My CMS chip has the number 0048013500 written on it. Is this useful to anyone?

It is on a V2.01 card though. Because of the -5V issue and me using mostly new (ATX) parts, I just use the Sound Blaster 1.5.

I think if i have to use an 8 bit card again, i'll go with the ATI Stereo F/X.

@Mau1wurf1977
Probably that number would be different on a 2.02 card.

Not sure. I got the CMS upgrade kit separately, so not sure what it belongs too.

Every other card i've seen with original creative PAL has the same number on the label. And every one of those cards i've seen have DSP V2.01.

Which makes me wonder if we will ever find a DSP V2.02 card with original CMS upgrade.

Jepael wrote:

Where can I find the latest logic equations?

Chuck(G) blog at vintage computer forums i think:

http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum/entry … HAL-PAL-Part-10

maybe 2.02 DSP had that problem and that's why later revisions used 2.01...
or maybe the non-rev cards are in fact the latest models and CMS was not working at all... at that point noone would really care IMHO
I doubt they made 2 revisions of PALs ...

I never understood why you guys mentioned non-REV cards as REV 0 cards, as i think these are the latest more standardized high level of production models.

Maybe at the point they were producing cards with V2.02 DSP they either decided not to sell upgrades anymore or no one ever asked for them. Because even if someone had, it would be very simple to Creative to change the PAL code to be suitable for DSP 2.02 boards. Something changed with the DSP revisions, because i bet PCB's were exactly the same.

keropi wrote:

maybe 2.02 DSP had that problem and that's why later revisions used 2.01...

makes no sense to me as these companies redesign their chips for several important reasons like manufacturing costs, solve bugs, enable/disable features etc...

It could be that at the same time the move was intentionally to prevent older upgrade kits to work on boards with newer DSP. Probably if this is true maybe Creative was already manufacturing Sound Blaster Pro's, when they make the DSP change for the Sound Blaster 2.0. But then why manufacture the cards with the upgrade sockets?

Makes more sense to me that the changes on the DSP required a reprogrammed PAL, and at this time no one was buying upgrades or to few people bought them while at the same time the Sound Blaster Pro was already available.

This (intentionally preventing CMS upgrade from working on a newer DSP but leaving the sockets on PCB) makes little sense. I hope we're all missing something.

Recently I saw some CT1350A card at ebay, built over a 2.01 DSP:

DSP2.02 could just have a bug with CMS but at the time it was discovered/released noone really cared about CMS anymore... nothing is strange, there were and are several computer products that are being sold with known bugs, why creative should be any different than intel for example?

carlostex wrote:

I never understood why you guys mentioned non-REV cards as REV 0 cards, as i think these are the latest more standardized high level of production models.

I mentioned this pretty early on, to little effect. 😉

Any-hoo... I imagine the difference in working vs. non-working boards may have less to do with the DSP version, and more to do with whatever changes were made in the the CT-1336A bus-interface chip. I don't know if one exists, but it would be nice to test a v2.02 board that has a non-"A" chip.

Mine has CT1336A. I know two people with CT1350B 2.02 DSP cards in Russia and Ukraine, and they both also have CT1336A.

That one from Ukraine also got a CT1350A card with genuine CMS kit. I will ask him to test the kit against the CT1350B 2.02. But the problem is that his 2.02 CT1350B lacks YM3812 chip. Anybody heard of SB 2.0 without OPL? Or is it just damaged by some barbarians? I am not sure the card will work even without CMS.

Well that's the thing, we will never find a v2.02 board that has a non-"A" chip because changes on one chip probably required changes in the whole chipset. And that reflects on the PAL too most certainly.

Now question is: Will we ever find a V2.02 board with original PAL chip? All we need is to keep our eyes opened.

carlostex wrote:

Well that's the thing, we will never find a v2.02 board that has a non-"A" chip because changes on one chip probably required changes in the whole chipset.

Tell that to this guy.

Ha! Photoshop!!!! ...

Seriously, could that be one of a kind?

Maybe the worker in singapore assembled the a CT1336 instead of an A one. I work in a factory, and sometimes workers put IC's from similar products that don't belong there. The circuit still works , no one notices and it passes quality control.

But anyway speculation aside, there might be more cards like that.

This is my card:

v2.02 with CT1336A

Vetz look at the bus chip below the DSP. Do you see CT1336 or CT1336A?

carlostex wrote:

Vetz look at the bus chip below the DSP. Do you see CT1336 or CT1336A?

CT1336A

carlostex wrote:

Seriously, could that be one of a kind?

Probably not. I'm not sure why this seems so unbelievable, given the various other examples throughout Creative's product line where differing DSP versions are paired with a common bus-interface chip.

vetz wrote:

v2.02 with CT1336A

My V2.02 also has the CT1336A.

I have asked ebay sellers who currently offer SB 2.0 for sale, and found:

- wiredforservice has three no-rev cards with 2.02 DSP and CT1336A; plus one rev3 card with 2.01 DSP and CT1336
- rcbits! has one CT1350A card with 2.01 DSP and CT1336
- topbrass2005 has one CT1350B no-rev card with 2.01 DSP and CT1336
- techie-basement has one CT1350B no-rev card with 2.02 DSP and CT1336A
- amoretro has two obscure cards and didn't answer anything yet

So far no any signs of mysterious 2.02/CT1336 card apart from Cloudschatze's forum link.