Resound 2 MCA: AdLib-compatible Microchannel Sound Card
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- Опубліковано 26 сер 2024
- Checking out the Resound 2 OPL3 MCA, a PlaidBib derived PC sound card project put together by Texelec. Finally: an affordable way to get AdLib music and sound on an IBM PS/2 and other Micro Channel architecture computers without resorting to rare and expensive old cards or using the parallel port! Tested on a PS/2 Model 90 XP 486.
Here's the website with more info and purchasing options:
texelec.com/pr...
Hey Clint, thanks for making the video! The built-in diagnostics only work with some IBM hardware, and nothing third party. However, you can go back in with the reference disk, and view or change the configuration, and you will see all of the cards installed. The audio level is more in line with consumer-level audio as to not drive programs like Xargon too loud There is a single 15khz hi-pass filter I have added. This is the same for the new OPL3 ISA card and the SAAYM. The SAA's have a small low-pass, around 50hz. No FM chip can reliably produce anything that high, but no low-pass at all on the MCAs. They always made the bass muddy IMO, so I risk some noise. Thankfully, PS/2 have well filtered supplies. :-)
Thanks for the info, makes sense!
IDK if this comment will do anything but would it be at all possible to make an IDE adapter for the ps2? The HDD format is really weird and hard to come by.
Have IBM demanded an MCA license fee? :)
@@ian_b I wonder if it would be possible to make these cards reversible, so they'd fit in both an ISA or MCA slot? ISA on one edge, MCA on the other?
I mean, you'd obviously need a different bracket for each, but aside from that.
Such a thing exists. Adrian’s Digital Basement just ran across a SCSI card I think, ISA and MCA.
Stunt Driver is one of the very few DOS games that actually use digital sound effects on the Ad-Lib. However, the FM chip wasn't really designed for this, so it's kind of a hack. Sort of like getting digital sound from a SID chip. That's why the volume is low. And your mileage probably varies depending on which FM chip is being used.
"mileage probably varies"... pun alert.
So does Jimmy White's Whirlwind Snooker and Darkseed.
When Clint Dropped into a map on Planet X3 it felt like I was playing Ultima again....
Can I just say that PX3 looked extremely nice in this video? I'm quite tempted to buy the image, so that I can play it using DOSBox. I'm not an avid player of strategy games, but I've seen all your development videos and it might be worth getting it just to thank you for those.
Elvira was another one, and yes, the volume was also extremely low.
Cool. Commander Keen is my favourite Microsoft franchise.
Reality is increasingly bizarre.
too soon
Too soon
This is indeed a disturbing universe
@@pastedtomato this is indeed the darkest timeline
Just FYI, The "weight" on the ribbon cable is a large ferrite core that's there to choke off RF leakage off the cable. It may be fragile and could crack with a drop on the frame. IBM spared no expense. Which probably partially lead to the high price of these new.
When I was doing freelance IT stuff 8-10 years ago I'd still see old IBMs like this in service. Usually in auto parts places or other warehouse type applications where all it does is serve as a terminal for punching in SKUs.
It's crazy how much heavier those old IBMs are than current computers.
I worked for a company back in the 80's called IDE Associates which made a variety of MCA and ISA expansion boards. It might be worth searching out their olden stock.
As for MCA itself, at the time I thought it was the coolest, most awesome advancement in PC architecture up to that point. Anybody who's ever tortured themselves with setting IRQ switches and jumpers manually will appreciate that. MCA did have some downsides of course: If you lost the configuration disks you were totally stuffed, so you had to be rabid about making backups, which of course the customer never did. Otherwise, it was that murderous metal back plate - it was as sharp as a knife. I dreaded removing cards lol.
I love these modern replacement cards. Would be awesome to see modern replacements for motherboards and CPU's.
LGR could be talking about the process of paint drying and I'd still watch every minute of it. His videos are just so relaxing and he shows a great perspective on every topic he covers
17:45 The engine noise through the OPL chip sounds like actor comedian Michael Winslow doing an impression of an engine. 😆
the bleeps, the sweeps, and the creeps
Wow, finally a video about the now almost forgotten Microchannel architecture! Thanks!
These non-standard PCB colors always catch my attention. Green is great, but white and red are yummy. 💕
My favorite is black with gold silk screening.
