Hi,

@Dreamblaster just sent me a prototype for testing.
So I now have PicoVox and will be putting it through intensive testing on my 386SX laptop

I also had an idea for a logo that could make for a nice little wordplay.

i think it suits your project nicely and also has a high memorable factor.

Thanks, will report soon.

matze79 wrote on 2026-05-27, 07:23:

Hi, […]
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Hi,

@Dreamblaster just sent me a prototype for testing.
So I now have PicoVox and will be putting it through intensive testing on my 386SX laptop

I also had an idea for a logo that could make for a nice little wordplay.

The attachment photo_2026-05-17_18-55-33.jpg is no longer available

i think it suits your project nicely and also has a high memorable factor.

Thanks, will report soon.

Glad to hear that older architecture than 486 SX will be tested. Please, in case you find any bugs, report them so that we can try to patch them.

Regarding the logo, we have already come up with something a bit more simple, honoring both sound and the main component of the original covox – resistor.

Hi,

Just to share I received a PicoVOX Serdaco edition with 3xPicoRhino 😀

This picovox should be a very useful add-on for my A2286 (286/8) PC-Setup equipped with an additional LPT-Port and also a very useful add-on for my PS/2 E Machine.
When and where can I buy one? Thx!

https://www.serdashop.com/picovox

dreamblaster wrote on 2026-05-30, 19:29:

https://www.serdashop.com/picovox

Oh wow, it's so cool to see it available for pre-order on Serdashop already! 🤩 Good job @jansakos and everybody else who made it happen.

@dreamblaster I see two prices next to each other. Is the cheaper one (€45) the introductory price? If so, how long will it be available at that price?

Also, I assume that complementary picovoxes will be sent out to prominent retro YouTubers at some point? Or should we allow the firmware and software utilities to mature a bit more first?

I've been thinking about trying my hand at writing a multi-game Covox/DSS driver patching tool. Apparently, all games that use Miles AIL 2.x or DIGPAK drivers can be patched to support these parallel port devices. It would be nice to expand the support for parallel port sound devices to a larger number of games, so there will be more interesting stuff to showcase by those YouTubers.

A version or fork of SBEMU or VSBHDA that supports the picovox as an output device would also be cool.

digger wrote on 2026-05-30, 20:43:

@dreamblaster I see two prices next to each other. Is the cheaper one (€45) the introductory price? If so, how long will it be available at that price?

There's a price without VAT and with VAT. (depends on where you live)

digger wrote on 2026-05-30, 20:43:

Also, I assume that complementary picovoxes will be sent out to prominent retro YouTubers at some point? Or should we allow the firmware and software utilities to mature a bit more first?

It already works quite well.
Would be happy to send to youtubers indeed - feel free to suggest who

digger wrote on 2026-05-30, 20:43:

I've been thinking about trying my hand at writing a multi-game Covox/DSS driver patching tool. Apparently, all games that use Miles AIL 2.x or DIGPAK drivers can be patched to support these parallel port devices. It would be nice to expand the support for parallel port sound devices to a larger number of games, so there will be more interesting stuff to showcase by those YouTubers.

that's great !

it works fine on my 386SX Laptop,

i had one small glitch which was caused by the cable i used.
But after plugin it directly into the Port it works almost perfect.

- iplay has some small pops sometimes while playback, even if i go further done in < 16khz.
- MFED Playback in Stereo on 1 Mode is perfect, don't have any Problems at all.
- MEGAPLAY has Issues, like missing voices - i send ZIP to dreamblaster so you can verify (F2 changes output devices)

But there at least 2 methods of Stereo on 1 Playback, maybe Megaplay uses a different approach.

