How did the Speccy scene beat the ST scene to Dual YM Stereo boards?

[Lynxpro]

I was perusing the Youtube today and I noticed there's a Dual YM Stereo Board for the Spectrum computers. How on earth did the Spectrum scene beat the ST scene to such an accomplishment? And considering how well the Tweety Board sold back in the day, how come no major commercial vendor offered a Dual YM expansion sound board for the ST? In hindsight, it seems like a no-brainer.

 

And even in the modern Apple II enthusiast scene, they now have Mockingboard clone boards, some of which can support 4 YM/AY sound chips. They're even adapting MODs created for the ST to run on their boards.

 

So, anyone enterprising up to creating a Dual YM Stereo Board for our STs?

[ParanoidLittleMan]

I don't think that dual YM boards or like are way to good audio. Or were way. Proper way is called DMA audio. Period.

[high voltage]

I was perusing the Youtube today and I noticed there's a Dual YM Stereo Board for the Spectrum computers.

 

At least it's from 'no sound' to 'a little bit of sound'......

[Lynxpro]

I don't think that dual YM boards or like are way to good audio. Or were way. Proper way is called DMA audio. Period.

 

But few ST titles take advantage of the DMA audio features of the STE. Adding a second YM2149 would give semi-stereo to existing ST software just like Dual POKEY boards do on A8 or Dual SID boards on the C64 do.

 

And based upon the numerous arcade games that use the even better YM2151 chip, I have to say its audio is superior to the DMA-based audio of the Amiga PAULA.

 

 

The audio from Dual YM2149 [or AY] - or Quad YM2149 - based Mockingboards sound cards for the Apple II sounds better than the single YM2149 in our STs to my ears. I'm surprised their scene didn't go for the Ensoniq chip found in the Apple IIGS but perhaps it would be too much of a pain to back port its audio to existing Apple II games as opposed to just supporting the 40 or so Apple II titles that supported the Mockingboard back in the day.

Edited January 18, 2016 by Lynxpro

[ParanoidLittleMan]

Dual and quad boards sound better than single ! What a shock !

And who will write SW for that board ? This idea is just not serious. Let's do something, because some others did (on machine without sound chip), Talking about arcade sound ... who will do code for it, for what games ?

It could be interesting somewhere around 1987 - and maybe someone did something like that already then.

[Lynxpro]

Dual and quad boards sound better than single ! What a shock !

And who will write SW for that board ? This idea is just not serious. Let's do something, because some others did (on machine without sound chip), Talking about arcade sound ... who will do code for it, for what games ?

It could be interesting somewhere around 1987 - and maybe someone did something like that already then.

 

First off, simulated stereo - dual mono, actually - would happen on a Dual YM Board regardless of whether or not games were written specifically to support them.

 

Second, I should've specified Spectrum 128, which did have an AY/YM chip on it; just not two. My apologies for not caring enough about the Sinclair electronic door stoppers to correctly name the specific model. Youtube will still find the videos whether you search for "spectrum" or "speccy".

 

As for whom is coding for it, ask yourself whom is coding for added sound to Spectrum 128 and Apple II games? Enthusiasts. On the Atari 8-bit side of things, several coders are supporting stereo via Dual POKEYs.

 

And as for it not being "serious", how is it less "serious" to do this to STs than people adding Dual POKEYs to their Atari 8-bit computers, Dual SIDs to their Commodore 64s, Dual YMs to their Spectrum 128s, or Dual/Quad YMs to their Apple IIs?

 

I'd expect such negativity on the Jaguar side of the Forums, not here...

 

You also complain about my citing the YM2151. Well guess what? 7800 homebrew coders are writing for it right now since it's included with the XM Expansion Board for it. The intent is to use the original arcade sound from various arcade games that used the chip. A YM2151 upgrade for the ST or Falcon would allow the same thing; adding the arcade sound back to such game conversions. You do know people are porting Sharp X68000 games over to the Falcon, right? The Sharp computer used the YM2151, FYI.

Edited January 18, 2016 by Lynxpro

[galax]

The Tweety-style mixing of the sound channels to the left and right can mess up sampled sound- you'd have to keep switching the damn thing on and off all the time. Did the Tweety really sell well? I remember them in magazines, but I've never seen one.

 

I had a Replay Stereo playback cartridge BITD that did 16kHz or so stereo samples on an pre-STE, and was sup from Quartet and a few games such as Wings of Death. It was fun to tinker with but wasn't well supported.

Edited January 19, 2016 by galax

[ParanoidLittleMan]

To finish this from my side: Spectrum 48 or 128 with YM chip: they are 8-bit machines, with slow bus. Atari STE has much faster bus where audio DMA is practically free - audio playback does not slow anything, not even RAM access.

