candle Posted August 6, 2009 Share Posted August 6, 2009 As some of You already know i was working on soundcard for Atari 8bit computers that could provide major update for VBXE equipped computers As this is prototype - it comes in form of cartridge, but final version will be internal device located at D2C0 (remember the thread about SimpleStereo board? it is off the bus at D2C0 - just because of this board ) Anyways some basic info: 8 channels 8bits per channel with hardware volume, panning, and envelope support FM synthesis possible (like SID or OPL chips) 512k of fast SRAM for sample storage and here is what it looks like: This project is in cooperation with Epi (the author of NeoTracker), and should be avaivable in october to general public Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Stephen Posted August 6, 2009 Share Posted August 6, 2009 (edited) As some of You already know i was working on soundcard for Atari 8bit computers that could provide major update for VBXE equipped computersAs this is prototype - it comes in form of cartridge, but final version will be internal device located at D2C0 (remember the thread about SimpleStereo board? it is off the bus at D2C0 - just because of this board ) Anyways some basic info: 8 channels 8bits per channel with hardware volume, panning, and envelope support FM synthesis possible (like SID or OPL chips) 512k of fast SRAM for sample storage This project is in cooperation with Epi (the author of NeoTracker), and should be avaivable in october to general public Looks awesome!!! Sort of makes the Covox obsolete. Can I be the 1st to ask then they will be available? Stephen Anderson Edited August 6, 2009 by Stephen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thelen Posted August 6, 2009 Share Posted August 6, 2009 Wow ! that will be great in colabration with the VBXE board ! Are there already some sound samples the atari has produced with the prototype board for us to hear ? very cool !!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
candle Posted August 6, 2009 Author Share Posted August 6, 2009 (edited) re-read the first post october with gods help thelen: not yet, as i've purchased tda1543 (DAC for this board) in DIP8 instead of SO8 package Edited August 6, 2009 by candle Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pajero_pn Posted August 6, 2009 Share Posted August 6, 2009 (edited) Looks awesome!!! Sort of makes the Covox obsolete. Can I be the 1st to ask then they will be available? Stephen Anderson Covox. Soundtrack exists from over 15 year. SoundBoard. Must revolt. And also I support it is wanted - development! Edited August 6, 2009 by pajero_pn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mathy Posted August 6, 2009 Share Posted August 6, 2009 Hello Candle 8 channels 8bits per channel with hardware volume, panning, and envelope support Could that be used for Dolby Surround 7.1? greetings Mathy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mimo Posted August 6, 2009 Share Posted August 6, 2009 erm, can I cancel the simple stereo board and wait for one of these Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
candle Posted August 6, 2009 Author Share Posted August 6, 2009 depends if You've paid then not besides - it won't work as second pokey is not to replace - is to add Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dwhyte Posted August 7, 2009 Share Posted August 7, 2009 (edited) Oh my... May I inquire as to which version of the UltraSound chip? The GF1? The GFA1? This is so awesome... Excellent, excellent, EXCELLENT work gentlemen... Edited August 7, 2009 by dwhyte Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted August 7, 2009 Share Posted August 7, 2009 Cool... so I assume you just stuff the data and this thing can play with minimal CPU intervention, ie not timers or looping to stuff sample data? How does the RAM fit into the memory map? Would be great to also be able to have RAMDisk, extra memory for games etc. Will a cart only plug/play version be available as well as built-in - or are you only doing a built in version? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dwhyte Posted August 7, 2009 Share Posted August 7, 2009 (edited) Hmmm... VBXE, SoundBoard, Bob's 7.16MHz CPU upgrade... Congratulations gentlemen... You've created what the next step in Atari's 8bit line should have been. With a few modern bells and whistles like lotsa lotsa RAM... So that makes an extra 1MB now that I'm not mistaken with both the video and sound upgrades... AWESOME!!!! Edited August 7, 2009 by dwhyte Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
