I also was never so much a fan of these joysticks, but there was one type of arcade-style joystick that I really loved. It had suction cups on the bottom, so it stayed down on a surface so you didn't have to hold it in your hands which gave a more real arcade experience. Then they started creating them with cheap suction cups that didn't hold anymore and the love was gone.
Just in case anyone is thinking of building the C64 RF modulator replacement, I recommend waiting for the new version. It should be ready in the next couple of weeks but includes a number of improvements over the current version. Thanks for the shoutout Adrian!
Haha, i got some pcbs made on the recommendation of Adrian a while back, so when i do eventually get around to building them, it'll still be the older version... unless i order more pcbs.. the downside of being ambitious in the ordering but lazy in the work 😀
PicoPOST firmware developer here! Awesome showcase of how good my code normally is 😅 There's a new release (0.5.0) coming very soon which should fix the incorrect high-byte address decoding, might even fix the spurious reads and finally also reports the reset line activity (assert and release).
PicoPOST hardware guy here! I'll tag on this and give a bit of explanations and updates: Despite the name, the PicoPOST isn't meant to just be an overcomplicated POST reader. The long-term goal is to be able to give human-readable decoding of what's going wrong in a retro system. A secondary (and more achievable) goal is to make it be able to function as an affordable bus analyzer/dumper for expert users. Having the remote for the OLED and controls was intended to make it possible to see and use in machines in a tower case (which I've had problems with on the classic China POST cards). However Adrian's complaints are valid, and the next revision of the board will likely have provision to be able to mount the remote to the top of the main card. We're also going to have a hardware fix that should make the bus decoding much more reliable, which along with the new firmware version, should fix most of the bogus and missing reads as seen in this video. The -12V voltage reading may be going away. It seems to be more trouble than it's worth, and another (more useful) feature will take it's place. If you're interested in helping out, check the git repo Adrian linked in the description, and you can find links in the readme for where you can talk to us. :)
@@TechLeftBehind-12V is so rarely used. I think it would be enough to just provide a LED to indicate if it is there at all, and maybe a test point on the board. That way, IF someone wants to check the voltage, it would be easier to get to a test point on the board.
@@adriansdigitalbasement2could you try to archive the period correct POST card’s pinout and schematics, or at least upload high resolution pictures of the card? I’d love to see if it’s possible to implement those address LED’s on a simple post analyzer card. 49:14 Also, address 300h could very well be only addressable to the PCI portion of that Chinese POST card. @TheRealZago would it be possible to create similar card like the Chinese card, which supports an LPT port, PCI, PCIe and ISA? perhaps even MCA? (might be too much to ask)
@@TechLeftBehind Maybe someone can just design a 3D printable clip so the OLED can mount on the ISA card in a "T" configuration. That would make it very readable in a tower or desktop case with the lid off.
FYI the C64 was extremely popular in Finland in the 80s. I read somewhere that it had most C64's per capita in the world. It is quite often mentioned of the most generational thing for the millenials. If you ever visit Finland, there are couple museums that might interest you: Tietokonemuseo Ata in Helsinki or Suomen pelimuseo in Tampere (
@@Toonrick12 Around 200k were sold in Finland, with a population around 4,8 million and around 2 million households in the 80s. So not quite as much as comparison. But everyone knew at least somebody who had one.
Soundcards right up to the late 90s had no shielding whatsoever and usually werent grounded properly either causing excessive noise from the cpu, however they were still a country mile better than anything found built in to a motherboard, i used to make my own shielding with aluminium foil inside laminating sheets, then run it through the laminator - it works extremely well, you ought to give it a go.
I love all of the weird adapters people mail you to test out. That RAM one on the red board is so cool, I love the ingenuity that never stops in this community
Came here for the video, stayed for the awesomeness that is Olof Gustafsson's music for the various Pinball games. Though the main title tunes are so good that I find myself booting up the games but not actually playing them, just listening to the main menu music. :) Great video. I am waiting for an Orpheus II in the mail (Christmas present for myself) and there's this one Swedish guy that makes replica GUS and SB 1.5s and I might get his cards too sometimes. I have some retro systems that I am going to build in the near future.
In case no one has mentioned yet, but those micro-switched joysticks would typically have suction cups feet which allowed you to stick it to your table for more stable playing. I imagine you'd be able to by them somewhere, and you could just glue 'em on.
@@kellerkind6169 I guess not all brands had them, but most of the ones I had, including 2 Zipstiks and a Cruiser had them, all three of which I still have. Have a few others, too, and they have them, but those don't use switches, they're the cheapo rubber dome ones, most of them don't even centre properly anymore.
I don't remember what was on the bottom of my competition pro specifically but I had several joysticks including cheap leaf switch ones and my memory was of them having suction cups that were very useful. I got the pro late in my eight or sixteen bit playing life and vaguely remember finding it a disappointment that hurt my hands to use after all the hype.