You want same sound as some arcade machine ? Get sample of it's audio and convert to STE format, than play it in game. Simple, and not limited to only 1 specific chip combination. This is how most of sound playback is done in MAME arcade emulator. We don't need extra sound HW for STE, we need only to use what is done in 1989 properly.

[Lynxpro]

The Tweety-style mixing of the sound channels to the left and right can mess up sampled sound- you'd have to keep switching the damn thing on and off all the time. Did the Tweety really sell well? I remember them in magazines, but I've never seen one.

 

I had a Replay Stereo playback cartridge BITD that did 16kHz or so stereo samples on an pre-STE, and was sup from Quartet and a few games such as Wings of Death. It was fun to tinker with but wasn't well supported.

 

I'd say the Tweety Board was sorta-popular. Compared to a lot of hardware upgrades/accessories, it was cheap and considered to be an easy mod.

 

I don't think I've seen the Replay cartridge in-person back-in-the-day. Read about 'em. If you still have it, it would be interesting to see a video of it in action.

[Lynxpro]

To finish this from my side: Spectrum 48 or 128 with YM chip: they are 8-bit machines, with slow bus. Atari STE has much faster bus where audio DMA is practically free - audio playback does not slow anything, not even RAM access.

You want same sound as some arcade machine ? Get sample of it's audio and convert to STE format, than play it in game. Simple, and not limited to only 1 specific chip combination. This is how most of sound playback is done in MAME arcade emulator. We don't need extra sound HW for STE, we need only to use what is done in 1989 properly.

 

But not everyone has an Atari STE. It's also not like there's an existing board out there that will add its DMA sound chip to an STM, STF, STFM. And again, most of the software out there doesn't support STE audio. Adding a second YM2149 would at least enable Dual Mono for the software not written for dual chips.

 

Sampling eats away at the CPU. Adding a YM2151 and a driver would be a lot less overhead combined with a patch to run the arcade audio processed by said sound chip. If the 7800 enthusiasts can do this, I don't see why the ST enthusiasts couldn't. Atari Games and Sega both used it extensively in their arcade games from 1984 on.

[ParanoidLittleMan]

No STE ? Buy it. Or get MIST board. That may cost little more than some obscure expansion, but you get beside DMA audio lot of other things.

I said that DMA playback cost not CPU time at all, and you come now with "Sampling eats away at the CPU" - it is not sampling (what you can not do with STE) but sample playback. And costs no CPU time. Even with horizontal overscan 416px it works with full speed and not affecting CPU speed at all - I tested it myself.

[soviet]

Ok on the speccy side of things theres not only "TurboSound" as is called the dual YM expansion. There is TurboSoundFM use dual ( YM 2203 ) they are 100% compatible on the AY/YM but they also add FM great songs can be produced also the speccy addon must work straight on if you install it on a ST but sotware must be developed for use.

http://www.nedopc.com/TURBOSOUND/ts.php

http://velesoft.speccy.cz/turbosound-cz.htm

[English Invader]

Why not just enjoy the ST for what it is instead of trying to turn it into an Amiga? The ST has great games and entertainment value whether you're using a 4MB STe + hard drive emulator or an off-the-shelf 520 STfm and floppy disks. Same deal with the Speccy.

[soviet]

Because i enjoy it and also enjoy the insane things the russians made for the speccy

[Muzz73]

I've had a couple Tweety Boards in my time and yes, they were phenomenally easy to install - solderless! The board had some double-faced tape on the under side and you piggy-backed it onto the YM.

 

Apart from being cheap and easy enough for a baboon to install, the board really had no redeeming qualities, IMHO... all it did was take a sub-par sound chip and split the channels out.

 

It was fun to mess around with, though.

[ParanoidLittleMan]

Yes, in Russia were made some really nice Spectrum expansions. And I guess that there was pretty much SW done for it. I remember some Doom conversion for instance.

 

The things are that doing some general purpose expansion like: faster CPU, more RAM, mass storage adapter is what does not need special SW for it, except driver, of course.

But something like video or audio expansion is different: you can not make use of it for existing SW, except few cases. Atari ST is still machine where direct HW access is used a lot, especially in games.

So, only some SW, what draws on screen via VDI,, AES, Line-A can benefit from new video adapter, and only if is written to support more colors, higher resolutions. And we know that number of such SW is very low, may count on 1 hand.

Similar is with audio. And even doing driver for expansion cards helps not - SW still needs to support extra features.