Other Stuff seems to work just fine, DSS, Tandy, CMS etc.
Tandy is hard to distinguish from the Original SN76489 Sound.

dreamblaster wrote on 2026-05-30, 22:13:

It already works quite well.
Would be happy to send to youtubers indeed - feel free to suggest who

Some that immediately come to mind:

• LGR
• The 8-bit Guy
• Adrian's Digital Basement
• Retro Erik
• VWestlife
• Action Retro
• Tech Tangents

I'm sure others here can suggest more. Some of these vloggers have already published dedicated episodes about parallel port sound devices that the picovox can emulate, so they might be interested in making a follow-up video about the picovox.

Still, with more patched games available, as I'd like to work on, it might make for more interesting content, with additional games supporting parallel port audio.

matze79 wrote on 2026-05-31, 15:49:

it works fine on my 386SX Laptop, […]
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it works fine on my 386SX Laptop,

i had one small glitch which was caused by the cable i used.
But after plugin it directly into the Port it works almost perfect.

- iplay has some small pops sometimes while playback, even if i go further done in < 16khz.
- MFED Playback in Stereo on 1 Mode is perfect, don't have any Problems at all.
- MEGAPLAY has Issues, like missing voices - i send ZIP to dreamblaster so you can verify (F2 changes output devices)

But there at least 2 methods of Stereo on 1 Playback, maybe Megaplay uses a different approach.

Other Stuff seems to work just fine, DSS, Tandy, CMS etc.
Tandy is hard to distinguish from the Original SN76489 Sound.

Happy to hear that most modes are working correctly.

I feel like I will need to rewite The Disney Sound Source emulation to work on both cores, since now the timing is a bit off. It should not be that hard. I hope that it will make the sound coming from the picovox (especially in Dungeon Master) a bit better.

Regarding Stereo-on-1 emulation, I have heard multiple times that there are more versions of it. However, I still have to find the second one. If there is anyone who knows any other version of Stereo-on-1, please, let me know. After some digging I was able to find newer version of MegaPlay (version 1.08) which includes the same documents written by Mark J. Cox, therefore this Stereo-on-1 technique should be the same as in the ModPlay Pro. Maybe there is some difference between how they use the sound device itself, I will try to adjust the emulation a bit since I feel like I implemented something wrong (thankfully everything is software-based, therefore small firmware update should do the trick).

Also, I have changed OPL emulation library so that it is a bit closer to the original chip. Also, it supports YMF262, meaning I should hopefully be able to add support for OPL3LPT in near future and before the public release.

Maybe this Helps.

i'm trying your changes later!

Does the OPL/Adlib mode support 'banging' mode operation?

There are a few games that do 'voice' over adlib through tone manipulation that's essentially just 'banging' the chip with commands in such a way that pulsed soundwaves get generated.

Wizardry 7 is such a title. (It also 'bangs' the soundblaster DSP in a similar way to do voice output)

Almost no existing adlib/opl software implementation does this in a way that hardware opl does, and I was just curious.

wierd_w wrote on 2026-06-01, 15:43:

Does the OPL/Adlib mode support 'banging' mode operation? […]
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Does the OPL/Adlib mode support 'banging' mode operation?

There are a few games that do 'voice' over adlib through tone manipulation that's essentially just 'banging' the chip with commands in such a way that pulsed soundwaves get generated.

Wizardry 7 is such a title. (It also 'bangs' the soundblaster DSP in a similar way to do voice output)

Almost no existing adlib/opl software implementation does this in a way that hardware opl does, and I was just curious.

Have tried Wizardry VII with both OPL3LPT and picovox. I have to admit that some sounds generated on OPL3LPT sound different (I would even say better – it is the original chip after all), but it does something and I think that it is good enough. I can provide recordings of some parts if you wish (let me know which ones).

Also, I was scared since Pinball Fantasies did not sound right at all (with ADLiPT and OPL3 mode! on Covox it sounds great I would say), but that is probably due to the timing of the driver/LPT port, since OPL3LPT sounds about the same.

matze79 wrote on 2026-06-01, 14:28:

The attachment pcstereo.gif is no longer available

Maybe this Helps.

i'm trying your changes later!