I had a GUS back when my PAS16 finally just couldn't cut it anymore. Never had a SoundBlaster. The card became part of a gifted PC I built for my nieces.
Adrian, I love it now that retro computing is your career. Thank you for taking a "plain" mail call, and getting me all enthused about Finland, GUS, and Gummy Bears (edit: No Gummy this time). Most of all, thank you for teaching me how to fix those "untested" Commodores I keep buying on Ebay (plus two Nabus that were unfortunately in perfect working condition.)
Please assemble that MixSID board. It is not just stereo SID that requires special demos etc. You can configure it to have both SIDs on the default address, and if you install one 6581 and one 8580 on that board, you get a "pseudo stereo" effect due to the sound characteristic differences between them even with all the period correct games that has got nothing to do with a dual SID setup. I have the PCBs sitting for some time now, the web page has a great interactive assembly guide, but I would like to see it in action before I start building it.
Hired Guns was my favorit game back in those days on the amiga.. a friend of mine had the adapter back in those days so we hade alot of fun (= 4 player one one screen in -93 cant beat that feeling.
It had been designed to be used with the Atari 2600, when you're sitting in a couch in front of the TV. You're supposed to hold the base in one hand, like you would hold a modern game controller with handles (except only one).
Would love to see someone buid up an old machine with PICO cards for the video, audio, RAM card, POST card, etc. I.E. whatever pico cards are available, and build a PICO-chu machine. Paint the case lemon yellow, with a lightning bolt symbol somewhere on the outside, and viola!
At 40:12, you imply that the original GUS doesn't have MIDI output, but it definitely does. It uses the DB-15 port that a joystick would plug into to emit MIDI signals. You have to have a breakout box for it (which has a passthrough for a joystick, IIRC), but that was very common at the time. The Sound Blaster worked the same way.
The Amiga game Leatherneck by Microdeal in the UK was compatible with a 4-player adatper that they sold, which I assume used the parallel port. The game was a Commando / Ikari Warriors clone.
The absolute best C64 game The Great Giana Sisters does support dual Sid, at least there are official tracks released by the composer with the music played in stereo with dual Sid. 🤓
It is. I have an actual Daughterboard to upgrade a classic GUS, and it has the same chip. It provides "Windows Sound System" compatibility too, but in real Gravis fashion, the drivers and the additional quirks of the card made it somewhat tricky to get it working. Additionally, the GUS MAX and the Daughtercard uses slightly different port addresses and whatnot, IIRC, so not all software that supports the MAX works with the Daughterboard and vice-versa. Good stuff. Just Gravis things. Still love all of 'em tho'. (And my PIcoGUS is on the way too!)
I'm a defender of soundcards because I had the total opposite experience! Onboard audio ALWAYS had been noisy, with latency, no full-duplex support in some cases, etc... So, I will still be buying dedicated soundcards with my PCs if they keep making them.
Commodore 64 joysticks can support 2 and 3 buttons (and more with special tricks.) Wiring buttons on POTX and POTY you can get GS style buttons. I modified a competition pro to have a couple of extra buttons for the games the few games that actually support them. Super Mario Brothers not only supports 2 buttons, but also supports 2 SIDs.
I had a Gravis Ultrasound back in the 90's. It was the best, damn sound-card I ever heard (at the time). Definitely better than the SoundBlaster. too bad it didn't have much support.
Nice :). Bought a working rev 1.8 Ultrasound MAX with the memory expansion online locally two days ago for my original computer rebuild and slight update (486 DX2-66 VESA - Socket 7 AMD K5 PR133 100 MHZ, to start with). I have not yet found my original MAX card rev 1.1 that i believe should exist still. I wonder if you could add aditional ram chips to the card??, the later rev 2+ series of MAX card do not have that option.
The GUS was the one and only card I had around that era that didn't have a ton of noise. It did have a lowpass filter on the output though, and I suspect that was why.
Oh, the Amiga 4 player adaptor. I remember coming across 2 of them when I was growing up, actually even purchased a 4 player adaptor cable (Just a DB25 that plugs into your parallel port with 2 wires coming out going to a pair of DB9s for you to plug your joysticks into) The only game I can remember the name of was Dyna Blaster, basically a Bomberman game, and it was only for the Vs Arena mode.
21:59 Not to discredit the quality of the joystick but I don't know why given 3D printed customs they don't just rotate the face buttons to a horizontal orientation to the right of the joystick with just a little more width. If it's a question of joystick ambidexterity you can add a directional flop-switch like the Gravis Gamepad had which will support left-handed players since the layout has symmetry for use.
Back then we had a GUS card that looked a little different and it had SIMM or EDO(can't remember which ones it had) sockets on it, though we never really used those slots.