[Lynxpro]

Ok on the speccy side of things theres not only "TurboSound" as is called the dual YM expansion. There is TurboSoundFM use dual ( YM 2203 ) they are 100% compatible on the AY/YM but they also add FM great songs can be produced also the speccy addon must work straight on if you install it on a ST but sotware must be developed for use.

http://www.nedopc.com/TURBOSOUND/ts.php

http://velesoft.speccy.cz/turbosound-cz.htm

 

Well, if the YM2203 is fully backwards compatible with the YM2149, it would only need the extra code to support the extra features. I forget what other function the YM2149 does for the ST besides sound but the YM2203 would also have to do the same thing otherwise it would break compatibility and functionality and cause crashes.

 

That's some impressive stuff on those links!

[Lynxpro]

Yes, in Russia were made some really nice Spectrum expansions. And I guess that there was pretty much SW done for it. I remember some Doom conversion for instance.

 

The things are that doing some general purpose expansion like: faster CPU, more RAM, mass storage adapter is what does not need special SW for it, except driver, of course.

But something like video or audio expansion is different: you can not make use of it for existing SW, except few cases. Atari ST is still machine where direct HW access is used a lot, especially in games.

So, only some SW, what draws on screen via VDI,, AES, Line-A can benefit from new video adapter, and only if is written to support more colors, higher resolutions. And we know that number of such SW is very low, may count on 1 hand.

Similar is with audio. And even doing driver for expansion cards helps not - SW still needs to support extra features.

 

 

Again, Dual Mono with 2 YM2149s wouldn't require software updates. It would be better than the Tweety Board and someone's bound to update a MOD player or 2 to support multiple chips. The more I think about it, the more it surprises me that nobody did this during the ST's commercial lifetime.

[Lynxpro]

Why not just enjoy the ST for what it is instead of trying to turn it into an Amiga? The ST has great games and entertainment value whether you're using a 4MB STe + hard drive emulator or an off-the-shelf 520 STfm and floppy disks. Same deal with the Speccy.

 

Why does anyone want to upgrade any of their equipment? Why do North American Sega Master System owners add the Yamaha sound chip to their consoles that only the consoles in Japan were equipped with? Why do Atari 8-bit owners upgrade their computers with 65816 CPUs and VBXE graphics updates? Because they can!

[galax]

I don't think I've seen the Replay cartridge in-person back-in-the-day. Read about 'em. If you still have it, it would be interesting to see a video of it in action.

 

Unfortunately almost all of my old ST stuff was left at my parents and was given away at a car boot sale for next to nothing after I left the country- only took a suitcase with me and there was no room so wasn't much room for STs. It might be around somewhere though, I've been planning to have a poke around in the loft back there for a few years, maybe it'll show up...

[soviet]

This turbo sounds FM boards are still manofactured i have purchased mine some months ago and they are not expensive at all.

Today arrived my first atari st in like 15 years, have the ym soldered i have to do some nasty soldering to see if the turbo sound works on it.

[Lynxpro]

This turbo sounds FM boards are still manofactured i have purchased mine some months ago and they are not expensive at all.

Today arrived my first atari st in like 15 years, have the ym soldered i have to do some nasty soldering to see if the turbo sound works on it.

 

You are a brave man to test it out on an ST. If it works, you'll have to make a YouTube video of it!

[Van]

This turbo sounds FM boards are still manofactured i have purchased mine some months ago and they are not expensive at all.

Today arrived my first atari st in like 15 years, have the ym soldered i have to do some nasty soldering to see if the turbo sound works on it.

Hi Soviet, Will be eager to hear your results

Yogi

[Van]

 

Well, if the YM2203 is fully backwards compatible with the YM2149, it would only need the extra code to support the extra features. I forget what other function the YM2149 does for the ST besides sound but the YM2203 would also have to do the same thing otherwise it would break compatibility and functionality and cause crashes.

 

That's some impressive stuff on those links!

The PSG in the 2203 is software compatible with the AY. On the ST, the YM's I/O ports are used for Floppy, Parallel and Serial ports. The footprint between the 2149 and the 2203 are different of course. The only problem I could see is the Yamaha FM cores tend to impose wait states after a write to the chip, and don't know if this affects the access to the PSG also on the 2203.

There was a few related messages over at SNDH archive

http://dhs.nu/bbs-tracking/index.php?request=779

 

Yerzmyey wrote

 

 

Still, there are some problems. It doesn't like to play digital music and sometimes it's required to start digital music twice, without reset (only on the second time it works OK) which is a pity because not all programs can restart music (and sadly after reset it will work badly again).

Which seem like another Yamaha issue, a chip reset needed after cold boot. The Microchip version of the AY3-8910 has been found to have this problem as well as some YM2413s.

Not sure if Yerz has tried the TFM board in an ST, or he is describing it's performance on Speccy's. Yogi

[soviet]

Sorry Yogi i still not have time to do the test, if it works software will be need to be developed to use it.