Raven. A homemade Atari-like computer

[agranlund]

I think I found a really good compliment to the GUS:

Some kind of el-cheapo soundblaster compatible but most importantly it has Yamaha OPL3, Wavetable header, internal headers for all audio in/outs, and shares the same color as the GUS. The size makes it possible to fit in a slot above the GUS too!
I may end up not having the gameport connected but for now I made the cable black at least. I'll replace those three white box headers next since this card is likely going to end up in the topmost slot.

med7300.jpg

I may have gone a bit overboard..

soundcards.jpg

The other red one, a later revision "Expertcolor" is similar but the OPL3 implementation comes from an Opti chipset rather than Yamaha. It came for cheap together with the version I wanted.

The black card was the cheapest. It looks quite fancy but it was a budget card and probably not a very good one.
That AD chipset has an interestingly bad OPL3 implementation so for a tenner I couldn't resist.

And a real Soundblaster because why not. It's one of those unpopular models among retro connoisseurs.
Ie; it's plug-and-play, OPL3 provided by CQM instead of Yamaha, and to top it off one of the revisions that can suffer the "soundblaster hanging midi note" bug when playing PCM and Midi at the same time.

[Oldskool]

He that looks a bit like this one I have although its green.

Does yours also have an ymf719.

IMG_1763.jpeg

[peters]

You've got me interested in midi now. :D

I'm looking for Milan compatible midi software and at the serdaco x2se daughter board for the SB16

[agranlund]

He that looks a bit like this one I have although its green.

Does yours also have an ymf719.

IMG_1763.jpeg

Yep exactly that chipset!
Opl and midi works like a charm and unlike the GUS, its mixer starts unmuted and with sensible volumes so I didn’t even need to bother writing any kind of initialization program for it :)

With both it and gus being hungry for isa resources i had to manually configure their pnp settings in isa_bios.inf to avoid conflicts.
I should really write some documentation/tutorial on how to do that since it’s just the text file and no fancy UI.

[agranlund]

You've got me interested in midi now. :D

I'm looking for Milan compatible midi software and at the serdaco x2se daughter board for the SB16

Nice! I have the x2se on order from Serdaco, looking forward to comparing it with the tiny S2.
I also couldn’t resist ordering the McFly daughterboard while at it.. from what I saw on youtube that one sounds really bad, in a good way :)
So much cool stuff being made nowadays!

[PhilC]

I must confess to being very slow with getting the bits together to build my board, what with the cancer treatment getting in the way :lol: but having a good read on here makes me look to forward to getting it done. I've already got an X2GS, S2 and an E-Wave but keep looking at the McFly too.

Where did you guys get your ISA slots from? New or scavenged off of an old motherboard?

[Steve]

when I built up an ST-ATX board, I bought my ISA slots from Aliexpress.

[PhilC]

when I built up an ST-ATX board, I bought my ISA slots from Aliexpress.

Thanks Steve, that was going to be my first stop.

[Oldskool]

when I built up an ST-ATX board, I bought my ISA slots from Aliexpress.

Thanks Steve, that was going to be my first stop.

For example:

https://nl.aliexpress.com/item/10050014 ... pt=glo2nld

[PhilC]

Thanks @Oldskool