Same. Upgraded from a Sound Blaster Pro to a Pro Audio Studio 16 (PAS16 with fancy new software and a mic) and was thrilled that I could play MODs in 16-bit stereo. Not so thrilled at how much software supported stereo ONLY on a SBP or SB16, and treated my PAS16 as a Sound Blaster 2.0 clone.
"Joystick: I don't have a link" Please let me know when you get a link! It's very cool and I seem to have lost my Atari ST joystick, and I have an Amiga 2000 and CD32 that I need to rebuild and test.
Noora sent a link over: haxor.fi/posts/making-the-hac-2-joystick/ www.printables.com/model/556290-hac-2-joystick I've added it to the description as well.
I had TWO original gravis ultrasound cards that my brother threw out without telling me. Still mad about that, even though you can pretty much perfectly emulate it in dosbox these days.
Sadly such a common story. All my old stuff was thrown away or sold for cheap at garage sales .... at the time though, I didn't really care. If only I knew how I would feel later in life!
@@adriansdigitalbasement2Just remember, there'll be a load if stuff you threw out and never needed again so have forgotten about :) That's what I tell myself anyway 😂
I left all of my old computers at home after high school and my stuff got moved out of my closet and into a leaky derelict impala in the back yard without my knowledge. I had an old ibm xt, a compaq deskpro 286, apple II, leading edge, a bunch of loose floppy disks in a box… nothing survived. Luckily, some of my old games were safely stored higher up in my old closet and remained untouched. I was young and stupid(er), and gave the go ahead for it all to be taken to the dump. 😢
you should play Zone 66 on GUS; I had the 1.0 version of the GUS because, at the time, it was really the cheapest "modern" consumer grade soundcard available at that time, behind the Soundblaster Pro and Proaudio Spectrum. I loved it but my 386 sx 25 could barely run the software.
I had a GUS back in the day. Running things with Sound Blaster emulation just didn't sound right. Like a lot of people I didn't think to take it out of the PC before recycling it. I still have the 3.5" floppies though.
Yeah, SBOS usually 'worked' in that you got audio, but the instruments were often seriously off-sounding. A massive shame and it eventually led me to giving up on my beloved GUS for an Sb16 and eventually on-mobo digital audio.
Master Blaster is a 4 player Bomberman clone but I don't know if it supports 4 joysticks. I remember we actually played a couple of 4 player match with relatives who came to visit in a Christmas holiday, it was super fun. I think it used the numpad and some letters to control Player3 and 4, Player1 and 2 were joystick controller in port1 and 2 probably. Update: Master Blaster does support 4 joystick input plus 2 types of keyboard key sets.
Hello Adrian, I have Gravis Ultrasound Max card, without additional memory chip ,in DOS, I hear crackling sounds during playback. In Windows 98, this problem does not occur. What could be the issue? I'm running the card on the same computer on DOS and Windows.
Greetings from Athens, Greece Adrian! Excellent video as always... I always loved soundcards, still use one (onboard audio still sucks) an Asus Xonar STX II, the old Gravis card looks amazingly well put together and very capable hardware wise. Pico Gus should be renamed to Pico all sound cards with the potential it has, great project. Pico post needs definitely more work in the design and firmware to be robust and useful and maybe also a PCI slot as the Chinese card has? Also agree that it should be one card and not separate parts with beep speaker. I would also like to see that C64 RAM replacement spider being tested, looks so weird and cool... Keep up the great content, Happy Christmas and New Year! Jim.
I'm curious if the list of MOD files/MOD player you're using are something that can be shared or linked to without copyright concerns. I'd like to test out the MOD playback and compare it between my Crystal Audio 1869 and my PicoGUS 2.0.
@@nemesis2264 yeah Zip files with hundreds of MODs each are great. Even if you have to sort out the dupes if you get more than one. VLC can still play them no problem, though with no fancy visualisers, so you can even shuffle them in amongst FLACs, AACs, etc.
Gotta say Adrian, I absolutely adore those White ceramic ICs (guessing they're not resistor blocks despite the name?). If I had your means, I would strive to build an entire system that uses either those White or the Ceramic and Gold packages! I do have a couple of old 8-Bit ISA Token Ring cards that are absolutely beautiful! I''d happily send you an image, but I am in the UK and basically flat broke, so no mail call from me ... got a couple of other interesting devices that I'd love to share images and info with you too? Including one electronic device that I am almost positive that 99% of your followes will not have seen! Edit: Shows what I know - they are indeed resistor packs "Dual-In-Line Thick Film Resistor Network!" I will follow your motto and not edit out my mistakes either!
If you have a copy of Gauntlet 2 for the Amiga, the copy I played as a kid was on the Amiga A500, I remember it being 4 player for testing that four player adapter.
