did you measure or know how much delay let's say the MPU-401 has compared to real hardware?

I have a real Roland MPU-IPC-T so I could do some comparisons. I could probably rig up some kind of capture with my logic analyzer to compare the delays. There is an outgoing MIDI data buffer on the Pico but unless SysEx delays are enabled, it is drained as quickly as possible, limited by the MIDI baud rate.

terryfi wrote on 2023-02-28, 18:41:

Was gonna suggest Logic Analyzer, didn't because you know your thing. I also think delay will not be significant and that is another selling point for this card.
I am not sure if it is discussed here but next natural step for this to have a PCMCIA version of the card. It will be very useful to connect MT-32 to a laptop without joystick MPU401 port.

I've been talking to yyzkevin, who put a Pico W on a PCMCIA card to emulate an NE2000 network card: https://www.yyzkevin.com/pcmcia-pico-w-card/
He's designing a second version of his PCMCIA card which also includes a DAC, and I'll probably port the PicoGUS code over to it with him.

A new video from Ian/polpo - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LBXzy4Fus0

Looking at the Tandy and CMS modes. + he may take a well deserved Pgus break for a month or 2, now that we have all this recent big progress to play with for a while. If you can stay away. 😀

Kudos to our friend Tech Ambrosia for Ian's great new test frames.

Thanks for posting the video here @Shreddoc!

A comment on the video from @krivulak says that the CMS audio is pitched too high – that's something I noticed in testing and meant to get back to but I neglected to fix it before releasing the firmware. I'll try to fix that up (despite me saying I'd take a break... 😅).

I'm also not too happy with the state of the Tandy emulation – that needs a lot of improvement both in accuracy and compatibility.

Version 1 of those 3d printable testbench frames are available here: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5214625 - Tech Ambrosia says there will be a new version coming out soon. The ATX ones I have are a beta of the new version and I'm pretty happy with them.

I finally built my own picogus and here is a summary of my experience of the build and use.

The main oddity i found is C9 and C10 are swapped from solder mask label and the online build guide. I went with the PCB labels.
Managed to drop 2 of the smd caps, found lost caps, tried the board didnt work, broke off side of cap trying to move it since it didnt look centered, replaced it with a generic ceramic through-hole cap of the same size, reflowed everything, then finally figured out i put the pico on flipped.
Once i flipped the pico in the right orientation it worked. Seems like a good design surviving my stupid mistakes 😉

Im running it in my main 486 system with the OPTi 82C895 chipset. Im sending the picogus into the line in of a diamond ALS100 soundcard.
The MB also has Am486dx4 100 mhz, 32 mb ram, 256 kb cache and VLB cards for vga and ide.
Ive run the card on freedos and msdos so far. I curious if i can get it running with windows 95, i dont have the init being called yet.
https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/edom-wintech-mv035

My main use is for the ultrasound music support and using the ALS100 for digital effects.
Ive tested doom, descent, jazz jackrabbit, omf, xcom, rott. I didnt find anything i couldnt get working yet.
I had only oddity occur where the ymf262 on the diamond card wasnt working at one point. I did get back with a combination of card pulling/power cycles. I couldnt reproduce losing it yet to determine it had something to with the picogus.

Thank you Ian for designing this and time you spent on it. I never had an ultrasound and likely never will. Having CMS/Tandy/MPU 401 is just icing on the cake.
Im excited what else we can add to this.
Also thank you so much for making it open source.

Does anybody knows when polpo will resume the development of the firmware? It is almost there...
Maybe the last stretch would be the more difficult to do..

I'll probably resume in May. I've been away from my retro systems for about a month now... Hopefully taking this break from development to get a fresh mind for a possible new approach to emulation (some register writes/reads need to pause audio rendering and process IRQs, and I've worked around it with mutexes but it's not quite right).

There were a few regressions in the last release that really disappointed me so hopefully that can fix them. I'm at the point where if I improve support in one title, it hurts support in other titles.

Hey guys, my picogus is running very nicely in a 433mhz Celeron (LX motherboard) but I'm totally confused about how to install the MIDI patches, I swear I've sat there 20 times and still not figured out how to get past the card detection and fail. The github says just skip it.. but.. I need mental help before I go insane :0

I need to improve the instructions for that as they’re mostly wrong because I went by memory. In the installer, choose the option to extract the files to C:\ULTRASND instead of going through setup. And then you can set the ULTRASND and ULTRADIR variables in your autoexec.bat file manually.

i think the part i found missing from the instructions was setting the ULTRADIR env variable

polpo wrote on 2023-04-16, 16:36:

I need to improve the instructions for that as they’re mostly wrong because I went by memory. In the installer, choose the option to extract the files to C:\ULTRASND instead of going through setup. And then you can set the ULTRASND and ULTRADIR variables in your autoexec.bat file manually.

Thanks I got it to work, I went to the section called restore files and put *.*
I'm trying to get both it and a sound blaster working together now and make adlibtracker behave at the same time.. This is part of DOS I don't like to remember.