I have a boxed game blaster with all the software and everything with it , if you want it dave let me know . Had no idea you were looking for one Edit: I was able to get a hold of david via facebook and he said it was ok and doesn't need it anymore so it's all cool. and i'm genuinely surprised at how rare this card seems to be as I thought it wasn't very interesting or popular. lol
Actually, right now the CX16 has the YM2151, SAA1099 (only 1), and the PSG/PCM parts of the VERA chip. 8 YM + 6 SAA + 16 VPSG + 1 VPCM = 31 channels!!! A question you might think is "Why have 2 PSG's in the system instead of just 1?". As you may have heard, the SAA is more AY-like, while the VPSG is more SID-like (except it's a bit cut back in features). The SID-like sound is what C64 fans would want to have for a brand-new Commodore-inspired retrocomputer.
This sound card in particular seems extremely powerful if it can perfectly recreate so many different machines' sound hardware. A wise choice to be using this for the Commander X16!
That was really cool. It never ceases to amaze me the effort going into building new hardware (and software) for older computers. Also, I must say that your sound quality has always been on point.
he really is, it's hard to notice because he's made it to not be noticed?..but he's also *really good* at capturing CRT screens without that funky vertical sync image tearing.
@@synexiasaturnds727yearsago7 I thought that was a game from the 90s but when I saw the cell phone in his hand I was confused also I've never played it I just saw the ad for it on Gog I believe
I just recently started getting into Yellow Magic Orchestra and now I see it referenced in an 8-Bit Guy video. Crazy pants.
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Have you cheked their "Propaganda" concept short film ? Rydeen is the last track in it ! (also the soundtrack from this short film is on the "After Service" album)
This gives me an idea; do a DOS choir of different sound cards playing the same song/melody synchronised together. Really curious what that'd sound like.
The combo PSG/subtractive synth is a really nice one. I'm quite glad this is the route chosen for the CX16! More computers with sound like the Sharp 68k are very welcome
Sad about those thing,s they usually ended up in the dump as one upgraded to a newer computer. It's the same computer, only newer. Why keep this old junk? Had an SB 2.0 clone, SB16 among others once.. All gone... :(
I had a SoundBlaster 16, neatest thing about it was you could directly output CD Audio, so be playing a game and listening to a CD, or directly playing the games CD audio tracks. In the days when a ghetto blaster with a cd player was several hundred pounds this was a nice cheap feature.
If i had that card, i would put a couple small 3 pole on/on switches on the back IO that went to the Mhz jumpers. Something easy to flick just by feel alone.
Lassi Kinnunen So you’re saying that a parallel port dongle with a TSR program to configure it makes more sense to you, than remotely installing a physicals switch somewhere on the case of your computer ? I don’t think so dude, an extra DOS driver is going to be much more prone to having a spew. You wouldn’t have to install the switch’s on a port panel on the back, you could easily just drill a hole in the front and bung then wherever you want.
I'd be curious whether it's safe (with the current PCB design) to change frequencies while the machine is running. If not, then that's a pretty good argument for not providing an external toggle.
@@sirspate Just what I thought. Also potentially sending several Mhz through simple wires over like 50 cm-1m is probably also not a good idea. Also because switches are having a bouncing effect of the contact, so upon every switching you'd interrupt the signal several times until the contact settles
I really thought about putting a switch on the back, but honestly, I was already a little terrified about putting both clocks next to each other already. I was only brave enough to try it, because it worked ok on the X16 prototype, but the CPU is NEVER happy about switching on the fly. There are two clocks, one from the ISA bus (14.318) and one derived from an 8MHz crystal on the card. David didn't mention it in the video, but there are actually two jumpers. You can swap the SAA's from 7.16Mhz or 8Mhz too. There were a few platforms which ran the SAA @ 8Mhz, but the CMS was 7.16Mhz. I already needed the extra 4MHz for the YM2151 so it kind worked out to use 8 and divide. However, now I have 4 clocks(5 really)! I know it's not ideal, but I made the jumpers intentionally difficult to change. I really want people to turn the machine off to switch them. I also did look at some programmable oscillators too, but they are pretty much all TWI or SPI. I have tried to use SPI on ISA before by using a port to select the chip, but SPI wants that line to stay selected until you finish a sequence, and you really have no control over the ISA bus. The only other method would be to use a microcontroller, or some other logic to drive this line, but honestly, there are nearly 100 parts on this card now. It actually wound up being fairly complicated before the end. :-) That said, it will probably work ok to put a switches on it. Probably coax would be best and you could hook an SPDT straight to the jumper headers. Also, I may, or may not have switched it while on before and nothing died. However, if you do this in the middle of the song, you're probably going to hear some garbage until you restart the song, etc.
After hearing them via a Roland MT-32 device or the CD audio versions which are basically the Roland mastered to CD audio I can't stand the Sound Blaster / Adlib versions of the sound tracks for those two games. I played most of the Money islands games on a system with CD audio support so it is forever how I remember the sound.