I have a white XTCF in my PS/2.
I used to build pc’s back in the late 90’s early 2000’s and I always used purple and red motherboards 😂 wish they still made them.... I gotta climb my old butt up in my attic and see what I still have 🤣
@referral madness Good question. Here's some research on the matter: www.microchip.com/forums/m/tm.aspx?m=1055452&p=1
I've been looking for an MCA sound card for 4 years! This is what I need.
Get one. It's a really nice piece of kit.
Wait for the sound blaster 1.0 clone which is in development and will be then open sourced, check tube time on twitter
@@piecaruso97 Should also be noted the Plaid Bib clone has been around for half a year.
I must have DOS memory management PTSD, because I could feel my eye twitch when you were trying to get Xargon to run.
But I assume that that machine can run the original Descent, since it has 32 megs of ram installed :-)
Why are add in cards so cool? All these old computers with a bunch of cards look sweet. Its nice that we've consolidated almost everything into the motherboard but there is something special about having a bunch of cards in a machine
I have a strange nostalgia for the days of configuring IRQs etc...
The more add-in cards your PC has the less cool it is.
The modular industrial approach is useless when it must run a software monolith... Today we have to "roll out" the whole thing, to support anti-progressive software imperialists. They rather sell you imaginary stuff like a start button or "apps" than actual functionality.
Ik think MCA was partially an attempt to prevent this platform hijacking by a universal entity called OS.
Mine only has room for one PCIE card (my GTXX 1660ti). It has a built in Sound Blaster though (I was surprised to find they are still around, they even still make dedicated sound cards!)
@@Okurka. physically speaking yes lol
Commander Keen was my dad's favourite DOS game when he was younger. He was one of the few in his year group that owned a 386 machine and CK was the series of game that he played the most back then.
So many memories from this video. I was the first to get the model 90 at my company back in '91. What a cool machine. Before that I was using a model 70 and a 50 before that.
I still have my model 50Z with an AOX 386/25 add-on card, but what might interest you most, I have the Soundblaster Pro 2 MCV (CT5330) installed and still use it to play earlier games. Who knew when I purchased it, it would be so rare this many years later. Guess I never really thought about MCA being more used more for business and less for entertainment. Still, my 50Z has been with me since '88.
I have a PS/2 Model 50. I was searching eBay, like I do pretty often, for MCA sound cards. Found the usual MCA SoundBlaster for like $600+. Then I saw the TexElec card! I immediately went to TexElec and bought one! I have an OPL3LPT that I can use on my PS/2, but this should be better! So happy to see this being made and so happy to get one!
Thanks for testing PCM emulation! It was indeed very quiet, but at least the functionality is there, so I'd call the card an excellent reproduction.
You bet, I appreciate the suggestion 👍
I remember using QEMM to have upper memory free. Usually, you needed over 600K free.
That Keen6 soundtrack on the first level (faster and faster yet!) has been my ringtone for years :)
Thank Heavens (and Clint!) for Blerbs! Getting more LGR content always makes one's day! :)
Oh wow. We had a model 70. I wanted an mca music card so bad and they were so much more than the Isa ones. And computer stores in the NY area would mock you relentlessly for even asking for one. Really fun to see this video.
Clint, I've been going through your videos from oldest to newest. You just threw me off track, but it's much appreciated!
32MB RAM - This machine must have been a beast at its time.
Also love how over-built these old machines are. 😍
And now texelec made a MCA SB 2.0 compatible clone, truly amazing stuff for all the MCA fans out there. They also have an adapter for normal floppy drives to work in the ps/2. An IDE adapter next? We need to help these guys out by getting the word out with more vids!
These videos always take me back to 7th grade, sitting in front of our family's 486 dx2. My Dad opted for 8mb ram instead of the pentium. We had lemmings, prince of persia, Doom, Wolfenstien and windows 3.1
All of this on a WHOPPING 540 mb HD. We thought we'd never fill that HD up!
I got to upgrade from a Mac LC with a 40 MB hard drive and a pitiful 68020 CPU to a Performa with a 1 GB hard drive and a PowerPC CPU. That was a revolutionary experience!
I can't believe how much better-looking modern PCs can be inside!
