A New Microchannel Sound Blaster! Resound New Wave MCA
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- Опубліковано 22 сер 2021
- Checking out this variant of the Snark Barker MCA project! This card from TexElec recreates the exceedingly rare Creative Labs Sound Blaster MCV for IBM PS/2 Microchannel PCs. Proper 44kHz PCM sound and AdLib support on a PS/2 Model 90 XP 486, nice.
Here's where I bought mine, plus more info and a helpful tutorial video: texelec.com/product/resound-n...
LGR must hold the world record for number of times playing the first level of Duke3d!
Title music is permanently stuck in my head now.
@Dan Seegmiller I don't know about that, back in the day my buddy and I would play nonstop for 6-10 hours straight nearly every day. Yep I might hold a record myself. 😁🎮
Not to mention that most people would have totally forgotten that Canyon.mid existed without this channel.
Amusing to think, but I'm pretty sure a speedrunner would take that crown. They replay games so often, especially the early levels. They might play the first level all the way through a dozen times a day, depending on the category.
more than me playint the first stage in L4D2
"Look at that subtle off-white colouring.
The tasteful thickness of it.
Oh my God, it even has a watermark."
You sir, are a god.
You like Xargon Lewis and the News?
Basically, a card that lets you actually use the ps/2 to run games that are contemporaneous WITH the ps/2 without having to horribly compromise the audio.
"Contemporaneous".
"existing at or occurring in the same period of time."
TIL.
@@huleyn135 I just used context, Contemporary, so Contemporaneous must have similar meaning.
for IBM PS/2 Microchannel PCs ? BAHHHH
@@zenstrata CoVox? I used that on my Tandy 2810 286 16mhz Laptop. I think Disney sold it. I think it was a good little sound box.
Roughly, contemporary is used for people, and contemporaneous is used for things. English is wierd.
It's funny how the Xargon title theme instantly tells whether the card is correct or not. It has such a distinct sound to it.
The cost on this comes from the FPGA that does all the IO replacing the original soundblaster chip. They aren't cheap, but they made the right decision there. Very flexible.
It's a 9572XL CPLD, very similar to FPGA but much smaller. They don't cost that much really.
I kinda question this... If it's a clone of the original Sound Blaster (not SB Pro, SB 16, etc.) then "the original SoundBlaster chip" was a microcontroller. That leaves a lot of bus interface glue logic that has to be handled by something, and so it makes sense to combine all of that into a programmable logic device, but re-implementing an MCU in FPGA is kind of wasteful, IMO.
I have not looked at the card, but I am pretty sure this still uses an 8051 MCU for the DSP just like the original SoundBlaster, and likely even the same code that was recovered from the original dsp. The CPLD is just dealing with the basic logic for interfacing the bus.
I would think the PCB costs far more than any one of the electronic components, or maybe even all of the electronic components put together. Especially with that custom white color.
@@themaritimegirl Not really, PCBs are a usually a fraction of the cost of non prototype board. Doubt they were charged much more for the solder mask color, since they are not rare anymore and most Pcb houses have them.
"Nobody wants a floppy card!"
Unless you have a floppy drive to go with it!
My thoughts exactly after Clint said that! LOL.
It's a floppy disk not card that goes with floppy drive
Tube Time recently helped a UA-camr by the name of CuriousMarc with his broken PS/2. He joked that the MCA sound cards were for all of the 5 big business execs who were allowed to play games during their break time lol. He's probably not far wrong, either!
And that PS/2 Model 77 will be shown running soon - A replacement planar has been received from me, "IBM Museum"! I'm even sending out an extra microchannel riser today so that the old planar can be analyzed by Eric, CuriousMarc, and the crew (that will likely show up on video as well).
@@IBM_Museum That's awesome, thanks for helping them out!
but it's true, lol! someone who worked at Creative Labs told me that he used to dread getting support calls for micro channel hardware. they just never worked that well.