@@YKSGuy I can understand that. Any game I have on my dosbox setup that can use Roland I have it enabled even though the dosbox MT 32 emulsion isn't perfect still sounds good to my ears... though when I'm feeling nostalgic I go SB 16 lol
@@JohnSmith-xq1pz Download Munt, a Roland MT-32 emulator that is as perfect as you can get; you'll only hear a difference if you've got really good ears, and you play the real deal and the emulator right after another. The real Roland MT-32 sound is just a tiny, tiny bit fuller.
@@3dmaster205 cool I'll try that thx Edit I wonder if that'll help with my star wars Dark Forces game... general midi sounds good Roland MT 32 sounds better but the high notes are to high and the low notes too soft. I've never been able to get them balanced out.
NOICE! I have a Sound Blaster 16, but I'm going to snag one of these up, too.
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8:17 featured in a Arcade game, but Rydeen is actually originally a song by Yellow Magic Orchestra released a few years before (as told by the software, in the "Solid State Survivor" album in '79, along with great hits such as Tong Po). Also the Harrier song at 8:45 is also the starting screen music on Japanese Master Systems (which happen to be different of Western ones, as they have a special FM synthesis chip) if you start the console without pluging a game !
If we can make stuff like that Sorcerian track on the Commander X-16, I'm really looking forward to eventually being able to afford one. (I'd look forward to it anyway, but that just seems extra amazing.
Still have the Yellow Magic Orchestra LP with that Rydeem (locomotive) track. I remember being in an arcade place in the late '80s and heard what I thought sounded just like the YMO music coming from one particular games machine. It's only just now that this video had finally confirmed it for me.
Dave, I am SO happy that you made a show about the Gameblaster/CMS sound card!!! A couple of things: 1. This was the first dedicated sound card for my PC, so I remember it very fondly. Programming it was a bit of pain (back in those days) due to the programming guide Creative sent you. I remember having to pay for it. And they sent what felt like a photocopied pamphlet. It also had errors in it, hence the frustration of not quite hearing what you wanted after reading it a couple of times (in those days I was so-so with my x86 assembly). I can’t find a link to a scan of it, so I’ll see if I can find it and post it here. (I’m sure it’s somewhere out there) 2. My friends (to this day!) feel that the game Times of Lore is a great example where the card actually stood should-to-shoulder with the MT-32/MPU-401 (or the combined LAPC-1 card, which I had as well). Here is a very thorough play through of the intro and title music -> th-cam.com/video/TAAx2jIx_xA/w-d-xo.html. The title screen music is LONG, so skip to around 5:22 to hear the intro songs. Perhaps the version of ToL on other machine are better, but it’s (IMHO) a great example. 3. Some EE friends and I were going to build a synth module with a quad configuration of Phillips SAA-1099s. I had a AVR microcontroller (ATmega368, I think...) already programmed to accept MIDI input, deal with channel allocation and voice stealing, control a cool LCD screen with low-res graphics displaying all of the card’s parameters (per voice and global), CC events for the envelopes, program change events for presets we made, both quarter inch (line-level) and 1/8 inch outputs, etc, etc, etc. We never finished, though we had a working prototype (the filtering required for decent output was... interesting :) ). I think I have 100 or so of the chips in plastic tubes in storage. I should really finish it... Apologies for the novel, but I just loved this card!
@@Kevinsyel It's very likely, however, that the X1 version of this track was arranged by Koshiro's former co-worker, Mieko Ishikawa, who took over music duties for Sorcerian after its first release on the NEC PC-88. Koshiro's PC-88 original has less voices due to being composed for the less capable YM2203 (OPN) sound chip, though both versions use the same PSG arrangement. (Koshiro stopped working for Falcom shortly after contributing to Ys II for PC-88 back in 1988.)
Very cool sound card. I was surprised to hear how much better the Yamaha chip sounds. I remember when my brother installed an AdLib card in his Tandy 1000 when the card came out. I distinctly remember being blown away by the really good audio 🙂
OMG, Super Locomotive music!!! I never expected to see it anywhere since it is such a arcade rare game (only like 35 cabinets were made), thanks for showcasing it 8-bit!!!
8:26 I'm getting more and more into YMO's music. First it was a little bit too Asian for my European ears but now I can really enjoy these beautiful songs.
This sound card is amazing! Normally you can always hear a quiet noise (rustle), but here: crystal clear sound! I will definitely get one for my retro project! Thanks for testing!
You know this could not have come at a better time! I'm looking into sound hardware for my own 8-Bit (you may remember I breifly mentioned it in emails) but it has the same sound chip design I was going to use and 8-Bit ISA is really convenient for me! Will probably have to pick one up!
Wow, that's my first computer! At least the first I had to myself and not a "family computer". Mine was the Tandy model and was a 386 but I'm positive that was the same case and layout. I spent so much time scouring computer magazines and trying to scrape up money as a 12 year old to add memory, bigger hard drive, a CD-ROM, Sound Blaster, etc. to what was really an already old outdated computer--but it was the one I had! Never thought I'd see one of those again.