New MCA cards. What a time to be alive!
Woah thats so awesome. When i wanted to upgrade my model 55 SX a few years ago, i couldn't even find expansion memory that would work
Best part of my day! Clint playing Duke on a PS/2
I still have those altec Lansing speakers and they work fine
Worked on these in college circa 1987-88. Worked in the library, spent most my time unjamming dot matrix printers.
I had to work on some of these in high school. It's a great, amazingly IBM, sort of solution. But, if you ever have to troubleshoot it will be awful. Sometimes you have to add or remove a card just to be able to tigger the config screen to fix some other issue.
For custom boards, I usually use the reverse of this (black FR4 with ENIG gold plating and white silkscreen), that white board material is soooo clean looking.
Xargon has one of the best adlib soundtracks out there.
Wish more circuit boards and pc kit in general,came in white.
Where I used to work, we had a PS/2 in use up until about 2007 as it was controlling a machine and the custom controller card was MCA so would not work in any other PC. Was a legacy machine and wasn't used very often and was only taken out of service when the work it used to produce was migrated to a more modern line, deemed obsolete and then scrapped!
I love retrofitted stuff using modern parts
Oh, i see Starlancer in background, played that. Really liked it.
Those old-school mouse and keyboard clicks can double as sound effects in Duke3D just fine! :D
Just now realized it's TexElec and not TechSelect.
Wordplay! :D
There's something hilarious about spending $60 on an MCA sound card in 2020.
Really is a beautiful bit of PCB though.
Struggling to free up conventional RAM! Memories of competing with my friends for the nicest boot disks and multiconfigs.
I have a feeling that this card has a low pass filter to reduce harsh noise, but it's causing stunt driver to be almost silent.
There's another theory that bus timing might be interfering with the trick used to fake PCM through it - apparently it can depend on starting FM synthesis and freezing it at a precise time, then turning the channel on/off rapidly to send the audio. If it's not frozen at the right moment it won't have the correct output level and there's probably no way for the program to tell that happened.
Have you heard of Adlib Tracker II? It's a DOS tracker that's specifically designed to make OPL3 music (they also have an old version for OPL2). The download comes with a ton of sample tracks. I've also had success running it from Win98 SE, so you don't even need to boot into DOS mode if you don't want to.
it doesn't run on a 486 unfortunately, i tried that but there are still many tracker and players to try, for opl3 i reccommend giving a try to LLSID and there are things like rad players which can be used on 8088
@@piecaruso97 Oh, I totally forgot about the suggested Pentium minimum. I've never heard of LLSID though, that looks cool. When you say "rad players" are you referring to the old versions of Reality Adlib Tracker?
@@dbozan99 i am referring to the track format use by Reality Adlib Trcker, which is used by a bunch of player programs, LLSID is not perfect but definelly cool, try it
That white pcb looks super nice
This is so awesome! I've really gotta get one of these for my model 50s. I should also get around to recapping my two faulty units. Pretty sure that's all that's wrong with one, but the other may need more work. And I've only got one working power supply between three machines, so yeah, lots of work. Maybe I'll get some time off work to play with them at Christmas.
Anyway, cool video! It'd be interesting to see your take on an Adlib retrospective type video. I always like watching those longer format history lesson and tech review type videos that don't just focus on a single card or whatever, so it'd be cool to see your perspective on it.
Got to love that IBM splash screen 🙂
Thanks for making this channel, really like the more off-the-cuff, behind the scenes type content.
Great video. I do see the First Aid 95 in the background behind the monitor (and I asked if you would ever review it and needed a copy before. Now I see you don't need one!)
I swear Yamaha makes the best FM synths. Can't beat that crunch
Funny you posted this. Glad i'm not the only one who has bought one of these. I got one for my PS/2 P70 (8573) machine and plan on doing a video on it too!
For refrence, a Creative Labs Soundblaster for MCA right now goes for over $1,000. The IBM M-ACPA (Audio Capture Playback Adapter), assuming you can find one, usually runs $3-400. Those are only cheaper because they aren't 100% soundblaster compatible.
I never thought I would see a totally new mca sound card today. Awesome!
Pretty sure it's heresy to use a Packard Bell monitor with a PS/2. You're displaying the best of the best on the worst of the worst!
