Are these 8-bit sound cards Adlib compatible? How do they work if not?

devius wrote:

Are these 8-bit sound cards Adlib compatible? How do they work if not?

I couldn't find my card in this list, but it looks somewhat similar to the cards at the bottom under "NAM DO SYSTEMS"

IIRC (And this is years and years ago, I had this in an old Delta Gold 286 system with an EGA monitor), it may have been Adlib compatible... But I think I remember that the way the card worked was, it re-routed the PC-Speaker sound to external speakers and digitized it so it sounded better.

devius wrote:

Are these 8-bit sound cards Adlib compatible? How do they work if not?

Yes, all boards with yamaha opl2 has to be connected to 0x388 port, and work without any configuration everywhere.
And codec part (dac) can be SB-compatibe or not, and sometimes require some proprietary driver to work.

easy_john wrote:

Great! Found my card here http://www.yjfy.com/museum/sound/sound-8-ISA.htm listed as "Toptec Golden Sound"

Yeah, one must be a clone of the other or else both built to a standard design.

easy_john wrote:

Great! Found my card here http://www.yjfy.com/museum/sound/sound-8-ISA.htm listed as "Toptec Golden Sound"

Still that doesn't answer the question... what does it do? The OPL2 is obvious but does it have anything more to offer?

^ I am 99% sure that it will also offer SB support , ie play 8bit samples like a thunderboard for example...
the mcu/cpu/dsp (whatever you wanna call it) on the upper left corner is a giveaway

easy_john wrote:

Great! Found my card here http://www.yjfy.com/museum/sound/sound-8-ISA.htm listed as "Toptec Golden Sound"

Damn close to you'r card. Same as the other "Golden" posted earlier.
Must be different revision's though, same name.

easy_john wrote:

jwt27 wrote:

Compare with the Toptek card I posted. It's a different revision of the same card.

Looks similar, same irq/dma jumpers, position of chips...
Can it be earlier Toptec sound?

If it was a toptec soundcard it would be written it on the PCB..
Maybe it could be one of the sub-vendors of toptek..

I still think profimedia could be the one you are looking for.. But luckily its using the same board as the toptek one..

brostenen wrote:

Damn close to you'r card. Same as the other "Golden" posted earlier.
Must be different revision's though, same name.

More interesting stuff! I wonder, what might be hidden under the label "qc check".
I carefully tore off the label - under it turned out to be a piece of board is white painted. I try to scratch a little bit to remove painted.
And there ..
.
I don't know what to think.

I had to sacrifice a Mitsubishi multiscan monitor which lost a fight with a toner cartridge to retrieve this.

A nice serial touchscreen overlay kit from Microtouch. Should work in other monitors but you basically have to pull the CRT out to stick it on. The three random wires attach to chassis ground, PSU ground and +12 inside the monitor wherever you can find points to solder to so it doesn't need a wallwart.
Documentation is online but so far no sign of any drivers or additional utilities.

easy_john wrote:

More interesting stuff! I wonder, what might be hidden under the label "qc check". I carefully tore off the label - under it tur […]
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brostenen wrote:

Damn close to you'r card. Same as the other "Golden" posted earlier.
Must be different revision's though, same name.

More interesting stuff! I wonder, what might be hidden under the label "qc check".
I carefully tore off the label - under it turned out to be a piece of board is white painted. I try to scratch a little bit to remove painted.
And there ..
.
I don't know what to think.

Well..
As I wrote earlier. Terratech might have been registered in 1994.
Well... Registered as we know the name today.

They might have bought someone out in 1994 or the same two persons have been doing terratech as a hobby up till 1994. I suggest that you write terratech a mail and ask them about it.
Perhaps you could get some new info or they might be happy to see one of their old children.

Got an AdLib GOLD. Looks good, feels good.
Also got the original SoundGalaxy BX. Never ever say one of this before as the BX II is much more common.

Would post pictures if someone is interested.

FGB wrote:

Got an AdLib GOLD. Looks good, feels good....sounds... well.. can't tell right now.
Would post a picture if someone is interested.

Um.... YES!

OK, the Sound Galaxy BX is this beauty. I like the card for its simplicity:

Here a link to the full res pic: http://www.amoretro.de/wp-content/uploads/azt … undkarte_hq.jpg

I wonder if anybody else here at vogons has ever seen or owned the original BX card?

I will post the AdLib card later - I'm just going to play some table tennis now.

FGB wrote:

OK, the Sound Galaxy BX is this beauty. I like the card for its simplicity:

I wonder if anybody else here at vogons has ever seen a BX card?

I will post the AdLib card later - I'm just going to play some table tennis now.

That picture looks perfect on my 8K screen, wait I do not own a 8K screen... 😉
Bah you fixed it fast 😜

Hehe - I noticed that here is no auto scaler. Edited my post. Sorry man!

Well, after a bit of faffing around with research, I've determined two things with regards to the Toshiba T1200 charger saga:

1: This Astec PSU is probably not the original, but a reasonable third-party replacement. The original appears to be a 12V, 2.2A Toshiba PA7485U, but there is only one on eBay, and I refuse to pay about £60 for a charger (far more than the laptop cost me) that would be coming from the US and at the very least need an adapter to use with UK sockets.
2: I have no idea how to take apart the Astec PSU. Found one screw, but that didn't help, and I can't see any others in it. Derp.
3: Although the charger adapter has some slightly less-common dimensions, I connected up one of my universal charger's adapters, and it fits perfectly from what I can tell. So I ordered a 12V-capable universal charger (mine only goes down to 15V). Hopefully this will get the old girl going!

Aztech sound cards came in every Packard Bell back in the 90's and they were an absolute nightmare for using with other hardware. The conflicts these things caused are really where the term Packard Hell is absolutely true. 🤣

King_Corduroy wrote:

Aztech sound cards came in every Packard Bell back in the 90's and they were an absolute nightmare for using with other hardware. The conflicts these things caused are really where the term Packard Hell is absolutely true. 🤣

While your statement may be true for certain (much later) models / revisions it is very untrue for most of the cards Aztech made. One should be precise...
Which models are you referring to? Which problems did you encounter?

The early series of BX / NX generation with OPL2 and OPL3 Chips and the big 0592 chip for DSS comaptibility are very compatible with 99.x% of the SoundBlaster / AdLib compatible games. They are a no brainer to install, configure and use and came with very handy software.

Im not trying to start anything here but from 94-96 I worked doing tech support for a game company. There were a lot of problems but sound problems were almost certainly due to Aztech sound cards. I don't know why they have a good rep on here, they were always considered the worst at the time and always the source of problems.