@@IBM_Museum i'd still like to get the broken planar working. it's turning into quite a challenge!
@@TubeTimeUS: The riser went out on the second USPS truck today - I'll e-mail the tracking number in the backchannel group communication. It has a missing positive pin on the coin-cell battery holder (I also removed it from the riveted metal frame) and I haven't found my battery parts where I have a zillion of them. That would have slowed it down for soldering too.
I like how today everyone can enjoy this quality thanks to passionate people, while back in the days, I imagine only ballers living in Miami, driving countachs could enjoy pure gaming 🤣
The cost of a soundblaster mca was a mere fraction of the cost of a PS/2 well suited to running contemporary games... But.. if you also had an actual use case for such a machine which would pay for it.. mere mortals could own such a setup, or even 2 of them in my case.
I mean, you could enjoy Duke Nukem 3D and probably most of these other games to their max on a Raspberry Pi 4 for $35, or on the modern desktop PC you're commenting from for free. These passionate people just let you do it for similarly little effort on the real old hardware.
You are becoming so good at making these videos that I was surprised to see this video wasn't even on your main channel. Great job and thanks for the great content!
Thank you!
Honestly I’m liking blerbs just as much as the main!
@@LGRBlerbs You're becoming that guy at the factory who puts an engine together so quick and effortlessly in an hour. Meanwhile some new guy is struggling to put together the same engine model in 2 hours and sweating it....
@@IndygoEEI: The resource of the 'Ardent-Tool' has diagrams and images to show all of the PS/2 "engine" parts and how they fit together - coupled with knowledgeable members of the PS/2 Facebook group (links in my video descriptions), the layperson can get the assistance of experts. Including microchannel soundcards.
@@IBM_Museum Uh what Lol?
I'll never tire of seeing you play that first bit of Duke. 😉 It always makes me wanna...GET SOME! 😋
I actually wish he would warp to a different level once in awhile with a cheat code.
@@thedopplereffect00 Or even just pick a different episode. Episode 2 has a great first level.
Oh wow, Resound's boards are so beautiful and so sparsely populated, even considering their cost-cutting measures. The benefits of 30 years of miniaturization, consolidation and BOM prices dropping, I guess!
so is indeed a recently made card for old computers?, wow
I get super nostalgic watching you fly through those game setups. I remember banging my head against the wall diagnosing/troubleshooting IRQ and IO port conflicts >.< Man those were the days!
It looks easy when you can edit the tape. ;)
When my boss got me a new Model 60, with an external 5.25" floppy, it cost over $10k CDN...1988/1989. MCA peripherals were hard to find, and massively expensive
IBM then was like Apple is now, in that they thought they could get away with charging whatever they wanted.
@@BlackEpyon The difference is IBM at that time had their systems and ports cloned with stiff competition. Apple is very comfortable in their environment by setting the standard in phones and computers. Essentially IBM had no reason to be cocky, Apple now has every reason to be even if many of us hate their practices
@@nerdyneedsalife8315 Apple hardware lost their edge when they moved to Intel processors.
I changed my ring tone to the adlib duke3d theme a couple years ago. I still go for my phone to answer whenever I watch lgr and here the theme.
“Blurbin away “ this is what we came to blurbs for m8. It’s fantastic
The focus on the single audio output is a way to reduce extra circuitry and noise 🤟
Also, most people are only going to use the one output anyways. People want to play games on their PS/2 machines, not teleconfrence over dialup or something.
Oh man I just saw the snark barker guy on curiousmarc trying to help fix an IBM pc to try to read old mainframe tapes
One of my biggest regrets was get rid of my old PS/2 Server due to complete lack of MCA sound cards and network adapters other than Token Ring in the local market...miss that machine!
I had to get rid of mine some 15ish years ago.. and I did have soundblaster/mcv and ne/2 carts in those. Who'd have thought those could have payed for my morgage nowadays..
I wouldn't mind getting a hold of a PS/2 machine some day. I love the design, I just hate the fact that MCA cards are so hard and expensive to come by.