Hearing how the NES Super Mario Bros. theme song played perfectly through the clone card had me wondering if it could play from handhelds like the Game Boy, or from an actual arcade port (Capcom CPS2, Naomi, Midway, Nintendo Ultra 64 for games like Killer Instinct). I'm really curious to know what those ports used for handling music.
We used to have a soundblaster 2.0 card and back in the day we purchased the cms/game blaster kit together with it and never really regretted it. If we ever got tired of the mono fm sound, we could switch to the 12 voice stereo square wave blessing of the cms game blaster. To this day I still own the card and the box, as it seats nicely in my pentium 133 msdos machine. Back in the day we used it in an XT machine. We were the coolest nerd kids on the block with sucha fancy soundcard in a 4 color pc.
I think it's amazing how many classic games were programmed by just one or two people and had the art done by just one or two people, and many of them have better stories than a lot of modern games do.
Hey it's a GRiD computer! Really cool to see them get some recognition even if it's one of the later Tandy systems! Covering GRiD is still the most popular thing we ever did
Are you sure switching the jumper setting does the right thing for this player? The 4Mhz Space Harrier sounds way too high pitched, whereas the 3.5Mhz sounds more or less correct, so I'm betting the software does the necessary frequency conversions assuming a 3.5Mhz chip. (By comparison, software VGM players simply set the speed of the emulated chips and be done with it.) Also let's not forget the extremely rare IBM Multimedia Computer System or whatever it was called that also had a YM2164.
Yep...Space Harrier is a game I still regularly play. Arcade and then later Saturn back in the day, then MAME recently until it was released on the Switch, and the 4 MHz version is DEFINITELY too high pitched.
YM2151 is favorite synth chip. I guess the era I grew up makes the sound of that chip "the real deal" in my ears. Love the bass it makes. Even built a "thing" with that chip and it's accompanying DAC to play VGM files from an SD card. Love that CMS too. I have a Sound Blaster 1.5 with the CMS chips installed. You know what, I love the bass of this thing too when played through big speakers.
That sound at 4mz is very good, that computer your building is going to be awesome. Graphics, music, speed is going to be retro on steroids. The machine will run for decades to come I bet. I had a Yamaha sound card for my older computer and it vastly improved my sound quality.
2014-not a computer geek but was interested in the videos 2016- got my first vintage computer 2019- all I ever do is sit in my room and Mess around on my vintage computers learning to code in basic Edit. Thank you all for the comments
Well, BASIC is the best way to start programming on old computers. Heck, even new ones if you use Visual or standard BASIC. The B stands for "Beginner's," after all.
I don't even understand wtf these videos are about, but this guy seems to know what he's talking about, it's Saturday night , I'm drunk and nothing else to do.
This reminded me that a few years ago I saw a photo in japan of a gatcha machine (think gumball machine with toys) But it vended out random sound chips and I'm pretty sure the YM2151 was one of them... I went to japan earlier this year but I definitely would have went on a hunt for that machine. Love the commander x16 project and these side products coming out of it too!
You finally got rid of that Apple AP/Router thing on your wall. Damn! I've been watching the channel since around the time you put it on there lol I'm surprised no one mentioned it yet.
Wow! That's so cool! I'm an FM Synth junkie and the YM-2151 is one of my fave chips! So many great arcade tunes and X68000 too. I need that card! I even compose for the YM2612, but I'd love to start composing for the 2151, and that card could be an incentive. Would also love to play back YM2151 OSTs from original hardware!
The NEC PC-88, PC-98, and X68000 are absolutely fantastic machines with a lot of cool games and music. It's a cool world to dive into if you've never heard of the machines before.
I loved my Game Blaster, and was disappointed when It stopped being supported, forcing me to upgrade to the Sound Blaster. U6 music on the GB was an all time favorite. Was nice to hear it again!
I recently bought an AppleSauce floppy disk controller so I can archive my Apple software collection using flux. As evident in this video, it's becoming more and more difficult to find obscure game and software titles that are actual disk images and not just zipped folders with half the files missing. Next item on my list is a KyroFlux to flux image all my non-Apple stuff. It's so important to archive these software titles in their entirety. Before you know it, they'll all be gone and there'll be no way to get them back. I'm also the same way when it comes to obscure VHS-only videos, especially early horror, fantasy, and sci-fi films. There were just an insane number of them made during the 70s and 80s that'll never see a digital release. Some of them are actually pretty good. I really like shows like AVGN and RLM, bringing light to some of these obscure movies. And, of course, MST3K. :D Keep circulating those tapes!
I always appreciated the CMS/Game Blaster because at least it's in stereo, and also has a lot more voices than the usual OPL2 FM Synthesis. But I can see why the flashier FM sound won out in the end, even if it's only in Mono.