I have to disagree on Sound Card for PC. I am still using today in my Ryzen 5 PC a SoundBlaster PCIe card. I can hear the cleaner sound from it versus the onboard especially in MIDI in Windows 10. I use Bose Desktop speakers and can hear the difference. Even my USB SoundBlaster sounds better than onboard. I can do extra effects that are not available on the Software based Realtek and other cards. Surprising MIDI synth actually sounds better in DOSBox if put through the SoundBlaster card too.
@@TSteffi While true.... what uses MIDI anymore? (Other than pro audio stuff, where you're not using the built-in Windows soft synths anyway.) Is this really the best option for DOSBox MIDI pass-through? Aren't there purpose-built MT32 and SC soft-synths?
@@nickwallette6201 The same thing that always used MIDI: Music Instruments. MIDI was never about playing music, that was just a side effect. The main purpose of MIDI is and was to connect music instruments. Yes, you can get really good software synths. But if you already have a soundcard for the better audio quality anyways, then why not use it? Why would you run something in software on the CPU while you have a dedicated chip for just that function sitting idle in your machine?
@@TSteffi But musical instruments don't need a sound card, just a MIDI interface. Assuming you mean things like samplers, ROMplers, keyboards, beat boxes, etc. There's very little to benefit from dedicated hardware processing now for soft-synths. The CPU is MORE than capable of handling virtually infinite polyphony, even with the best resampling algorithms. I have $thousands invested in DAW plugins from, e.g., Waves, Native Instruments, Digital Sound Factory, etc. None of that stuff expects or would even take advantage of dedicated wavetable hardware. All you need is a decent DAC to play it through. My MBP's internal audio, and AirPod Pros work great for just about all I ever do, and I use outboard rack interfaces for the times when I need something high end, or just tens of channels. But even then, it's just an output device for PCM, nothing more.
Just fyi the PCIe internal cards can sometimes still pick up noise from the rest of the system buses, whereas external USB ones (provided you have clean enough power) are usually relatively more shielded and have lower noise. If you can't notice a difference that's great, and the rear outputs are definitely cleaner on the internal card than hooking-up the front panel audio connectors. But if you really want to minimise noise you'll be using the USB one. (But then, if the Bose speakers are self-powered, their own power supply noise might be louder than either the PCIe or USB audio interfaces' noise floor.)
Personally tested on my dev machine and any activity on the ISA bus will be seen by PicoPOST. As long as the chip handling parallel is on the same bus, the data flows through without issues. With AMIBIOS, I could see each and every NVRAM access for reading stored BIOS settings and checksum computing, even if that's buried in the Dallas clock chip in this machine. The problem Adrian was having was simply firmware related, because I like adding bugs 😄
Write-only cards can't cause bus conflicts. I suspect Olivetti chose that port _because_ it's the parallel port. It means they could connect POST code readers to the parallel port without needing to open the case.
oh man, i remember somehow figuring out how to get a demo working by forcing it to run even without a GUS so i could extract the MODs from RAM. i believe it was Witan's Facts of Life (or maybe just the "Rave" part) which didn't seem to like the family SB or SB16 (edit: MCD!)
the capacitor plague in the 90s had a specific cause which shouldn't impact Nichicon through hole caps because it was related to a specific brand of electrolyte in China/Taiwan in the late 90s. So this is less likely due to quality but due to failure due to storage for a long period of time (especially if these are low-ESR caps), without charge, or in a hot space.
There was another reason to buy pricier soundcards. You got horrible sync issues when capturing with the cheap soundblaster cards. The drivers of these big ones where often more precise with their timings and so the syncronisation between video and audio lasts for much longer captures.
I think everyone ran their GUS with a SB didn't they? I certainly did for the same reason as you, well I had an Opti (Viper?) clone SB but IT was much the same. I tossed the GUS around 2006, and when I look at what they go for now I feel nauseous lol.
With all the modern FPGA and commodity replacements for classic computers, would it be possible to build an entire, say, C64 with modern replacements? All new parts, but still "correct?"
13:20 The thing is that, at the time, external speakers were SO BAD. All of those terrible 4 inch cube plastic speakers. I doubt many people were noticing background noise issues.
my first pc was a Pentium 200 MMX, which had a S3 Virge 325 video card, and a SB16 ISA card. when it died, the computer store decided to reuse the video card instead of the sound card (I had no say in the matter, was too young), so I ended up with a Pentium 3 computer with a SB128 pci card, and the S3 video card. I eventually got a real gpu, but the SB128 never worked as well as the original sb16 for old games. I was greatly annoyed by it.
