AdLib Sound Card Over Parallel! The OPL2LPT 

I dream about more games making proper use of adlib gold from time to time myself.

Lazy Game Reviews The YM3812 is used for the SEGA Genesis as well

^Nope, the Genesis uses the YM2612.

I bet the 8-bit guy was making the video around the same time you were. synchronicity! Allways nice to see a second opinion on something like this.

I thought it look similar :) Your and his channel are the best for my generation pc enthousiasts. Keep it up!

Yeah I'd like to get one of those as well! I have the Dreamblaster X1 and was quite impressed.

@phil is there any of these serial paralel sound card solutions that isn't exposed af looking and has an actual case? either that or a pcmcia sound card similar in tone?

You can always get your own case for it.

GemCat It's a shame Radio Shack went under... one of their little project boxes would have made a nice fit for the OPL2LPT. That said, it wouldn't be hard at all to throw a box together from scratch if you _really_ wanted to.

It would be a lot of work considering most of these will come as a pile of components and not an actual working board. Still, its an option.

Zylon FPV He's just living up to his title of Lazy Game Reviews :)

MadameSpuki yeah, that’s my point 🙂

Zylon FPV oh I know. Just saying.

I've bought non-assembled stuff. There's always a chance you'll end up mucking up a solder joint and keep having to test... retest... and retest.. to get it working. It's honestly worth it for most people to just pay the fee.

LGR : LAZY- game-reviews . lol

Modern Vintage Gamer How many PC-98 games support an OPL2 card over a PC-9801-26 or -86?

Now that would be a game-changer!

Gravis Ultra Sound LTP1 version haha

that would be amazing

Well unless emulated, it would be HUGE and expensive ASF.

General MIDI could be done on a gameport. But since gameports are generally found on soundcards, it kindof defeats the purpose

you could of waited and see if 8-bit guy still has some still....he was selling as a US Distributor, sooo you dont need to pay those 30 dollar shipping fees

I'd be down!

I'd buy anything with an LGR seal.

... Lazily approved though... Gotta be careful with your wording here... XD It could so easily leave the wrong impression...

KuraIthys, agreed. Perhaps something like the LGR logo then underneath "Approved by Clint" and not actually have the word lazy.

I like that thought... "It has sooo many pins, so it _must_ be able to do _awesomeness_, right? Right?"

i be head bangin right now too dude!

The main problem you're going to hit is bandwidth. Even in EPP mode, a parallel port has a maximum throughput of 2.5 MB/sec (compared to PCIe at 500 MB/sec per lane). There was a parallel port Adlib/SoundBlaster device a few years ago (I don't think anyone makes it anymore); when playing samples at 44100 Hz, the driver had to downsample it before sending it to the parallel port.

But what if we use two parallel ports... in parallel?

@@an2qzavok just multiplex many parallel ports in a single parallel port, bro

Games of the AdLib generation were designed to use an FM synth channel for sound effects. That is, those games weren't lacking sound, they just used different hardware to generate it. (For e.g., in Wolfenstein where you pick up health and treasure, or everything in Lemmings -- that all uses the Yamaha chip.) Later era games were written for later era cards that had both FM synth and DMA-enabled PCM audio -- namely, the SoundBlaster series. While the OPL2 can *technically* do PCM, it's not very adept at it, so it was rarely used. Games of that time would still support plain AdLib cards because of a large existing installed base (relatively), but since there was (effectively) no PCM support, there would be no sound effects. Solution -- upgrade to a SoundBlaster.

That's my verdict as well, it's a great device with a bright future through patching.

It's a review. You kinda have to mention the observed negatives or it isn't really a review.

In my school, when one of the teachers is sick or whatever, some people gather around the PC to play SuperTuxKart, hotseat coop style. I have no idea how they can actually win a race. tl;dr; pseudo-coop is alive and well >.>

We did this for Starfleet Academy, a game where there were literally two dozen buttons to press. One of us would fly, the other would fire weapons and manage systems. I still have a memory of trying a mission forever and then my friend Danny spends the night and we clobbered it on the first try. There's a good memory of a Klingon Bird of Prey getting blown in half permanently burned into my brain from that sleep-over. Good times.

Hah. Cool stories :P glad I'm not alone in some crazy backwards universe.

Gotta love the 90s. Who remembers a classic called "Fury of the Furries" ?

I used to play some kind of rally game with a friend in the early 2000s. We would take turns driving and shifting gears, even going so far as shifting in a lower rev range if the car had taken damage. We thought it would help prevent damage the engine further... but that old cheap game surely wan't simulating engines so deeply.

The fix would be to use a soundcard that can place PCM digital sound. It's not gonna happen on this.

From what I've gathered, YM3812 chips are still made brand new, or were up until recently. You can get new ones quite easily and cheaply.