Also, this gives me a proper reason to get a PS/2. I've wanted one ever since I learned about them and found an 8513 monitor at a charity shop, but the lack of sound cards always put me off them. Now though? All bets are off.
In this day and age you take what crt you can get
@@TheTurnipKing I know. I was just trying to be funny (in my defense, he does have several IBM monitors). I have a 9 inch RCA TV from 85 that's doing overtime as a monitor for my 8 bit micros and being the center of a pretty solid retro home theatre system (all it's missing is a Dolby digital-capable laserdisc player). It's also why I'm planning to try and fix the bezel of a Vaio Trinitron that was shattered in shipping instead of trying to replace it (also it matches a Vaio desktop I found a while back).
Man, those guys at TexElec. You gotta love those guys for what they do for retro machines. Well, they and Serdashop pretty much have you covered for a whole host of things like these. :)
Oh! That is a nice co-accident. I recently got one PS/2 with MCA and no sound, which I was planning to talk on my channel about. I was looking at this card just couple of days ago and thought about sound options on this machine :)
I'm a simple man. I'm an old man. I see a Clint video I watch
Came home from work at 2am where I am and this is just what I needed 😌
"I have to try this thing out with Xargon!"
Clint, I think that boxed copy of Sargon above the speaker would like to speak with you about that.
My only experience with MCA was back in the late 90s when I was working at IBM. I was doing internal tech support and some people had Ethernet on their Thinkpads, but the vast majority had Token Ring. I was located at a remote downtown site and we had no way to *test* Ethernet. Linux was still a forbidden backdoor kind of thing, so I installed it on this old hunk of 386 SX PS/2, configured it for bridging and gave it a cross over cable. Slow, loud, but solved the problem... bridging was overkill, but fun! it's hard to imagine anyone doing anything like this today, but we were still in the final days of cowboy shops and servers-under-the-desk. MCA was ok, but it was rare enough to just make solutions harder to find.
I see Shuttle in the background. Please review it some time Clint, such fond memories of that sim.
I just got an ISA 16bit soundblaster ad lib! from a friend yesterday!!!
You should build a 486 machine with as many modern hardware like this as possible. I think it would be a really cool project.
Love TexElec -- they keep coming out with really cool stuff!
Where was this in 1993!? 😜 Discovering that my Sound Galaxy BXII ISA card wasn't compatible with our PS/2 Model 50z literally ruined my 13th birthday. Although I did get Wing Commander II as well, so it wasn't all bad.
Nice! I've been considering getting the four channel version for some experiments
Great vid mate, Cheers!
Never knew that music in old games could sound so good.
You say "Greetings, Blerbs"...so, are we the Blerbs *thinking raptor*.
Yes, in the same way we are actually Vsauce.
@@U014B mind=blown
... I think so...
*thinking raptor*
Thats a meme i havnt heard of in a looooooong time....
@@DiagonalCoff33 Philosoraptor!
2:53. The new card has such a clean design... the old Soundblaster has a plethora of electrolytic capacitors to fail with time.
14:38 Oh I remember that game!! (well I actually remember that music bit), the good old days.
Awesome stuff... man, it always takes me back to those times when tweaking music on games were all the rage.
Early on, the first sound card I got was a Sound Blaster 8 bit pro gold or something.... and then I skipped the 16 bit era and jumped straight to AWE 32. That huge card that you could shove memory sticks in.
For a while, being able to run Roland MT 32 music made all the difference.... xD while most friends were just going with that Creative CD rom kit, I had something to show off. xD
Not a weight. That's a ferrite core. You're missing both the metal clamp and the plastic cover for it. I'd link you, but i can't since.. you know, youtube. So the next best thing is to go to images in google and type "ibm ribbon cable ferrite cover" the first image, shows you the metal clip you're missing. The plastic cover...yeah, i've never seen on in the wild, and mine are long since replaced with a shrink wrap variant because plastic became brittle.