You're describing an original GUS, and if that's what you had, you probably stopped using it when you started using Windows, since the original was wholly unable to work with Win95 at all, because of a hardware conflict in the DMA or something like that. I still have mine, tho. :D
What about going with a ASUSTEK EN9500GT and that Sound Card and use a SPDIF cable to connect the SPDIF out on the Gravis to the SPDIF in on the EN9500GT then you can use a HDMI cable to go to a TV set and the audio is brilliant as well as the picture.
I had a GUS MAX back in the day... it was a great card, but the noise floor is pretty bad. It's one of the few PC cards that I regret getting rid of. :(
I tried posting both the link to the user's website along with their Printables model, but it appears RUclips moderated it. If you search "hac-2 joystick" in Google, you'll find both at the top of the results.
If you search for electronoora, a link to printables website comes up, all the files seem to be available there. Noora also has a website, but the domain may be considered suspicious by YT as it hasn't come up in the comments yet.
31:05 Print 3D bracket for PicoPOST and put OLED screen there using this as permanent solution for Your way of testing methodology. T-shape bracket with OLED board on top for easy asses ability ?
You may not even be able to use that SSD with an older system. Because I tried putting Windows XP on an SSD and it did not work. So I don't think Windows 95 will work on that SSD. I believe the firmware is a little bit different from a standard conventional hard drive to a solid state hard drive
I've _never_ run into a situation where a SATA HDD worked but a SATA SSD did not. But there are plenty of situations where SATA drives don't work, for example XP needs drivers (like an F6 disk) to use most SATA controllers. Those SATA->IDE adapters also have compatibility problems with many motherboards.
Please send me an email and we can discuss. You can find my email address on the channel about page here: www.youtube.com/@adriansdigitalbasement/about
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I also was never so much a fan of these joysticks, but there was one type of arcade-style joystick that I really loved. It had suction cups on the bottom, so it stayed down on a surface so you didn't have to hold it in your hands which gave a more real arcade experience. Then they started creating them with cheap suction cups that didn't hold anymore and the love was gone.
Just in case anyone is thinking of building the C64 RF modulator replacement, I recommend waiting for the new version. It should be ready in the next couple of weeks but includes a number of improvements over the current version.
Thanks for the shoutout Adrian!
Haha, i got some pcbs made on the recommendation of Adrian a while back, so when i do eventually get around to building them, it'll still be the older version... unless i order more pcbs.. the downside of being ambitious in the ordering but lazy in the work 😀
@@brianv2871 Don't worry, I do that all the time. Order PCBs, source parts, put everything aside for 6-12 months...
PicoPOST firmware developer here! Awesome showcase of how good my code normally is 😅
There's a new release (0.5.0) coming very soon which should fix the incorrect high-byte address decoding, might even fix the spurious reads and finally also reports the reset line activity (assert and release).
Awesome!!!
PicoPOST hardware guy here! I'll tag on this and give a bit of explanations and updates:
Despite the name, the PicoPOST isn't meant to just be an overcomplicated POST reader. The long-term goal is to be able to give human-readable decoding of what's going wrong in a retro system. A secondary (and more achievable) goal is to make it be able to function as an affordable bus analyzer/dumper for expert users.
Having the remote for the OLED and controls was intended to make it possible to see and use in machines in a tower case (which I've had problems with on the classic China POST cards). However Adrian's complaints are valid, and the next revision of the board will likely have provision to be able to mount the remote to the top of the main card.
We're also going to have a hardware fix that should make the bus decoding much more reliable, which along with the new firmware version, should fix most of the bogus and missing reads as seen in this video.
The -12V voltage reading may be going away. It seems to be more trouble than it's worth, and another (more useful) feature will take it's place.
If you're interested in helping out, check the git repo Adrian linked in the description, and you can find links in the readme for where you can talk to us. :)
@@TechLeftBehind-12V is so rarely used. I think it would be enough to just provide a LED to indicate if it is there at all, and maybe a test point on the board. That way, IF someone wants to check the voltage, it would be easier to get to a test point on the board.
@@adriansdigitalbasement2could you try to archive the period correct POST card’s pinout and schematics, or at least upload high resolution pictures of the card? I’d love to see if it’s possible to implement those address LED’s on a simple post analyzer card.
49:14 Also, address 300h could very well be only addressable to the PCI portion of that Chinese POST card.
@TheRealZago would it be possible to create similar card like the Chinese card, which supports an LPT port, PCI, PCIe and ISA? perhaps even MCA? (might be too much to ask)
@@TechLeftBehind Maybe someone can just design a 3D printable clip so the OLED can mount on the ISA card in a "T" configuration. That would make it very readable in a tower or desktop case with the lid off.