CMS / Game Blaster being stereo (and offering a "second sound card" socketed to the primany one) was the reason why I got the CMS Game Blaster upgrade for my first, original Creative Labs Sound Blaster back when it was still fresh on the market.
Neat point about running at different frequencies. The comparison changed the key of the tune by exactly one step from the key of D to the key of C. That piqued my interest because of some experiences I've had with trying to copy videos of songs from TH-cam (which I know I'm not supposed to be doing). Once burned to DVD, the copy somehow ended up playing one step lower than the original TH-cam clip. Plus the song had a muddled sound to it. I'm wondering if TH-cam has programmed some sort of routine into its system to change the frequency in order to discourage copyright infringement.
Yes, many computers from that era and earlier were built like tanks; they were built to last far longer than their usefulness. I still have a functioning Apple II+ and and two functioning Mac SE30s; all owned by me since the 1980s and never been repaired even once.
I have a boxed game blaster with all the software and everything with it , if you want it dave let me know . Had no idea you were looking for one
Edit: I was able to get a hold of david via facebook and he said it was ok and doesn't need it anymore so it's all cool. and i'm genuinely surprised at how rare this card seems to be as I thought it wasn't very interesting or popular. lol
Bump =)
Please like and comment, guys!
Send an e-mail to him
Yeah! Email him or PM him on Facebook!
Will it be covered in furry filth?
Man, your Commander X16 is going to sound just like something from the arcades.
Indeed!
Gonna look like it too.
Considering the Sharp X68000 had almost perfect arcade sound and graphic emulation? Oh yeah, we're gonna party!
@@DrillimationSystems I B M P C T O U H O U
Actually, right now the CX16 has the YM2151, SAA1099 (only 1), and the PSG/PCM parts of the VERA chip. 8 YM + 6 SAA + 16 VPSG + 1 VPCM = 31 channels!!!
A question you might think is "Why have 2 PSG's in the system instead of just 1?". As you may have heard, the SAA is more AY-like, while the VPSG is more SID-like (except it's a bit cut back in features). The SID-like sound is what C64 fans would want to have for a brand-new Commodore-inspired retrocomputer.
This sound card in particular seems extremely powerful if it can perfectly recreate so many different machines' sound hardware. A wise choice to be using this for the Commander X16!
I guess it was chosen as a powerful, yet simple and cheap option allowing for stereo sound.
That was really cool. It never ceases to amaze me the effort going into building new hardware (and software) for older computers.
Also, I must say that your sound quality has always been on point.
he really is, it's hard to notice because he's made it to not be noticed?..but he's also *really good* at capturing CRT screens without that funky vertical sync image tearing.
Cookie's House Cannabis Co Most skillful to be sure!
"Here's one everyone will recognize."
> Leisure Suit Larry
I can see why he didn't mention it by name. =p
Or why he didn't let that 1st scene play through? ;-)
Just got to check timber and see if i can strike a match.
@@bland9876 oh cool totally related
@@synexiasaturnds727yearsago7 I thought that was a game from the 90s but when I saw the cell phone in his hand I was confused also I've never played it I just saw the ad for it on Gog I believe
Why? Puritanian US?
You're my hero for playing the Space Harrier Theme!
I just recently started getting into Yellow Magic Orchestra and now I see it referenced in an 8-Bit Guy video. Crazy pants.
Have you cheked their "Propaganda" concept short film ?
Rydeen is the last track in it !
(also the soundtrack from this short film is on the "After Service" album)
Whoa, same here. Just a few months ago I discovered YMO, then Rydeen pops up here!
Yeah that was a shock. Was absolutely not expecting to hear Rydeen in an 8-bit Guy video.
Sega is the best for using it suits a train game perfectly tho haha
8:17 Super Locomotive music (Rydeen by Yellow Magic Orchestra) is my favourite arcade music ever.
NO wonder it sounds so familiar!
The game itself in also pretty rare! Rydeen is a tune~
8:44 The two last tunes were amazing and the change in frequency blew my mind!
This gives me an idea; do a DOS choir of different sound cards playing the same song/melody synchronised together. Really curious what that'd sound like.
LGR did that with his MIDI tower
@@nrdesign1991 Do you have a link to that vid? Wanna hear/see it!
@@DrakkarCalethiel th-cam.com/video/eiMP-PlL6VM/w-d-xo.html
Perhaps not all at once but close enough
something like lmnc's gameboy choir?
@@nrdesign1991 While he did that, I don't think he ran the MT2GM patch on the MT-32, which made the song he played sound a little odd on that module.
The combo PSG/subtractive synth is a really nice one. I'm quite glad this is the route chosen for the CX16! More computers with sound like the Sharp 68k are very welcome
FM may sound similar, but it is quite opposite to the subtactive synthesis. The only retro sound chip that featured subtractive capabiltiies was SID.
Pretty neat makes me wish we kept our old sound cards
I turned down a massive box of sound cards, and graphics cards, for 15 bucks at a flea market years ago. I kick myself every time I think about it.