I bought an mca adlib, now theres a sound blaster... I neeeeeed it! Even has a gameport 😍
Something I've noticed with the GOG version of Jazz is that if you run the original game without the Holiday Hare add-on, it'll actually display the intro screen from the original shareware copy (including the Jazz CD episodes).
I like that corner of the room you've got it set in, with the lighting underneath
That 3D printed bracket is pretty decent for the way it looks. It just slides right in!
That's REALLY cool. Now I hate myself again for selling my PS/2 Model 70 way back then in the late 90s. But I was a child and needed the money!
I played soo much Monkey Island 1+2 and MSFS5 and whatever on that thing. And I always hated to have select PC-speaker.
For Windows 3.1 I had the "speaker.drv" which allowed to play wave files over the PC-speaker, with the slight downside of blocking the CPU while doing it.
If I still had it, I would have ordered that card RIGHT NOW.
I have a M70. The problem with that one is, you only get three and a half slots.
On mine, one is used by an 8514/A, the second is a network card (or modem, if I ever get around to setting up a home PBX), and the third is a SCSI card since the original HDD (and the replacement I tried) both throw a fatal bus error. That only leaves the half-MCA slot in the drive bay where the OEM HDD plugs in. If I could someday refab a SCSI interface to fit there, then I could actually install a sound card.
But sheesh. Stingy, IBM.
Love that white PCB... wish more boards came with that color scheme.
This is easily the best channel on UA-cam. There is little joy left in life, but watching your videos takes me back to a time when things were better.
bless you friend, I hope you can find some support if you are not doing well. there is other joys in life, its worth looking for.
This is awesome for collectors! I can finally add a sound card to my IBM PS/2 386sx running OS/2 2.11. Once I get it, I'll have to check driver compatibility with the build in drivers. Thanks for sharing this LGR!
There's something about 90s sound effects, music and voice, that just turns my belly to jelly!
The white PCB board with those red caps are too sexy!
I like the layout with all them cards slotted into the computer.
I remember back then having to troubleshoot Hardware like that. The pre plug-in play days.
Love the part consolidation.
Nice, I played Xargon and Hocus Pocus side scrollers all the time. You bring back some good times. All the games you showed I played shame they couldn't have made it play both channels for true stereo sound.
I love that the theme music for Epic Pinball truly is epic. LOL.
It's great to see multiple easily obtainable MCA sound cards on the market now, hopefully some day somebody will bring us an MCA IDE controller to save us from the expense and unreliability of MFM hard drives.
I only understand 80% of what hes saying but I love hearing Clint say it
With all those recreations of old hardware I wonder if it's possible to build an entire computer using only recreations, having effectively a "new old" system.
I'd say his NuXT build managed that
Almost makes me want to go out and find a old PS/2 to put this in :)
We have a global PS/2-focused marketplace group on Facebook - or you can go on to the CSIPH newsgroup if you don't do Facebook. The links are in the description of the latest video on my channel.
A soundcard was a wet dream when i had my PS/2 P70.
I really liked when your PC locked itself twice in a row, and you specifically avoided blaming the card.
Other contect creators, even more if they're purists, would probably have put the blame of the hardware but you didn't. That's one of the reasons why i love your content, Clint.
It's crazy how even after all these years , Duke3D still is so damn good. The Build! engine holds up so amazingly well, even in this old version. There's a certain crispness about these games that I can't describe otherwise.
One major point of praise for the BUILD engine is the level editor. Ken Silverman absolutely nailed it. The only one I've used and thought even came close to BUILD was the version of UnreadEd that came with Unreal Tournament. Can't comment on any subsequent versions, though. I just simply haven't tried them.
I have never loved the look of a PCB until now that is the sexiest pcb in existence
Love the 3D printed bracket!
Love getting new hardware then breaking out all of the old favorites to try on it.