From the parts of the schematic that I understand, it seems like it operates the same as the Mark J. Cox variant, meaning it uses both Strobe and Autofeed pins and also has that D7->Busy connection for autodetection. Therefore I conclude that it should be about the same. Not really sure what is cousing issues with Megaplay. Will try it later, probably some timing issues. I have tried a different approach but it only sounded worse than before.

Also, OPL3LPT emulation has been implemented, I will test it before public release, but it sounds promising (again, it is not perfect, it does not run NukedOPL3 sadly, but good enough for emulation).

jansakos wrote on 2026-06-01, 18:58:

wierd_w wrote on 2026-06-01, 15:43:

Does the OPL/Adlib mode support 'banging' mode operation? […]
Show full quote

Does the OPL/Adlib mode support 'banging' mode operation?

There are a few games that do 'voice' over adlib through tone manipulation that's essentially just 'banging' the chip with commands in such a way that pulsed soundwaves get generated.

Wizardry 7 is such a title. (It also 'bangs' the soundblaster DSP in a similar way to do voice output)

Almost no existing adlib/opl software implementation does this in a way that hardware opl does, and I was just curious.

Have tried Wizardry VII with both OPL3LPT and picovox. I have to admit that some sounds generated on OPL3LPT sound different (I would even say better – it is the original chip after all), but it does something and I think that it is good enough. I can provide recordings of some parts if you wish (let me know which ones).

Also, I was scared since Pinball Fantasies did not sound right at all (with ADLiPT and OPL3 mode! on Covox it sounds great I would say), but that is probably due to the timing of the driver/LPT port, since OPL3LPT sounds about the same.

Specifically, i want the voice audio, not game music.

The game's audio is a bit scratchy/unpleasant, but it's that way no matter what you pick.

The game can do it on a real adlib card by 'banging' the tone generators. Most soft audio implementations of opl dont output the voice audio, only the music.

In game voice channel sounds are 'ouch' sounds, beeps, weapon clang sounds, magic pew sounds, monster noises, and ambient noises. Those are what i'm curious about.

'Ouch' is easily triggered by trying to walk through a wall.

wierd_w wrote on 2026-06-01, 20:13:

Specifically, i want the voice audio, not game music. […]
Show full quote

jansakos wrote on 2026-06-01, 18:58:

wierd_w wrote on 2026-06-01, 15:43:

Does the OPL/Adlib mode support 'banging' mode operation? […]
Show full quote

Does the OPL/Adlib mode support 'banging' mode operation?

There are a few games that do 'voice' over adlib through tone manipulation that's essentially just 'banging' the chip with commands in such a way that pulsed soundwaves get generated.

Wizardry 7 is such a title. (It also 'bangs' the soundblaster DSP in a similar way to do voice output)

Almost no existing adlib/opl software implementation does this in a way that hardware opl does, and I was just curious.

Have tried Wizardry VII with both OPL3LPT and picovox. I have to admit that some sounds generated on OPL3LPT sound different (I would even say better – it is the original chip after all), but it does something and I think that it is good enough. I can provide recordings of some parts if you wish (let me know which ones).

Also, I was scared since Pinball Fantasies did not sound right at all (with ADLiPT and OPL3 mode! on Covox it sounds great I would say), but that is probably due to the timing of the driver/LPT port, since OPL3LPT sounds about the same.

Specifically, i want the voice audio, not game music.

The game's audio is a bit scratchy/unpleasant, but it's that way no matter what you pick.

The game can do it on a real adlib card by 'banging' the tone generators. Most soft audio implementations of opl dont output the voice audio, only the music.

In game voice channel sounds are 'ouch' sounds, beeps, weapon clang sounds, magic pew sounds, monster noises, and ambient noises. Those are what i'm curious about.

'Ouch' is easily triggered by trying to walk through a wall.

I have tried recording the „Ouch“ sound and also some ambient. You can check it out. It sounds not great, but the sound is here.

