For those looking to manually chamfer their edges, one quick and easy method = a small flat object, with one face wrapped by a small piece of 240*-grit sandpaper. *give-or-take some

With basic care to avoid metal filings contaminating anything - which in practice, is quite easy, since we're only talking 'a few gentle strokes' - it takes just a minute or two.

FYI, I will be restocking PicoGUS 2.0 on my Tindie store tomorrow at:
- 12:00 PST
- 15:00 EST
- 20:00 GMT
- 21:00 CET
(above times on 2023-12-19)
- 7:00 AEDT
(on 2023-12-20)
https://www.tindie.com/products/polpo/picogus … -isa-retro-pcs/

I finally had time to install and play with my v2.0 from the first run. It's working well and pairs nicely with my WP32 McCake.

With a USB4VC handling inputs devices, I'm up to three Pis recreating hardware on this machine. I'm hoping to make it four if that Pi IDE device ever makes it out.

Ordered!

I have lots of original GUS and GUS MAX cards, few GUS PnP replicas too 😀 I just have a fetish for GUS.

Read that compatiblity list from github and there was Star Control 2 listed and it has that plays whole gus memory glitch. I can say that this happens with real gus too, I think it has something to do with amount of gus memory. One trick is to blank gus memory before launching that game.

Maybe this helps for troubleshooting problems.

Same here! Thanks for the new stock heads up, did set a reminder to make sure I'd get one this time 😀

I was too late. Already sold out again. 😜

Yoghoo wrote on 2023-12-20, 09:38:

I was too late. Already sold out again. 😜

😀

I think I am going to get some v1.2 PCB's ordered and on the way so that I have them ready for when the new BOM / mouser project list is updated. My v1.1 is working very well now on all of my tested machines.

There is a bug that I found that I am curious about. When using pg-tandy with the driver, when running PQ1 I get sound generation but no pitch modulation. So all the notes are playing one pitch but stopping in the the right rhythm and beat. I have only tested this game so far, but it seems consistent after restarting.

oh, by the way, I have built a pair of PicoGUSes a couple of weeks ago and can't stop playing with them, as they could not only work as sound card, but are basically a very capable ISA8 field-programmable devboards!

wbc wrote on 2023-12-30, 22:22:

oh, by the way, I have built a pair of PicoGUSes a couple of weeks ago and can't stop playing with them, as they could not only work as sound card, but are basically a very capable ISA8 field-programmable devboards!

a certain spoiler here - coming soon 😉

stool not included 😁

Super cool!

I have been playing around with v1.1 and trying out gamepad usage with an active OTG hub. Everything seems to be initializing fine on port 201, although there is also an error about unknown mode on port ffff. So far I can't get any games to detect any gamepads. Tested a couple of different gamepads that I am pretty certain are xInput. Disabled any other soundcards / drivers that might be conflicting on that port. Not sure where to go from there.

SScorpio wrote on 2023-12-19, 01:27:

I finally had time to install and play with my v2.0 from the first run. It's working well and pairs nicely with my WP32 McCake. […]
Show full quote

I finally had time to install and play with my v2.0 from the first run. It's working well and pairs nicely with my WP32 McCake.

With a USB4VC handling inputs devices, I'm up to three Pis recreating hardware on this machine. I'm hoping to make it four if that Pi IDE device ever makes it out.

I'm waiting on my WP32 McCake to arrive and will have a very similar setup! How does the PicoGUS handle the IRQ setting for GUS (5 or 7) vs the IRQ for the MPU-401 (2/9)?

ahyeadude wrote on 2024-01-02, 16:02:

I'm waiting on my WP32 McCake to arrive and will have a very similar setup! How does the PicoGUS handle the IRQ setting for GUS (5 or 7) vs the IRQ for the MPU-401 (2/9)?

You run the init utility which reflashes the Pi so only one device is running at a time. I'm with the jumpers on IRQ 7 and both on DMA 3.

I believe Wingcommander is an intelligent mode game, and it worked when I flashed over to the MPU401 firmware without other changes. The audio from the McCake running in MT32 mode was passed over the MIDI wavetable connector, out of the PicoGUS to a SoundBlaster's Line-in, and finally to speakers.

Let me know if there's something else you'd like me to test.

Interestingly, a coder called sammargh has just developed an (apparently working) proposal to run multiple cards in the same machine : one dedicated to MPU duties, and another to misc other firmwares e.g. GUS.

https://github.com/polpo/picogus/pull/27

Shreddoc wrote on 2024-01-02, 19:49:

Interestingly, a coder called sammargh has just developed an (apparently working) proposal to run multiple cards in the same machine : one dedicated to MPU duties, and another to misc other firmwares e.g. GUS.

https://github.com/polpo/picogus/pull/27

I guess a musician could pull off something with multiple cards, but outside of the joystick driver, everything is geared around music in games which would only be using a single device at a time. Otherwise I'm not really sure what having a GUS and MPU401 running at the same time would accomplish. The GUS's lackluster digital sound support makes having an SB16 pair with a PicoGUS make sense. You could always just utilize the Sound Blaster MPU401, anything you're doing would be custom, so why would you need intelligent mode?