@@brucehubbard2602 bro I've walked past boxes of old PC parts and just have a quick look but walk away and now I kinda wish I had bought some.
I have all my old sound cards, but like ISA sb16 clone is as old as I ever had
Sad about those thing,s they usually ended up in the dump as one upgraded to a newer computer. It's the same computer, only newer. Why keep this old junk? Had an SB 2.0 clone, SB16 among others once.. All gone... :(
I had a SoundBlaster 16, neatest thing about it was you could directly output CD Audio, so be playing a game and listening to a CD, or directly playing the games CD audio tracks. In the days when a ghetto blaster with a cd player was several hundred pounds this was a nice cheap feature.
If i had that card, i would put a couple small 3 pole on/on switches on the back IO that went to the Mhz jumpers. Something easy to flick just by feel alone.
Lassi Kinnunen So you’re saying that a parallel port dongle with a TSR program to configure it makes more sense to you, than remotely installing a physicals switch somewhere on the case of your computer ?
I don’t think so dude, an extra DOS driver is going to be much more prone to having a spew.
You wouldn’t have to install the switch’s on a port panel on the back, you could easily just drill a hole in the front and bung then wherever you want.
I'd be curious whether it's safe (with the current PCB design) to change frequencies while the machine is running. If not, then that's a pretty good argument for not providing an external toggle.
I feel like it might be detrimental to the card, if that was possible when it's powered. Maybe...
@@sirspate Just what I thought. Also potentially sending several Mhz through simple wires over like 50 cm-1m is probably also not a good idea. Also because switches are having a bouncing effect of the contact, so upon every switching you'd interrupt the signal several times until the contact settles
I really thought about putting a switch on the back, but honestly, I was already a little terrified about putting both clocks next to each other already. I was only brave enough to try it, because it worked ok on the X16 prototype, but the CPU is NEVER happy about switching on the fly. There are two clocks, one from the ISA bus (14.318) and one derived from an 8MHz crystal on the card. David didn't mention it in the video, but there are actually two jumpers. You can swap the SAA's from 7.16Mhz or 8Mhz too. There were a few platforms which ran the SAA @ 8Mhz, but the CMS was 7.16Mhz. I already needed the extra 4MHz for the YM2151 so it kind worked out to use 8 and divide. However, now I have 4 clocks(5 really)! I know it's not ideal, but I made the jumpers intentionally difficult to change. I really want people to turn the machine off to switch them. I also did look at some programmable oscillators too, but they are pretty much all TWI or SPI. I have tried to use SPI on ISA before by using a port to select the chip, but SPI wants that line to stay selected until you finish a sequence, and you really have no control over the ISA bus. The only other method would be to use a microcontroller, or some other logic to drive this line, but honestly, there are nearly 100 parts on this card now. It actually wound up being fairly complicated before the end. :-)
That said, it will probably work ok to put a switches on it. Probably coax would be best and you could hook an SPDT straight to the jumper headers. Also, I may, or may not have switched it while on before and nothing died. However, if you do this in the middle of the song, you're probably going to hear some garbage until you restart the song, etc.
Omg LOOM and Monkey Island. Sooooo many memories
😎
After hearing them via a Roland MT-32 device or the CD audio versions which are basically the Roland mastered to CD audio I can't stand the Sound Blaster / Adlib versions of the sound tracks for those two games. I played most of the Money islands games on a system with CD audio support so it is forever how I remember the sound.
@@YKSGuy I can understand that. Any game I have on my dosbox setup that can use Roland I have it enabled even though the dosbox MT 32 emulsion isn't perfect still sounds good to my ears... though when I'm feeling nostalgic I go SB 16 lol
@@JohnSmith-xq1pz Download Munt, a Roland MT-32 emulator that is as perfect as you can get; you'll only hear a difference if you've got really good ears, and you play the real deal and the emulator right after another. The real Roland MT-32 sound is just a tiny, tiny bit fuller.
@@3dmaster205 cool I'll try that thx
Edit
I wonder if that'll help with my star wars Dark Forces game... general midi sounds good Roland MT 32 sounds better but the high notes are to high and the low notes too soft. I've never been able to get them balanced out.
NOICE!
I have a Sound Blaster 16, but I'm going to snag one of these up, too.
8:17 featured in a Arcade game, but Rydeen is actually originally a song by Yellow Magic Orchestra released a few years before (as told by the software, in the "Solid State Survivor" album in '79, along with great hits such as Tong Po).
Also the Harrier song at 8:45 is also the starting screen music on Japanese Master Systems (which happen to be different of Western ones, as they have a special FM synthesis chip) if you start the console without pluging a game !
If we can make stuff like that Sorcerian track on the Commander X-16, I'm really looking forward to eventually being able to afford one. (I'd look forward to it anyway, but that just seems extra amazing.
Still have the Yellow Magic Orchestra LP with that Rydeem (locomotive) track. I remember being in an arcade place in the late '80s and heard what I thought sounded just like the YMO music coming from one particular games machine. It's only just now that this video had finally confirmed it for me.
