What's the power source for it?

dreamblaster wrote:

Currently no read ability, I though any detection support could be added in the TSR.

I suppose you could try to emulate that as part of any TSR you may try to develop, but I think that's asking for trouble. The sample code I've seen uses the on-chip timers and polls for overflow after a specific delay. At best, you'd have to use another timer, then simulate the functionality. The same would be true for any attempt to use the timers for other purposes. If the functionality is built into the chip, why not use it? In fact, I'd be inclined to wire the interrupt pin to the parallel port ACK# line, so that it can be used to assist the TSR, if needed. Unless the PCB is already crowded, at worst, it would be two traces that you aren't using.

Of course, there is always the potential complication of non-bi-directional parallel ports, unless you are in favour of the overdrive-the-latches technique.

Paralel wrote:

What's the power source for it?

Is has a mini usb connector,so with an usb cable you can use various power solutions.
Old pc's of course don't have USB, but I did some test with such PS2 to USB connector, this seems a nice solution :

The ps2 port can deliver up to 125mA which is plenty sufficient

progress !

Here's a first demo of the ADLIPT1 + a new TSR (many thanks to a good friend for his help) :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYMZgMW6gqA

It still needs work to improve the soundquality, improve TSR compatibility,...
but... yeah.. looks like the concept works !

Very impressive!

Its amazing how far it has come.

dreamblaster wrote:

Is has a mini usb connector,so with an usb cable you can use various power solutions. Old pc's of course don't have USB, but I d […]
Show full quote

Paralel wrote:

What's the power source for it?

Is has a mini usb connector,so with an usb cable you can use various power solutions.
Old pc's of course don't have USB, but I did some test with such PS2 to USB connector, this seems a nice solution :

ps2adapter.jpg

The ps2 port can deliver up to 125mA which is plenty sufficient

Actually, a good PS/2 port should be able to deliver up to 275mA. But you have to share whatever your Adlib board is using with a keyboard, so it is not a good idea in practice. I once may have killed a Xircom Parallel Port to Ethernet adapter by using a splitter cable that would power the keyboard and the adapter from the port.

That's not bad at all. You'll know you've done the job well when the old Ad Lib sound TSR and jukebox will also run with this little device. For an early prototype, it's looking quite promising.

That really has gone well.

very nice work.

does the tsr conflict with anything?
emm386 or win98 for example

Super_Relay wrote:

does the tsr conflict with anything?
emm386 or win98 for example

Probably it will conflict with some things, needs more testing

Hi guys,

right now I am finalizing the OPL2 solder kit, let me know if this is interesting.
I may do a vogons only very limited release, soon.

I also designed an OPL3 board, this will be factory assembled (it is mostly SMD), will be much later.

I buy whatever you build. 😀

interested 😀

Definitely count me in for an OPL2 version. I'll certainly make a video review with this.

i am 100% in for both a diy opl2 and the opl3 version later

...but I need so ready to go stuff 😀

Super_Relay wrote:

does the tsr conflict with anything?
emm386 or win98 for example

There is no way to accomplish that sort of emulation that doesn't involve some sort of trade-off. The usual methods are to either write all of the protected-mode code yourself, or to use a VCPI server. The former is more complicated and may prevent the use of EMM386 and other protected-mode software (DOS extenders, Windows in anything but real mode). Using a VCPI server requires EMM386 or a similar VCPI provider, and still causes conflicts with some DOS extenders and other software. So, how ever they implemented it, there are guaranteed to be conflicts with some software in certain configurations.

There are ways to reduce the number of incompatibilities, but I doubt they were able to do that sort of work so quickly (even Ensoniq and Creative didn't bother).

update :

I can make up to 6 solder kits right now, with the first revision of the PCB.
And will have more by the end of the month.
I will also make the soldering guide -->
I'm taking a break from bulk soldering for health reasons, so at this moment
it will only be available as kit, and only for vogons members who like to test and provide feedback here on the forum.

Price for this version of the kit will be : 30 euro + 5 euro shipping (+10 euro for registered shipping if you require this), this includes the OPL2 chips.
PM me to reserve your kit.
If you really cannot solder it yourself, you can also pm me, I may have a batch soldered (probably adds 10 euro to the cost),
but certainly not right now. It will take longer until you get it.

The first revision OPL2LPT board sounds like this : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYMZgMW6gqA

Things I want to improve in the opl3 pcb (but it will take more time to finalize the design, receive pcb's and test until ok, this may be november) :
- Currently there's a fiddly pot for the amp chip, only a small range is usable. Once it is set, you are good to go, but could be made more handy.
- The sound is OK for gaming, but it is still more noisy than I'd like. I think for OPL musicians, I need a more hi fi final solution --> for the opl3 pcb.

So as said, I will also make an opl3 version later : OPL3LPT
I started design, but want to do noise / amp experiments first, before finalizing this opl3 pcb,
and the next revision of the opl2 board.

Also, expect more news on the software, a TSR and a music player, soon 😀

Any idea where the noise is coming from? There should be a relatively finite number of sources, it might take a little while, but it can probably be picked apart until its located.

I'm starting to wonder if a metal enclosure that is tied to ground would shield the dongles from the tremendous EMI field that is just outside of a computer where the tend to sit.

Hi. Author of the TSR here. I've published the code on Github: https://github.com/pdewacht/adlipt/. You can also download the compiled EXE there.

The TSR uses the port virtualization feature of EMM386 & QEMM. Support for other memory managers could be added as well if there's interest -- most seem to have the feature, but there's no standard API. The big downside is that this only seems to work for real-mode software. I don't know if anything can be done for protected-mode software.

There were some questions about the OPL2 timers. I have a stub implementation that works for Adlib detection routines. So far we haven't encountered a game that uses the timers for actual timing.

That could be a "killer-hardware" for my relatively new laptop which lacks sb/fm support on dos.