I'm so glad I'm not the only one who likes to test sound cards using Xargon. What a classic!
Honestly I'm surprised it works as well as it does. I've had so many problems with getting stuff working on my PS/2 machines in the past. I'm super tempted to buy one now.
If you do Facebook, search for the PS/2 group there - or I have the links in my video descriptions.
I like that monitor so clean and clear picture wise
The bits from 6:00 to 6:17 seriously need to be sampled. That's some gold right there.
Sounds like a guinea pig. Delicious.
@@horacegentleman3296 You like to eat rodents?
@@ZipplyZane have you tried it?
@@horacegentleman3296 No, but if you actually had, I was going to ask for details on how it tasted.
Also, I believe guinea pigs aren't actually rodents, so I was setting you up for that.
@@ZipplyZane it tastes like sweet tender beef.
White PCB, have not seen them often, looks amazing!
I have no idea what you see in this stuff but I enjoy watching the videos
Some people collect and drive old cars, some people collect and play with old computers. To each their own.
Sounds crisp and LOOKS sharp!
i had a old windows pc similar to this one here..very similar infact, and i had a soundblaster pro, i loved it.
I ran into Jason Emery (Tyrian) at my local walmart around 2000, ironically.
Is it weird that I kind of miss the adventures of setting up IRQ's and DMA's for games back in those days?
Yes, it is weird. :)
11:58 - it just occured to me how the ambient sounds in Duke3D are really important. Thinking back, when I first played it at a friend's house that first level's mood really stuck with me and it was partially because of the sound effects. The distant monster screams and growling are really cool, the sound of your ride flying by that has that wah-wah-wah is super atmospheric and there are some distant female screams too I believe (maybe it's just a higher pitch alien scream) here and there that you don't really listen but it's there and they are equally important to set the mood in Hollywood Holocaust.
The laser of the Assault Trooper always sounded like it's saying "touch-me-now! touch-me-now!"
:D
Dealing with the button-combo switches is also a problem without sound effects. If the combination does something other than unlock a door, you can't tell if it's worked without any sound. Door unlocks at least show a message of "Unlocked!" up the top of the screen, but no other functionality will.
I worked with an IBM computer just like that, and loved that keyboard... Mechanical keyboard before it was cool.
My middle school had those computers, used one for typing class. They are hefty and cool. Must feel good getting the upgrades for them. Great choice of games, thanks for another video.
Yo your channel is great. Check it out guys!
@@Kaelidoz that's very kind. Thank you.
That is a beautiful piece of circuity 🤤
i like that white pcb, looks slick
What a beautiful card
Now I want to play Xargon :)
I love new cards for old systems!
Given how much of a meme Doom running on everything is, this machine is something special.
god damn Tyrian's sound track is just too damn good
Nice demo, nice machine and nice SSK too :)
coool i like how new hw ade for old pc is ade to max performnce while having decent price. i wonde how many othhe new cards ae made for old PCs. great video. youtube enablle even 2080p on this
Whoa that 3d printed plate looks rough.
That solder mask is pretty retina burningly brilliant
That is a beautiful card.
Whoa. I’ve never played Xargon, but its got serious Kid Chameleon vibes and looks like it came out 2 years later. That is really funny.
10:04 WOW! ANDROID has existed since that time ! :) Thank you for sharing the video LGR!
This thing looks sick
love this channel.
Think you're having fun with the microchannel ibms. When they were new we had even more fun getting them to work. No internet just bbs's.
Beautiful!
man, that man menu music from epic pinball sure is a banger
Should also hear the music to "One Must Fall: 2097".
MicroChannel... The interface of the FUTURE. Well, here we are, in the distant future... and someone's still making compatible cards, thirty-odd years later.
If you'd told me, 25+ years ago, that people would be homebrewing old PC cards I'd have probably had a blank face, laughed and asked 'Why?'