candle Posted August 7, 2009 Author Share Posted August 7, 2009 depends on the market Garry - external version is tempting because of easy installation, but internal is way to go ultimatly firstly you need to stuff in all sample data through one register (its not memory maped device - its like isa card where you got one io port for address and another for data) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
simonl Posted August 7, 2009 Share Posted August 7, 2009 Excellent work guys, can't wait for October! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frogstar_robot Posted August 7, 2009 Share Posted August 7, 2009 Hmmm... VBXE, SoundBoard, Bob's 7.16MHz CPU upgrade... Congratulations gentlemen... You've created what the next step in Atari's 8bit line should have been. With a few modern bells and whistles like lotsa lotsa RAM... So that makes an extra 1MB now that I'm not mistaken with both the video and sound upgrades... AWESOME!!!! Yep. It's the Atari IIGS. I know the problem isn't insurmountable but doesn't Bob's upgrade need some tweaking to co-exist with VBXE? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beetle Posted August 9, 2009 Share Posted August 9, 2009 Candle, what about a preorder thread for the SoundBoard? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
candle Posted August 9, 2009 Author Share Posted August 9, 2009 Beetle, too early! Even the prototype board isn't fully populated yet, and i have few other projects for A8 running in parallel! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mos6507 Posted August 9, 2009 Share Posted August 9, 2009 IMHO, these are the sorts of things that should be plugged into a 1090XL sort of card cage. It just seems kind of wrong to hang them on the cart port without a pass-through. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
candle Posted August 9, 2009 Author Share Posted August 9, 2009 its going to be internal, but for easy of things and for the development reasons iis now made as cartridge Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
candle Posted December 8, 2010 Author Share Posted December 8, 2010 so here we go specs: FPGA based, Xylinx Spartan 3 16 channels, 8bit samples, 16/24bit output build-in 2 Pokey chips cores and simple Covox interface for compatibility with existing software Internal version sits in Pokey soket, but doesn't replace it External version available (Cartridge), but limited to SoundBoard specific functionality (NO POKEY support in this version) Base address: D2C0 offset name bits description 0 SBchnAdr low 24 Base address of sample for playback 1 SBchnAdr mid 2 SBchnAdr high 3 SBchnLen low 16 Sample lenght 4 SBchnLen high 5 SBchnRep low 16 Sample repeat (offset to be loaded 6 SBchnRep high when phase accumulator reaches sample lenght 7 SBchnFreq low 16 constat to be added to phase accumulator 8 SBchnFreq high 9 SBchnVol 8(6) volume for given channel (left aligned 6 bit) A SBchnPan 8(6) panning control for given channel (la 6 bit) B SBchnAtt 8 Attack rate for ADSR envelope generator C SBchnDec 8 Decay rate for ADSR envelope generator D SBchnSust 8 Sustain volume level for ADSR envelope generator E SBchnRel 8 Release rate for ADSR envelope generator F SBchnCtrl 3 Channel Control (see below) 10 SBsmAdr low 24 Base address of memory pointer for sample load 11 SBsmAdr mid 12 SBsmAdr low 13 SBsmDta 8 Data register for sample load 14 SBchnNo 4 Channell number selector (0-15 selects apriopriate channell) bitfields for SBchnCtrl: bit name description 0 DMAEN when 1 enables DMA for given channel when 0 disables DMA for given channel 1 Gate when 1 ADSR generator stops at Sustain when 0 ADSR generator continues with Release 2 ADSREN when 1 enables ADSR generator when 0 ADSR generator is bypassed 3 FMMOD when 1 channell becomes modulator for channel n+4 ie Channel 0 becomes modulator for channel 4 ch. 1 -> ch. 5 etc in this mode channel output is treated as follows Let Channell 0 is called Modulator and Channell 8 becomes Carrier, then Carrier.frequency=Modulator.Sample_value*(Modulator.ADSR*Modulator.Volume) output value is 16 bit, so Volume*ADSR can be treated as modulation depth only 8 upper bits of Volume*ADSR product are taken into consideration Base clock for each channell is phi2 Memory size is 1024kB, so only 20 of 24 bits of address registers are valid after reset all SBchnCtrl registers are zeroed, rest is undetermined CAUTION! Playing of sample starts from beginning only when at first channel will be disabled then enabled; enabling yet enabled channel don't go. actual implementation: number of channels cut down to 4, FPGA used in prototype and code evaluation is quite small - its Acex 1k known from VBXE boards, and since it was developed on VBXE2 board I've decided to release VBXE2 core one could