FYI the C64 was extremely popular in Finland in the 80s. I read somewhere that it had most C64's per capita in the world. It is quite often mentioned of the most generational thing for the millenials. If you ever visit Finland, there are couple museums that might interest you: Tietokonemuseo Ata in Helsinki or Suomen pelimuseo in Tampere (
So it's equal to the impact of the NES here in the states? (At it's peak, the NES was in 1 out of 4 households)
@@Toonrick12 Around 200k were sold in Finland, with a population around 4,8 million and around 2 million households in the 80s. So not quite as much as comparison. But everyone knew at least somebody who had one.
Soundcards right up to the late 90s had no shielding whatsoever and usually werent grounded properly either causing excessive noise from the cpu, however they were still a country mile better than anything found built in to a motherboard, i used to make my own shielding with aluminium foil inside laminating sheets, then run it through the laminator - it works extremely well, you ought to give it a go.
Welcome to Finland! Finland loves your show A 🇫🇮👌🏻
I love all of the weird adapters people mail you to test out. That RAM one on the red board is so cool, I love the ingenuity that never stops in this community
Came here for the video, stayed for the awesomeness that is Olof Gustafsson's music for the various Pinball games. Though the main title tunes are so good that I find myself booting up the games but not actually playing them, just listening to the main menu music. :) Great video. I am waiting for an Orpheus II in the mail (Christmas present for myself) and there's this one Swedish guy that makes replica GUS and SB 1.5s and I might get his cards too sometimes. I have some retro systems that I am going to build in the near future.
In case no one has mentioned yet, but those micro-switched joysticks would typically have suction cups feet which allowed you to stick it to your table for more stable playing. I imagine you'd be able to by them somewhere, and you could just glue 'em on.
Well no, the Kempston Competition PRO which this one is based on never had those suction cup feet. It was meant to be held in both of your hands.
@@kellerkind6169 I guess not all brands had them, but most of the ones I had, including 2 Zipstiks and a Cruiser had them, all three of which I still have.
Have a few others, too, and they have them, but those don't use switches, they're the cheapo rubber dome ones, most of them don't even centre properly anymore.
I don't remember what was on the bottom of my competition pro specifically but I had several joysticks including cheap leaf switch ones and my memory was of them having suction cups that were very useful. I got the pro late in my eight or sixteen bit playing life and vaguely remember finding it a disappointment that hurt my hands to use after all the hype.
That Gravis Ultrasound looks like a million bucks after you cleaned and fixed it!
I had a GUS back when my PAS16 finally just couldn't cut it anymore. Never had a SoundBlaster. The card became part of a gifted PC I built for my nieces.
the joystick assembly looks like a standard part that is made for Arcade machines.
Pretty neat idea and seems pretty well executed as well.
Adrian, I love it now that retro computing is your career. Thank you for taking a "plain" mail call, and getting me all enthused about Finland, GUS, and Gummy Bears (edit: No Gummy this time). Most of all, thank you for teaching me how to fix those "untested" Commodores I keep buying on Ebay (plus two Nabus that were unfortunately in perfect working condition.)
@22:29. I think the screw placement is because of the fire buttons. The screws would obstruct the fire buttons if they were placed at the corners.
If you ever come to Spain, you're more than welcome to visit. Take care!
29:04 Dynablaster was a great 5-player game, for the Amiga, that utilised a parallel port adapter.
Please assemble that MixSID board. It is not just stereo SID that requires special demos etc. You can configure it to have both SIDs on the default address, and if you install one 6581 and one 8580 on that board, you get a "pseudo stereo" effect due to the sound characteristic differences between them even with all the period correct games that has got nothing to do with a dual SID setup. I have the PCBs sitting for some time now, the web page has a great interactive assembly guide, but I would like to see it in action before I start building it.
Hired Guns was my favorit game back in those days on the amiga.. a friend of mine had the adapter back in those days so we hade alot of fun (= 4 player one one screen in -93 cant beat that feeling.
That joystick is just calling out for some suction cups on the base!
It had been designed to be used with the Atari 2600, when you're sitting in a couch in front of the TV. You're supposed to hold the base in one hand, like you would hold a modern game controller with handles (except only one).
I see where the developer of the PicoPOST has replied to you with a firmware update. Now that's service!
Would love to see someone buid up an old machine with PICO cards for the video, audio, RAM card, POST card, etc. I.E. whatever pico cards are available, and build a PICO-chu machine. Paint the case lemon yellow, with a lightning bolt symbol somewhere on the outside, and viola!
At 40:12, you imply that the original GUS doesn't have MIDI output, but it definitely does. It uses the DB-15 port that a joystick would plug into to emit MIDI signals. You have to have a breakout box for it (which has a passthrough for a joystick, IIRC), but that was very common at the time. The Sound Blaster worked the same way.
The Amiga game Leatherneck by Microdeal in the UK was compatible with a 4-player adatper that they sold, which I assume used the parallel port. The game was a Commando / Ikari Warriors clone.