What a great day to start Christmas vacation. New videos from both LGR an 8-Bit Guy
Dave, I am SO happy that you made a show about the Gameblaster/CMS sound card!!!
A couple of things:
1. This was the first dedicated sound card for my PC, so I remember it very fondly. Programming it was a bit of pain (back in those days) due to the programming guide Creative sent you. I remember having to pay for it. And they sent what felt like a photocopied pamphlet. It also had errors in it, hence the frustration of not quite hearing what you wanted after reading it a couple of times (in those days I was so-so with my x86 assembly). I can’t find a link to a scan of it, so I’ll see if I can find it and post it here. (I’m sure it’s somewhere out there)
2. My friends (to this day!) feel that the game Times of Lore is a great example where the card actually stood should-to-shoulder with the MT-32/MPU-401 (or the combined LAPC-1 card, which I had as well). Here is a very thorough play through of the intro and title music -> th-cam.com/video/TAAx2jIx_xA/w-d-xo.html. The title screen music is LONG, so skip to around 5:22 to hear the intro songs. Perhaps the version of ToL on other machine are better, but it’s (IMHO) a great example.
3. Some EE friends and I were going to build a synth module with a quad configuration of Phillips SAA-1099s. I had a AVR microcontroller (ATmega368, I think...) already programmed to accept MIDI input, deal with channel allocation and voice stealing, control a cool LCD screen with low-res graphics displaying all of the card’s parameters (per voice and global), CC events for the envelopes, program change events for presets we made, both quarter inch (line-level) and 1/8 inch outputs, etc, etc, etc. We never finished, though we had a working prototype (the filtering required for decent output was... interesting :) ). I think I have 100 or so of the chips in plastic tubes in storage. I should really finish it...
Apologies for the novel, but I just loved this card!
"only card that can play this tune", wow....just wow
yep, when he said that, I was like "who would write a track that complex"
Composer: Yuzo Koshiro
... ah. that makes sense.
Falcom's musical staff has always been top shelf.
@@Kevinsyel It's very likely, however, that the X1 version of this track was arranged by Koshiro's former co-worker, Mieko Ishikawa, who took over music duties for Sorcerian after its first release on the NEC PC-88. Koshiro's PC-88 original has less voices due to being composed for the less capable YM2203 (OPN) sound chip, though both versions use the same PSG arrangement. (Koshiro stopped working for Falcom shortly after contributing to Ys II for PC-88 back in 1988.)
Kool to see stuff like this being made.
Very cool sound card. I was surprised to hear how much better the Yamaha chip sounds. I remember when my brother installed an AdLib card in his Tandy 1000 when the card came out. I distinctly remember being blown away by the really good audio 🙂
OMG, Super Locomotive music!!! I never expected to see it anywhere since it is such a arcade rare game (only like 35 cabinets were made), thanks for showcasing it 8-bit!!!
8:26 I'm getting more and more into YMO's music. First it was a little bit too Asian for my European ears but now I can really enjoy these beautiful songs.
Check out more of the individual artists own music too!
@@FuzzballRenakitty Okay. I will do it. I only know Sakamoto right now.
This sound card is amazing!
Normally you can always hear a quiet noise (rustle), but here: crystal clear sound!
I will definitely get one for my retro project!
Thanks for testing!
This was a fantastic video. I love that people are out there still cranking out new equipment for retro machines. Thanks for sharing!
okay that's super neat! chiptune and PC sound stuff has always interested me (like I love what the MT-32 does to MIDI files) so this was cool to see!
8:25, that song is Yellow Magic Orchestra - Rydeen ;)
X68k's Space Harrier theme looks like a Japanese Sega Master System startup
yes
Your intro soothes my soul! I know I'm in for a treat every single time. Thank you 8-bit guy!
You know this could not have come at a better time! I'm looking into sound hardware for my own 8-Bit (you may remember I breifly mentioned it in emails) but it has the same sound chip design I was going to use and 8-Bit ISA is really convenient for me! Will probably have to pick one up!
Thank you for playing the Loom title song. I loved playing that game when I was a kid. We had a Sound Blaster.
Wow, that's my first computer! At least the first I had to myself and not a "family computer". Mine was the Tandy model and was a 386 but I'm positive that was the same case and layout. I spent so much time scouring computer magazines and trying to scrape up money as a 12 year old to add memory, bigger hard drive, a CD-ROM, Sound Blaster, etc. to what was really an already old outdated computer--but it was the one I had! Never thought I'd see one of those again.
So many youtubers dont deserve all the attention they get, but you deserve it all, and MUCH MORE !!!!
Space Harrier! Sounding as wonderful as ever!
That's a very cool card, good stuff.
thank you so much!!! ive been looking for that locomotive tune forever!
Pretty neat Review and explaining and sound card Murray!
Hearing how the NES Super Mario Bros. theme song played perfectly through the clone card had me wondering if it could play from handhelds like the Game Boy, or from an actual arcade port (Capcom CPS2, Naomi, Midway, Nintendo Ultra 64 for games like Killer Instinct). I'm really curious to know what those ports used for handling music.