I always like seeing the CHIPS Technology logo on a chip. It's so redundantly awesome. :)
That looks a lot like an old ISA sound card I had 'back in the day' on a 486 DX2-100 system (my first internet box) and one of the things you don't see anymore is it had a little 2watt x 2 amplifier build into it and you could just hook up regular 8 ohm speakers ...... but it also had the old Yamaha OPL chip on it along with an AD-DA converter with a digital hardware mixer built in as well as an interface so you could hook a CDROM drive to play CDs through the computer which was a big deal back then
I have the ISA version from these guys in my PS2/30 and I can highly recommend it!
Kinda expensive but better build quality than most modern sound cards and that for a adlib card...
Oh, GDI... I've been hunting for a sound card for my PS/2 for YEARS, I always miss out on them on eBay. Time to order one for my Model 77! (What's annoying is that mine was originally an "Ultimedia" model with the IBM sound card, but a prior owner removed the sound card.
oh my god you have those altec lansing speakers i used to have on my dell like 10 years ago
i miss those speakers
Had that 486 with the same monitor. Installed a Soundblaster and Voodoo card to play Wing Commander.
I thought I liked black pcb, but white looks nice too!
That really cool a old IBM running Dukenukem but a 90mhz pent class should do it don't guess graphics cards amouted for much back then as far as running a game I sure wouldn't have thought it possible
Interesting... Xargon fires from his crotch. Epic was truly ahead of the curve back then.
Please do a full episode concerning Xargon one day, that'd be awesome!
I know the "PCM sample" channel on the original 6581 SID chip was really just an exploit of a sort of "click" the chip made when changing volume levels IIRC. Not sure what the mechanism of creating PCM sound on the original Adlib was, but it's possible whatever it exploited is not present on this recreation, or only present in a way that doesn't create as strong of a signal as the original.
Same thing. The ASM code I remember was:
Tweak it for the loudest pop it can make
Freeze that synth
Toggle the volume at somewhat 8kHz to playback samples
Used quite a lot of CPU time but was a lot better than PC Speaker samples.
Man, that's such a flippin' sweet computer...
Finially some love for PS/2s!!!
Cool that it works. Id love to get ahold of an old 486 computer but I think I would rather go with something that doesn't have so many proprietary components. I have a couple of Gravis Ultrasounds, Awe32, and Awe64 would love to put into action again.
That's awesome news! I have an IBM PS/2 8555 with a 386sx, and can do virtually nothing with it. What I'd really want, though is a drive controller to use a cf card. That would be nice.
Great option for those beautiful PS/2s!
I think Rusty would have been pretty cool to try with this. That has very good OPL2 FM audio.
A lack of a proper sound solution was what made me get rid of my PS/2 65sx a while ago. I might have kept it if stuff like this and the parallel port OPL existed... :(
I made the adlib clone from TubeTime. I made mistakes in soldering, ordered some wrong parts, bought a chip programmer that was also somewhat expensive and now that the card is complete and should work,,,it doesn't. Simply waiting for texelec to make one would be a lot easier and cheaper :P
You should also test RAD tracks and players and since this is an OPL3 you can also try LLSID which plays back SID chip tunes using an OPL3
looks like you need to make a vintage all white build now.
Love that adlib sound it reminds me of UFO terror from the deep 🙂
Oh man! I was headed for the TexElec website until you said it didn't do sound effects.... Missed it by that much!! :(
Surprised at how well Duke3d runs on that DX2, I imagine that XGA card is very performant? Back in '96 my childhood friend's parents upgraded his computer to a DX2@66 and Duke3d wasn't nearly as fast as this... feels almost as playable as on the DX4@100 I had back then
2:55 Sound Blaster 2.0 is only using 8-bit ISA, isn't it? It doesn't have the 16-bit connector.
Beat me to it. I was gonna say "How is that 16-bit ISA?"
Actually the snark barker or the sound blaster 1.0 clone from tube time is coming to MCA as well so you will be able to enjoy full 8 bit digital sound on your MCa computer of choiche
Aw yeah, been looking forward to that one for a long time.
@@LGRBlerbs Tube Time is doing a lot of cool designs, the disadvantage of the sound blaster clone compared to the resound OPL 3, is that the OPL 2 can't be used is a lot of cool trackers and players, like LLSID, but still very little difference for games. Today Tube Time has also posted pictures of him building and debugging the first prototype of the new card and he also has included some nice jokes in the silkscreen under the ICs
Ahh the days of micro channel and reference disk floppies