The absolute best C64 game The Great Giana Sisters does support dual Sid, at least there are official tracks released by the composer with the music played in stereo with dual Sid. 🤓
That Crystal chip will be part of the "Recording" daughterboard built into the GUS Max. I think.
It is. I have an actual Daughterboard to upgrade a classic GUS, and it has the same chip. It provides "Windows Sound System" compatibility too, but in real Gravis fashion, the drivers and the additional quirks of the card made it somewhat tricky to get it working. Additionally, the GUS MAX and the Daughtercard uses slightly different port addresses and whatnot, IIRC, so not all software that supports the MAX works with the Daughterboard and vice-versa. Good stuff. Just Gravis things. Still love all of 'em tho'. (And my PIcoGUS is on the way too!)
I'm a defender of soundcards because I had the total opposite experience! Onboard audio ALWAYS had been noisy, with latency, no full-duplex support in some cases, etc... So, I will still be buying dedicated soundcards with my PCs if they keep making them.
Commodore 64 joysticks can support 2 and 3 buttons (and more with special tricks.) Wiring buttons on POTX and POTY you can get GS style buttons. I modified a competition pro to have a couple of extra buttons for the games the few games that actually support them. Super Mario Brothers not only supports 2 buttons, but also supports 2 SIDs.
I had a Gravis Ultrasound back in the 90's. It was the best, damn sound-card I ever heard (at the time). Definitely better than the SoundBlaster. too bad it didn't have much support.
Nice :). Bought a working rev 1.8 Ultrasound MAX with the memory expansion online locally two days ago for my original computer rebuild and slight update (486 DX2-66 VESA - Socket 7 AMD K5 PR133 100 MHZ, to start with). I have not yet found my original MAX card rev 1.1 that i believe should exist still. I wonder if you could add aditional ram chips to the card??, the later rev 2+ series of MAX card do not have that option.
I remember being able to change the instrument bank that played the MIDIs and you can make them sound so realistic and crisp
The GUS was the one and only card I had around that era that didn't have a ton of noise. It did have a lowpass filter on the output though, and I suspect that was why.
47:20 I had no idea you could do that. I need to write that down 😀
I still miss my GUS and the emulation was great on SB, Roland, etc. One of the best thing is to try is, second reality demo.
I never knew the difference between soundblaster and soundblaster pro, was stereo support - good to find out after all these years.
Oh, the Amiga 4 player adaptor.
I remember coming across 2 of them when I was growing up, actually even purchased a 4 player adaptor cable (Just a DB25 that plugs into your parallel port with 2 wires coming out going to a pair of DB9s for you to plug your joysticks into)
The only game I can remember the name of was Dyna Blaster, basically a Bomberman game, and it was only for the Vs Arena mode.
Greetings from Finland here too! :)
Gravis, founded in Burnaby, BC Canada. Was about 10 minutes away from where I grew up.
21:59 Not to discredit the quality of the joystick but I don't know why given 3D printed customs they don't just rotate the face buttons to a horizontal orientation to the right of the joystick with just a little more width.
If it's a question of joystick ambidexterity you can add a directional flop-switch like the Gravis Gamepad had which will support left-handed players since the layout has symmetry for use.
Back then we had a GUS card that looked a little different and it had SIMM or EDO(can't remember which ones it had) sockets on it, though we never really used those slots.
In Germany there is Protovision they make a PCB that adds more joystick ports for the C64.
9:48 Lackluster Soundblaster compatibility with MS-DOS games was also a huge frustration for me with my Pro Audio Spectrum 16 card back in 1992.
Same. Upgraded from a Sound Blaster Pro to a Pro Audio Studio 16 (PAS16 with fancy new software and a mic) and was thrilled that I could play MODs in 16-bit stereo. Not so thrilled at how much software supported stereo ONLY on a SBP or SB16, and treated my PAS16 as a Sound Blaster 2.0 clone.
"Joystick: I don't have a link"
Please let me know when you get a link! It's very cool and I seem to have lost my Atari ST joystick, and I have an Amiga 2000 and CD32 that I need to rebuild and test.
Noora sent a link over: haxor.fi/posts/making-the-hac-2-joystick/
www.printables.com/model/556290-hac-2-joystick
I've added it to the description as well.
I had TWO original gravis ultrasound cards that my brother threw out without telling me. Still mad about that, even though you can pretty much perfectly emulate it in dosbox these days.
Sadly such a common story. All my old stuff was thrown away or sold for cheap at garage sales .... at the time though, I didn't really care. If only I knew how I would feel later in life!