We used to have a soundblaster 2.0 card and back in the day we purchased the cms/game blaster kit together with it and never really regretted it. If we ever got tired of the mono fm sound, we could switch to the 12 voice stereo square wave blessing of the cms game blaster. To this day I still own the card and the box, as it seats nicely in my pentium 133 msdos machine. Back in the day we used it in an XT machine. We were the coolest nerd kids on the block with sucha fancy soundcard in a 4 color pc.
I think it's amazing how many classic games were programmed by just one or two people and had the art done by just one or two people, and many of them have better stories than a lot of modern games do.
Hey it's a GRiD computer! Really cool to see them get some recognition even if it's one of the later Tandy systems! Covering GRiD is still the most popular thing we ever did
This card would make my IBM PC XT 5160 so very happy! Beautiful board. Good job guys!
Are you sure switching the jumper setting does the right thing for this player? The 4Mhz Space Harrier sounds way too high pitched, whereas the 3.5Mhz sounds more or less correct, so I'm betting the software does the necessary frequency conversions assuming a 3.5Mhz chip. (By comparison, software VGM players simply set the speed of the emulated chips and be done with it.)
Also let's not forget the extremely rare IBM Multimedia Computer System or whatever it was called that also had a YM2164.
Yep...Space Harrier is a game I still regularly play. Arcade and then later Saturn back in the day, then MAME recently until it was released on the Switch, and the 4 MHz version is DEFINITELY too high pitched.
YM2151 is favorite synth chip. I guess the era I grew up makes the sound of that chip "the real deal" in my ears. Love the bass it makes. Even built a "thing" with that chip and it's accompanying DAC to play VGM files from an SD card. Love that CMS too. I have a Sound Blaster 1.5 with the CMS chips installed. You know what, I love the bass of this thing too when played through big speakers.
You know, I've never played Space Harrier, but every time I listen to that song it gives me chills. It's awesome.
Thanks for reminding me of the Space Harrier theme! Sounds exactly how I remember it ;)
That sound at 4mz is very good, that computer your building is going to be awesome. Graphics, music, speed is going to be retro on steroids. The machine will run for decades to come I bet. I had a Yamaha sound card for my older computer and it vastly improved my sound quality.
Love vintage game audio hardware videos ^.^ thanks for sharing!
I loved hearing all those old game tunes.. brings back memories
Always feels so Retro these days! I loved it.
2014-not a computer geek but was interested in the videos
2016- got my first vintage computer
2019- all I ever do is sit in my room and Mess around on my vintage computers learning to code in basic
Edit. Thank you all for the comments
Pretty much exactly the same here hahah
To me that constitutes progress!! 😀
That's awesome!
It's like being a kid in the 80s and 90s again. Except the internet makes coding anything so much easier!
Well, BASIC is the best way to start programming on old computers. Heck, even new ones if you use Visual or standard BASIC. The B stands for "Beginner's," after all.
7:47 - Nintendo EntertAIMent System
Man, that Space Harrier theme gives me chills to this day. Welcome to the Fantasy Zone... GET READY
I just woke up in the morning and the first thing I see is a notification of another 8-bit Guy vid. A pleasant surprise indeed!
Playing both chipsets sounds awesome - especially from so long ago!
7:26 Sega Master System is one console that uses this file format.
Oh yeah, that YM Synth sound...... :)
Congrats on passing 1 mill subs, 8 Bit Dude!
best footage i'vfe ever seen captured by a camera pointed at a screen
Links to hours long videos of these files running and captured so amazingly like around Good job 8bit guy we are all behind you brother 9:15
Co-worker: "What are you watching?"
Me: "SAAYM - A CMS GameBlaster clone with a YM2151"
Had it been one of my co-workers, the re-reply had been : "Ohh, is that from the new StarWars movie?"
@@LaFaJe "Nah , that's YT 1300F."
me right now in the office at break
Co-worker : *scratches head*
I don't even understand wtf these videos are about, but this guy seems to know what he's talking about, it's Saturday night , I'm drunk and nothing else to do.
The space harrier theme... that takes me back!
I got a Game Blaster back in 1989. Scrapped it in 1994 for a Gravis Ultrasound. Man how I regret throwing it away.. Lol. Thanks for the video.
That Sorcerian track is one of my favorite tracks of all time, cool to see it on 8-bit guy and in dual chip glory!
This reminded me that a few years ago I saw a photo in japan of a gatcha machine (think gumball machine with toys) But it vended out random sound chips and I'm pretty sure the YM2151 was one of them... I went to japan earlier this year but I definitely would have went on a hunt for that machine.
Love the commander x16 project and these side products coming out of it too!
Thanks for sharing this, I love this kind of retro-remake hardware!
I'm glad I found an original card at the dump a few months ago.
Space Harrier is probably my favourite piece of game music
This video is an excellent example on why the Commodore 64 still was so much popular for games than a PC back then.