Yeah, it's there, but more like what happens when you try to play this game in a dos window on 9x, with real hardware. 😁

If you want to know what it should actually sound like, the game's audio files are essentially naked PCM, of the 8bit mono variety (specifically unsigned 8bit mono, no endianness, 11025 rate), with a small 8 byte header at the front. Stripping the header off, and loading them as raw PCM, you can mess with them easily.

edit:

Just used audacity's raw importer to "convert" a few for comparison.

Names given to describe the sounds, not what the files they came from were. Attribution: These come from Wizardry VII, and are the closest to direct rips as you can reasonably get.

"Ouch" gets its frequency manipulated to sound deeper for male characters, but is the same sound file.

wierd_w wrote on 2026-06-01, 21:43:

Yeah, it's there, but more like what happens when you try to play this game in a dos window on 9x, with real hardware. :D […]
Show full quote

Yeah, it's there, but more like what happens when you try to play this game in a dos window on 9x, with real hardware. 😁

If you want to know what it should actually sound like, the game's audio files are essentially naked PCM, of the 8bit mono variety (specifically unsigned 8bit mono, no endianness, 11025 rate), with a small 8 byte header at the front. Stripping the header off, and loading them as raw PCM, you can mess with them easily.

edit:

Just used audacity's raw importer to "convert" a few for comparison.

The attachment ouch.mp3 is no longer available

The attachment bullfrog.mp3 is no longer available

The attachment drip.mp3 is no longer available

The attachment nightbird.mp3 is no longer available

Names given to describe the sounds, not what the files they came from were. Attribution: These come from Wizardry VII, and are the closest to direct rips as you can reasonably get.

"Ouch" gets its frequency manipulated to sound deeper for male characters, but is the same sound file.

The question is whether it is problem of the emulation, or of the ADLiPT driver. When I tried it out with the OPL3LPT, it sounded better. I will try to look at the emulation, I feel like the instruction handling could be optimized better.

jansakos wrote on 2026-06-01, 23:49:

wierd_w wrote on 2026-06-01, 21:43:

Yeah, it's there, but more like what happens when you try to play this game in a dos window on 9x, with real hardware. :D […]
Show full quote

Yeah, it's there, but more like what happens when you try to play this game in a dos window on 9x, with real hardware. 😁

If you want to know what it should actually sound like, the game's audio files are essentially naked PCM, of the 8bit mono variety (specifically unsigned 8bit mono, no endianness, 11025 rate), with a small 8 byte header at the front. Stripping the header off, and loading them as raw PCM, you can mess with them easily.

edit:

Just used audacity's raw importer to "convert" a few for comparison.

The attachment ouch.mp3 is no longer available

The attachment bullfrog.mp3 is no longer available

The attachment drip.mp3 is no longer available

The attachment nightbird.mp3 is no longer available

Names given to describe the sounds, not what the files they came from were. Attribution: These come from Wizardry VII, and are the closest to direct rips as you can reasonably get.

"Ouch" gets its frequency manipulated to sound deeper for male characters, but is the same sound file.

The question is whether it is problem of the emulation, or of the ADLiPT driver. When I tried it out with the OPL3LPT, it sounded better. I will try to look at the emulation, I feel like the instruction handling could be optimized better.

After not so trivial rewrite of the original instruction handling to use DMA almost nothing has changed. Then I noticed, that when I tested the emulation library that is used in picovox, the sounds were… interesting to say the least. And not in a good way. So sadly, despite my best effort, at least for now I am unable to provide anything better. I can try to adapt Nuked OPL3, but this will take a long time since it is not built for speed, but for precision. But I can test it whether the Pico 2 is fast enough for it.

jansakos wrote on Today, 10:27:

I can try to adapt Nuked OPL3, but this will take a long time since it is not built for speed, but for precision. But I can test it whether the Pico 2 is fast enough for it.

Maybe take a look at https://github.com/tgies/Nuked-OPL3-fast. He's still optimizing it further but it runs on a Pico 2.