SScorpio wrote on 2024-01-02, 23:28:

Shreddoc wrote on 2024-01-02, 19:49:

Interestingly, a coder called sammargh has just developed an (apparently working) proposal to run multiple cards in the same machine : one dedicated to MPU duties, and another to misc other firmwares e.g. GUS.

https://github.com/polpo/picogus/pull/27

I guess a musician could pull off something with multiple cards, but outside of the joystick driver, everything is geared around music in games which would only be using a single device at a time. Otherwise I'm not really sure what having a GUS and MPU401 running at the same time would accomplish. The GUS's lackluster digital sound support makes having an SB16 pair with a PicoGUS make sense. You could always just utilize the Sound Blaster MPU401, anything you're doing would be custom, so why would you need intelligent mode?

There's no shortage of vintage hardware enthusiasts who choose to run multiple (real hardware) devices, all configured to work together within the one machine.

If someone has a couple of PicoGUSes - as quite a few early v1.x adopters do, what with the 5-PCB minimum JLC order many of us went with - and wants to, for example, play Doom with MPU music and GUS sound FX, or any one of the 1001 other possible combinations the imagination can (and, at places like Vogons, often does) dream up, I'm onboard with that.

Yea, I'm not trying to use GUS and MIDI at the exact same time, but would like to switch between for various games. If the 2/9 IRQ doesn't need to be set, even for intelligent mode, should be good to go with a single PicoGUS configured on IRQ 5 (for GUS). If 2/9 does need to be set for proper MPU use, I can rig up a multiplexer to switch between the two jumper settings automatically using a MetroMINI or something. Might be something to investigate for future PicoGUS versions.

ahyeadude wrote on 2024-01-03, 02:11:

Yea, I'm not trying to use GUS and MIDI at the exact same time, but would like to switch between for various games. If the 2/9 IRQ doesn't need to be set, even for intelligent mode, should be good to go with a single PicoGUS configured on IRQ 5 (for GUS). If 2/9 does need to be set for proper MPU use, I can rig up a multiplexer to switch between the two jumper settings automatically using a MetroMINI or something. Might be something to investigate for future PicoGUS versions.

SoftMPU's WIKI has a list of intelligent mode games. It also lists which games need an IRQ, and the very small number that then need IRQ 2/9.

https://github.com/bjt42/softmpu/wiki/Compati … gent-Mode-Games

So seven total:

• A-10 Tank Killer
• David Wolf
• Innocent Until Caught
• It Came from the Desert
• Princess Maker
• Princess Maker 2
• Wonderland

I’m really impressed with the v2 hw. The addition of wavetable and hard mpu support is just as great as the Gus support. I switched my v1 pgus out. I’ve paired v2 board with the mt32pi wavetable variant. It uses the rpi zero w 2. So far it seems to work well. All the mt32 games worked like wc1,wc2,death track,covert action
Using a switch program fluidsynth worked. I have not tried a massive sound font like timbres yet. I’m feeding the pgus output into the Line in of a als007 card. I put my x2gs on the als card so this pc really is a midi powerhouse now 😀

Here are some pics of the wavetable. Im really impressed with it for the price and capability.
It is a bit of a pain to get the rpi against the pcb. I didn’t bother with the dac and it does go into the next isa slot, but I have the room.

Edit: link to the wavetable pcb on github https://github.com/scrapcomputing/WavetablePi

SScorpio wrote on 2024-01-03, 13:59:

SoftMPU's WIKI has a list of intelligent mode games. It also lists which games need an IRQ, and the very small number that then […]
Show full quote

ahyeadude wrote on 2024-01-03, 02:11:

Yea, I'm not trying to use GUS and MIDI at the exact same time, but would like to switch between for various games. If the 2/9 IRQ doesn't need to be set, even for intelligent mode, should be good to go with a single PicoGUS configured on IRQ 5 (for GUS). If 2/9 does need to be set for proper MPU use, I can rig up a multiplexer to switch between the two jumper settings automatically using a MetroMINI or something. Might be something to investigate for future PicoGUS versions.

SoftMPU's WIKI has a list of intelligent mode games. It also lists which games need an IRQ, and the very small number that then need IRQ 2/9.

https://github.com/bjt42/softmpu/wiki/Compati … gent-Mode-Games

So seven total:

• A-10 Tank Killer
• David Wolf
• Innocent Until Caught
• It Came from the Desert
• Princess Maker
• Princess Maker 2
• Wonderland

I just tried the SwapIRQ TSR (available here, filename swpirq11.zip: https://www.sac.sk/files.php?d=3&p=68) with the command line swapirq /i5 /i9 with my PicoGUS jumpered for IRQ5, and A-10 Tank Killer, Princess Maker 2 and Wonderland worked with my MT-32 with no problem. SwapIRQ is annoying nagware, but perhaps less annoying than having to change jumpers for games that require IRQ2/9 for their MPU-401 support. The effort to crack it probably would be equal to writing a simple IRQ redirection TSR...