Wasn't expecting YMO and Sorcerian. Awesome video!
mario song plays
nintendo: demonetize
The big N: this is not okie dokie
@@samppa_j
Nice :)
That's a cool little card. Love that nostalgic music. Also, +1 for the Doctor Who shirt.
The Death Zone!
As always - everything is wonderful and very interesting! Thank you so much!!!
You finally got rid of that Apple AP/Router thing on your wall. Damn! I've been watching the channel since around the time you put it on there lol I'm surprised no one mentioned it yet.
This sound card is basically the Sega Genesis sound system on steroids with the combined FM and PSG sound
When you played YMO's Rydeen, that made my day
Wow! That's so cool! I'm an FM Synth junkie and the YM-2151 is one of my fave chips! So many great arcade tunes and X68000 too. I need that card! I even compose for the YM2612, but I'd love to start composing for the 2151, and that card could be an incentive. Would also love to play back YM2151 OSTs from original hardware!
I love it when Techmoan and The 8-Bit Guy release videos on the same day!
Excellent video and music showcase. Sounds great.
Yo, I completely marked out when you showed Jones In The Fast Lane.
I used to love that game back in middle school. lol
Oh Man... Space Harrier music... Fantastic!
And that Yuzo Koshiro Sorcerian music is amazing too!
9:05 - that's a banging tune
Yep. Need to find that game with that music now.
@@ahandsomefridge Here it is: th-cam.com/video/AT2Vlz5ry28/w-d-xo.html
@@Jingleboy14 Awesome, thanks!
The NEC PC-88, PC-98, and X68000 are absolutely fantastic machines with a lot of cool games and music. It's a cool world to dive into if you've never heard of the machines before.
Not gonna lie, these sounded fantastic on my DT-990's over my AE-5. :). Awesome stuff!
Sega's music is always amazing 8:49
I know this is for the master System, but why does it say "System: Sharp X68000"
@@joshm264 Sega's arcade game, thus the port.
I loved my Game Blaster, and was disappointed when It stopped being supported, forcing me to upgrade to the Sound Blaster. U6 music on the GB was an all time favorite. Was nice to hear it again!
I recently bought an AppleSauce floppy disk controller so I can archive my Apple software collection using flux. As evident in this video, it's becoming more and more difficult to find obscure game and software titles that are actual disk images and not just zipped folders with half the files missing.
Next item on my list is a KyroFlux to flux image all my non-Apple stuff. It's so important to archive these software titles in their entirety. Before you know it, they'll all be gone and there'll be no way to get them back.
I'm also the same way when it comes to obscure VHS-only videos, especially early horror, fantasy, and sci-fi films. There were just an insane number of them made during the 70s and 80s that'll never see a digital release. Some of them are actually pretty good. I really like shows like AVGN and RLM, bringing light to some of these obscure movies. And, of course, MST3K. :D
Keep circulating those tapes!
4:50- Because I was listening with headphones, the stereo sound really was amazing to hear in a system and card like this!
At 9:30 there is even a “one more thing”! OMG David, you are a master! ;-) Thanks for the video!
oh man i LOVE jones in the fast lane!!! A friend showd it to me way back in 1998, such a fun little game
I always appreciated the CMS/Game Blaster because at least it's in stereo, and also has a lot more voices than the usual OPL2 FM Synthesis. But I can see why the flashier FM sound won out in the end, even if it's only in Mono.
CMS / Game Blaster being stereo (and offering a "second sound card" socketed to the primany one) was the reason why I got the CMS Game Blaster upgrade for my first, original Creative Labs Sound Blaster back when it was still fresh on the market.
That software is amazing, huge props to the person who made it
Can't wait till you review C64 maxi! And there is something going on behind your back 😉 I remember those videos where you were making desks 😊
Neat point about running at different frequencies. The comparison changed the key of the tune by exactly one step from the key of D to the key of C. That piqued my interest because of some experiences I've had with trying to copy videos of songs from TH-cam (which I know I'm not supposed to be doing). Once burned to DVD, the copy somehow ended up playing one step lower than the original TH-cam clip. Plus the song had a muddled sound to it. I'm wondering if TH-cam has programmed some sort of routine into its system to change the frequency in order to discourage copyright infringement.
Great video love all your videos your just a happy guy when doing your videos keep up the awesome work David Murry
Yes, many computers from that era and earlier were built like tanks; they were built to last far longer than their usefulness. I still have a functioning Apple II+ and and two functioning Mac SE30s; all owned by me since the 1980s and never been repaired even once.
Yaaay my fav youtuber uploads!
For a moment there I thought you named you Ultima VI character "sh**."
Me too!
Congrats on a million subscribers!
Oh, Ken Williams. That's why the password was "Ken sent me" :-) Nostalgic sounds. It was pretty mind blowing to get the first proper sound card.
Oh Space Harrier, one of the coolest arcade games ever made, and certainly the coolest of its time!