That's really cool, thanks for the response! I wonder what kind of modern endeavors would need such a chip, but if it can help produce stuff like this it is definitely worth it. I hope we will see an OPL3 attempt in the future, since it's basically just a supercharged OPL2 with more modes/voices, and the die is even smaller. As you mentioned it's a life saver for old monochrome laptop users!

Serdaco is working on an OPL3, SMD version, but I am not sure if it really pushes it to SoundBlaster 16 compatibility, or simply emulates an OPL2.

The AWE32 has a CT1747 chip which has the OPL3 synthesizer integrated.

zummone Remarked old Chinese stock or clones. OPL2s aren’t manufactured any more and a date code of “0824” is a dead giveaway

... Makes you wonder, huh. There is literally nothing on that board that wouldn't be available back then... A little costly, perhaps, in theory... But available, for sure... Guess it's just that nobody thought of it at the time...

Well, the USB wouldn't be available, so they'd have to use a different type of power input :)

Why not *_30_* years ago? Powerful home computer technology wasn't even *_remotely_* close to as ubiquitous (and hence, dirt fucking cheap) as it is these days... or even *_20 years ago_* for that matter. If somebody was in the market for a bleeding-edge 80486 in the very very late 80's, chances are it would include an actual sound card out of the box. Allow me to present a New York Times article dated October 22, 1989 with 80486 machine cost figures that will make your nuts retreat to behind your eyeballs: www.nytimes.com/1989/10/22/business/the-executive-computer-the-race-to-market-a-486-machine.html Quoting, with *BOLD* emphasis mine: *_''We believe the 80486 will reset the industry standard for personal computer price-performance,''_*_ said Lee Hoevel, chief architect for the NCR Corporation's work station products division. NCR is among several companies that have already announced they are in the race to sell the first 80486-based systems. _*_For prices expected to be $10,000 to $20,000,_*_ the computers are believed to be capable of performing on the same scale as minicomputers costing several times as much."_ (I emphasized the price-performance bit because it cracked me up) To be clear, adjusted for inflation to November, 2017 dollars, that would read: *"... For prices expected to be $19,639.25 to $39,278.50 ..."* A couple hundred bucks for a real whiz-bang ISA sound card wouldn't have been a big deal if playing the sordid looking selection of PC games available at the time was a goal of yours. For what it's worth, if for some reason you actually wanted to purchase a -laptop- luggable portable in those days, I can promise you that you wouldn't even dream of playing games on the portable displays available at the time unless it was a 100% text adventure like Zork. When the multimedia PC push gained traction in the early 90's, there were many, MANY inexpensive Sound Blaster clones on the market (as well as included in almost all standard PC manufacturers machines) that offered not only passible (and usually 100% Sound Blaster compatible) FM synthesis capabilities, but full 16-bit PCM sound support as well... leaving the OPL2LPT's capabilities in the dust. The OPL2LPT fills in a nerdy niche market that was just far too small to be considered worth the cost of engineering the hardware and software, let alone the production of such a unit, when the permeation of cheap sound hardware in the era when the average CPUs were powerful enough to use the OPL2LPT were commonplace.

Yeah... I missed the USB port - but ultimately it's just being used as a glorified 5 volt DC power jack. 30 years ago by the way is 1987... If you want to be pedantic, that's the year the adlib card was first available. And honestly, you don't have to tell some of us about the 80's and 90's. We were there. ;p In 1993 we got a 'multimedia PC' for $2300 Australian dollars. (486 SX 25, 4 megabytes of RAM, Pro Audio Spectrum 16 sound card, 2x CD-ROM drive.) In 1990, my mother was intent on buying a 486 that would have cost 7000 guilders (dutch currency). Instead they talked her into buying a 286 for 5000 guilders. I don't know where those 10-20,000 USD numbers come from, but given you're talking 1989, and we were buying a PC in 1990, I think your numbers are a little overblown. It's great reading about this stuff and all, but I remember it, because I lived through it. Computers were expensive, yes. but generally not THAT expensive. Unless someone is massively over-inflating the price for various reasons.

This item would of retailed for $99 - $150 with out any issues. My Sondblaster card was $70 in 1989

The x86 CPU addresses it directly via its I/O instructions, and I haven't yet seen a BIOS allowing you to remap the I/O address to an arbitrary number (probably because the decoding is mostly hardware), so not really. I assume changing this port in the game executables is what the patcher does (edit: it's a bit more involved, because there's bus control as well, duh).

Yes indeed, there are multiple USB options now! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-dg33QLkHAu4.html

Jack Mcslay It has pins on it that you could use to solder on a wire with a floppy power connector or a barrel jack. A floppy connector probably wasn't included as the device is meant to be used externally.

That is explained in this video at 06:27, as well as in his video at various points. Some games used the FM synth for sound effects (like Keen) while others relied on a Sound Blaster or compatible (like Doom.) And of course, there are others like Stunt Driver that used the FM synth to modulate PCM sounds, but this is an uncommon thing.

Like Adaptec APA-358

Ha!