Why ya dumping your collection? 🙁

The pro1 &/or sb16, but like Mike01Hawk, I'm curious why you're getting rid of your collection?

hmm any of these having pci and good dos support ?
I wouldn't mind getting an actual sb card to compare soundoutput of dosbox in order to improve it.

I think the sb16 would be best to keep.

Great Hierophant wrote:

I have a lot of sound cards I intend to put up for auction in the next couple of days. Unfortunately, I would still like to have […]
Show full quote

I have a lot of sound cards I intend to put up for auction in the next couple of days. Unfortunately, I would still like to have a card with true Yamaha OPL functionality. Here is the list of cards I am planning to auction:

Sound Blaster 1.5 CT-1320U w/ CMS
Sound Blaster 2.0 CT-1330 w/t CMS
Sound Blaster Pro 1.0 CT-1330
Sound Blaster Pro 2.0 CT-1600
Sound Blaster 16 CT-1750 MCD ASP w/DSP 4.05
Sound Blaster AWE32 CT-2760
Pro Audio Spectrum 650-0002-01
Adlib Music Synthesizer Card

I can only keep one, which I intend to use for the odd game, but which one should I keep.

I also intend to auction the following, so keep you eyes peeled on eBay:
Gravis Ultrasound ACE w/1MB
IBM Music Feature Card w/Midi breakout box

This thread has been cross-posted on several boards to obtain the maximum number of opinions on this subject.

Is there a chance you want to do a trade? I have some spare GUS Classic/Max cards?

All of them are ISA. I surprised you didn't know that qbix:) Oh yeah, typo on listing sb2.0 as ct1330 or do you really have a sb2.0 that's labeled as ct1330? That would be a unique card. I have a sb2 sans cms, pro1 & 2, sb16 1740 sans asp/dsp, awe32, gus 2.4 and mt32. The sb1.5, pas, adlib, imfc are tempting like when I browse ebay. I'm always torn between scratching my collecting itch and my penchant for penny pinching, the reasoning voice in my head saying the $10-20 is better spent or saved for something more useful/worth while. I passed up a boxed Adlib Gold because of that:)

Oh yeah, typo on listing sb2.0 as ct1330 or do you really have a sb2.0 that's labeled as ct1330? That would be a unique card.

Oops! That has been fixed.

I am reducing my collection for two reasons. First, because I may be moving in the next couple of months. Second, I wish to eliminate redundant and marginal cards. Right now I am still keeping a GUS PnP and an AWE64 Gold.

well I had the hope that there was some really rare specimen that was pci and not isa 😀

All PCI sound cards, with certain exceptions, merely emulate ISA devices. There was a card called the Sound Blaster AWE64D, generally only found in OEM machines, that could give better support in DOS games using the SB-Link port on some BX motherboards.

However, the Yamaha YMF-724 PCI chipsets, which are not rare, claim to provide "genuine OPL3" and "hardware SB Pro support". How well this is done is unknown to me. Later chips, like the YMF-744 and 754, claim to provide "FM Synthesis".

Right now I am going to keep the Sound Blaster 16 and the Gravis Ultrasound PnP. I don't really think that there was a lot of great game music that took advantage of the OPL3's special capabilities, but its better than CQM. I also intend to find a particular Sound Blaster 32 with a true OPL3 chip, which is the least noisy of the lot.

I am not ridding myself of my collection in its entirety. I still have my LA and GM modules. I am just boiling it down to the essentials. DOSBox should fill in most of the gaps. I am also letting go of most of my old video cards as well.

Here are my current auctions:
http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZgreat_hierophant

Here's a thorough explanation of compatibility and versions: http://home.icequake.net/~nemesis/src/libopl/README.SB

Pro1 has the most compatibility.

I am also letting go of most of my old video cards as well.

Maybe create bios dumps of those before completely letting them go though.

If you're going to do ROM dumps, dump the IMFC ROMs. Though you don't have it, another card I'd like to see dumped would be the soundscape/elite. I have a gateway soundscape but only the original and elite had the better 2MB patch set. All the reduced cost soundscapes used poorer sounding patch sets. Even the much later 4mb set isn't supposed to sound as good as the original 2mb.

wd wrote:

I am also letting go of most of my old video cards as well.

Maybe create bios dumps of those before completely letting them go though.

I did create a BIOS dump of the VGA card, maybe I will do the same for the EGA card if I can. As far as the IMFC's ROM, you will have to tell me where in the PC's memory range it is located. Somehow I doubt that it is accessible to the system, its probably only internally accessible (like the MDA/CGA font ROM.)

Pro1 has the most compatibility

Perhaps it has the most backwards compatibility, but the Pro2 has better forwards compatibility. Many, many more games used OPL3 than dual OPL2, and there is only one game I know of, Ultima Underworld, that used dual OPL2 and not OPL3. Even that has been patched.

EGA card would probably be the most interesting as those dumps seem rare
(though emulation is quite fine for it).

From the looks of this photo:
http://www.crossfire-designs.de/index.php?lan … 20Leonard&num=3

The ROM chip appears to be socketed(IC215.) Have an EPROM reader? Looks similar to older BIOS chips, would have to look up the IC part number to be sure. Makes me wonder if hotswapping and dumping from the BIOS address would work.

You could use a network card as ROM reader under certain circumstances.

Ah, good idea. If it's a compatible socket, can forgo the hotswapping, and dump from the NIC address.

Determining the size and speed of EPROMs to plug in a NIC:
http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Network-boot-HOWTO/a628.html

The chip identification looks to be plainly labeled on the IC, but can't read it from the photo, so Great Hierophant will have to tell us what it is.

ih8registrations wrote:

From the looks of this photo:
http://www.crossfire-designs.de/index.php?lan … 20Leonard&num=3

The ROM chip appears to be socketed(IC215.) Have an EPROM reader? Looks similar to older BIOS chips, would have to look up the IC part number to be sure. Makes me wonder if hotswapping and dumping from the BIOS address would work.

I have no EPROM reader, and my ROM is soldered. The ROM is interesting, it is apparently a "write-once" EPROM, it has no eraser window. However, there is no evidence to support that this card exposes its ROM to the ISA bus, and why should it?

Even if it is, what difference does it make? Who is going to attempt to emulate the IBM Music Feature? Somehow I doubt it will be as easy as mating the ROM code with MAME's YM2151 emulation code. (In this case, you should try to emulate an Yamaha FB-01 instead.)

If you guys really want, I suppose I could dump everything from C0000 to F0000.

No point, that ROM is the firmware of this Z80-like NEC processor. It's not on the ISA bus.