But here we are and yet I've always been a believer in bizarre things, cos the world truly is bizarre! 😂
Eh, 25 years ago? Na. 40 years ago, sure, because when computers were all TTL and CMOS logic, people actually did that.
Lol awesome! Love retro sound related videos!!
I enjoy the blerbs!
The PCB is Awesome.
i would have loved to see LHX.... haven't played that in close to 30 years. I do remember it had copy protection, in the form of getting quizzed on stuff in the manual.
Very compatible card with that IBM PS2 most never had sound back in the day you talked about Mca cards were hard to get think you called them I got a pile of those old cards from a guy in CA. years ago never got them working cause I don't know dos that well he said they were hard to setup so I gave up on it think there still around here somewhere
Was checking the website and sure got some cool parts, I've still need to give those CF adapters a try because found an old HP computer without a hard drive so was debating if I should install CF or SSD.
I wish Texelect can implement PCMIDI (MPU401 intelligent mode) + Waveblaster header socket so that you can plug in different wavetable moduels on to the card.
You really ought to add Descent to the games you demo sound with. As a synth soundtrack game it sounds amazing in OPL3.
Likely wouldn't even run on this pc
@@jbfarley I ran Descent on a 486DX/33 with 8MB of RAM for years when I was in high school. Even finished the game without cheating at least once. You can even run the original Quake on that, but you need to use a boot disk to get enough memory, it runs like a slideshow, and the sound breaks up.
With this sound blaster! card, you BETTER play some C&C Red Alert and also show the old installation along with it.. God I miss the old beautiful animations of C&C installations back in the day...
Woohoo i found out through the big ps/2 group you did this vid. It's a neat cycle, i learn about them through your vids, now i learn of your vid through the group. I wish you'd join, it's the big hub for ps/2 as far as i know. And you have a motherlode of the stuff.
I don't have a PS/2 myself, but I can see how they'd have their own cult following. I wouldn't mind getting ah old of one, just for the aesthetic appeal, but they tend to be pricey.
@@BlackEpyon there are cheaper ones and lower numbered models use isa instead of mca
@@natknutson1482 One of the ISA models would be nice, but I don't know if they went beyond 386 for those.
@@BlackEpyon it is possible but I'm not sure. Honestly, though, clint does paint them as more difficult to work with than they really are. The issue with doom is dooms own fault and would happen on regular computers too as it uses different systems from other games. Even then, it can be fixed. The only real issue with mca gaming was sound cards, but now they are easy to get. So, unless you are a die hard gravis guy or must have a 3d accelerator, which i have no clue if they ecist as i haven't looked, they are pretty fine. Jazz, for example, is perfect. My only current issue is that the particular cd drive i have is not playing nice with straight dos.
Fantastic!!
Actually a great option if u don't have older DOS compatible Sound Blaster
that moment when you log into youtube for the first time all day and you see multiple videos you want to watch and you see this one and its a no brainer you are gonna watch this one first
I wish they'd do their own version of the ISA Snark Barker
Thanks! interesting!
Love the white PCB. (Also, saw this with ONE MINUTE AGO) - Hi clint!
Wow these are rare. I could only wish to have a sound card in my Model 95.
This makes me so glad that I started out with a Dell clone in 1992 and not that PS/2 junk. However, I do have to admit that OS/2 Warp3 and 4 weren’t bad.
Man, I remember my old PS/2's and how annoying they were. You couldn't put anything in them! 😆 Still, Street Rod, PC Speaker holds a very special place in my heart. I wish I had my PS/2's back...
this blurb woulda made a great live stream :D
Oh wow. it's been ages sense I played this pinball game.
When ever I see something on this type of sound I often wonder what it would take to play Sound Blaster dos style music on more modernish computers.
Neat. I have an irrational desire to own an MCA PS/2 machine, so this is great. I'm well aware there are better options for me to go with for retro gaming, but for some reason, I want one. Now, if there was a way to get General MIDI output from the thing, that would be amazing.
Xargon, just as crazy sound with Jill of the Jungle.