load using FC.COM At this stage from software point of view there is only player for *.neo files (NeoTracker by Epi/Tristesse) - playback routine has worse case of 32 raster lines (CPU time), with average of 15 and minimum of 8 I would like to thank Mono for all his hard work he put into this project so far, because without software, even greatest hardware is worthless, and he is one of few people, who cares TODO (software): add native support for *.mod, *.s3m and *.xm files write dedicated sound tracker TODO (hardware): make a prototype with dedicated FPGA chip and DAC converter implement ADSR - if possible (due to limited resources of Acex chip) with VBXE2 hardware Some files: Audio: Enigma.mod Dune.mod JSetNeo.neo Crimson.neo Aurora.neo Tools: Neoplay Sample DMA test SoundBoard.xbf - only for VBXE2 users Connecting Your VBXE2 to PC Speakers (these with built-in amplifier) Connector J5, Pin #1 - GND Pin #3 - Audio L Pin #5 - Audio R Quality of VBXE2 output will be limited down to 5bits per channel, sinice DAC used for VBXE is only 7 bit, and we're downmixing 4 channels into one Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Stephen Posted December 8, 2010 Share Posted December 8, 2010 Very cool - I like the cartridge idea. Thanks for the NEO files, I'll test them on my CoVox. I love NeoTracker. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mono Posted December 8, 2010 Share Posted December 8, 2010 Hi. NEOPLAY distributed in package is .NEO files player for SDX only. Features: - detect SB under $D600, $D500, $D2C0 (two latters not tested for now), - resolve wildcards * and ?, - add .NEO extenssion if absent (empty extenssion will be forcced by ending dot f.ex. "NEOPLAY FILE*."), - print module title and sample names (after using /X switch), - support for NEO Tracker 1.12 and 1.4+ modules, - panning settings for every channel separatelly (0,255,255,0 by default). Panning values means like: 0 - most left user side, 128 - center, 255 - most right user side. SB has 512KB SoundRAM inside so size of all samples in .NEO module must fit. Quick help is display when player is called without parameters. Have a fun P.S. Big thanks for Epi/Tristesse for original NEO playing code. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phaeron Posted December 8, 2010 Share Posted December 8, 2010 I made a side branch of Altirra for emulating the SoundBoard: http://www.virtualdub.org/beta/Altirra-1.8-abxe-test2.zip http://www.virtualdub.org/beta/Altirra-1.8-abxe-test2-src.zip It's enabled via System/Audio/ABXE (didn't know the name at the time); it's mutually exclusive with VBXE emulation until I decouple the two. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Syfo-Dyas Posted December 10, 2010 Share Posted December 10, 2010 How did I over look this?! And a software app is being written for it as well! Perfect! I know I'll want a couple of these for sure! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mclaneinc Posted December 10, 2010 Share Posted December 10, 2010 How did I over look this?! And a software app is being written for it as well! Perfect! I know I'll want a couple of these for sure! I did wonder why so little comments, great hardware and it already emulated, an awesome pair. Can't say I'm fond of the included mods but sounds great Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UNIXcoffee928 Posted December 10, 2010 Share Posted December 10, 2010 H.S.! I missed this too, when I was off at the Natami forum. This is amazing news... absolutely thrilling, actually. Great Work! Very impressive, even at the conceptual level, let alone to do it in FPGA, and have emulator support so quickly. As far as form factor, I would vote for a box that is outside of the computer, more like the 850 interface. It would easier to upgrade later, it would look more like a real Atari Peripheral, and wouldn't have to be crammed into the computer case like all of the other mods out there. ...or, if it is small enough, build it into a set of speakers, and just add 1/8" IN/OUTs to the speaker shells. You might be able to find a lot of speakers for less money than a lot of project boxes. Anyway, Best wishes on your work! PS, Sort of off topic, but... there is now a $12,000.00 bounty for FPGA Engineers to port the Video Toaster, over at openvideotoaster.org... http://www.openvideotoaster.org/ All of the original source has been released, since a while back. It's worth checking out, it could help to fund all of your Atari Hardware projects, if you can do it. The bounty is valid & available until 2012, so it is quite likely to get even higher. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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