@@adriansdigitalbasement2Just remember, there'll be a load if stuff you threw out and never needed again so have forgotten about :)
That's what I tell myself anyway 😂
I left all of my old computers at home after high school and my stuff got moved out of my closet and into a leaky derelict impala in the back yard without my knowledge. I had an old ibm xt, a compaq deskpro 286, apple II, leading edge, a bunch of loose floppy disks in a box… nothing survived. Luckily, some of my old games were safely stored higher up in my old closet and remained untouched. I was young and stupid(er), and gave the go ahead for it all to be taken to the dump. 😢
you should play Zone 66 on GUS; I had the 1.0 version of the GUS because, at the time, it was really the cheapest "modern" consumer grade soundcard available at that time, behind the Soundblaster Pro and Proaudio Spectrum. I loved it but my 386 sx 25 could barely run the software.
A double suction cup may work to attach it to a flat surface.
I had a GUS back in the day. Running things with Sound Blaster emulation just didn't sound right. Like a lot of people I didn't think to take it out of the PC before recycling it. I still have the 3.5" floppies though.
Yeah, SBOS usually 'worked' in that you got audio, but the instruments were often seriously off-sounding. A massive shame and it eventually led me to giving up on my beloved GUS for an Sb16 and eventually on-mobo digital audio.
Send the floppies to Adrian
Master Blaster is a 4 player Bomberman clone but I don't know if it supports 4 joysticks. I remember we actually played a couple of 4 player match with relatives who came to visit in a Christmas holiday, it was super fun. I think it used the numpad and some letters to control Player3 and 4, Player1 and 2 were joystick controller in port1 and 2 probably.
Update: Master Blaster does support 4 joystick input plus 2 types of keyboard key sets.
Hello Adrian, I have Gravis Ultrasound Max card, without additional memory chip ,in DOS, I hear crackling sounds during playback. In Windows 98, this problem does not occur. What could be the issue? I'm running the card on the same computer on DOS and Windows.
Greetings from Athens, Greece Adrian! Excellent video as always...
I always loved soundcards, still use one (onboard audio still sucks) an Asus Xonar STX II, the old Gravis card looks amazingly well put together and very capable hardware wise. Pico Gus should be renamed to Pico all sound cards with the potential it has, great project.
Pico post needs definitely more work in the design and firmware to be robust and useful and maybe also a PCI slot as the Chinese card has? Also agree that it should be one card and not separate parts with beep speaker.
I would also like to see that C64 RAM replacement spider being tested, looks so weird and cool...
Keep up the great content, Happy Christmas and New Year! Jim.
Hi from Finland 🇫🇮 Have nice New Year.
I'm curious if the list of MOD files/MOD player you're using are something that can be shared or linked to without copyright concerns. I'd like to test out the MOD playback and compare it between my Crystal Audio 1869 and my PicoGUS 2.0.
Yt is crazy paranoid
@@nemesis2264 yeah Zip files with hundreds of MODs each are great. Even if you have to sort out the dupes if you get more than one. VLC can still play them no problem, though with no fancy visualisers, so you can even shuffle them in amongst FLACs, AACs, etc.
22:36 could be fixed by the bottom part being bent slightly so the gap closes before the screws are tight
Gotta say Adrian, I absolutely adore those White ceramic ICs (guessing they're not resistor blocks despite the name?).
If I had your means, I would strive to build an entire system that uses either those White or the Ceramic and Gold packages!
I do have a couple of old 8-Bit ISA Token Ring cards that are absolutely beautiful!
I''d happily send you an image, but I am in the UK and basically flat broke, so no mail call from me ... got a couple of other interesting devices that I'd love to share images and info with you too? Including one electronic device that I am almost positive that 99% of your followes will not have seen!
Edit: Shows what I know - they are indeed resistor packs "Dual-In-Line Thick Film Resistor Network!"
I will follow your motto and not edit out my mistakes either!
If you have a copy of Gauntlet 2 for the Amiga, the copy I played as a kid was on the Amiga A500, I remember it being 4 player for testing that four player adapter.
I have to disagree on Sound Card for PC. I am still using today in my Ryzen 5 PC a SoundBlaster PCIe card. I can hear the cleaner sound from it versus the onboard especially in MIDI in Windows 10. I use Bose Desktop speakers and can hear the difference. Even my USB SoundBlaster sounds better than onboard. I can do extra effects that are not available on the Software based Realtek and other cards. Surprising MIDI synth actually sounds better in DOSBox if put through the SoundBlaster card too.
@@humidbeing Wrong. Just plain wrong. Windows 10 supports hardware synth just fine. It is just a matter of selecting the right device in the software.
@@TSteffi While true.... what uses MIDI anymore? (Other than pro audio stuff, where you're not using the built-in Windows soft synths anyway.) Is this really the best option for DOSBox MIDI pass-through? Aren't there purpose-built MT32 and SC soft-synths?
@@nickwallette6201 The same thing that always used MIDI: Music Instruments. MIDI was never about playing music, that was just a side effect. The main purpose of MIDI is and was to connect music instruments.
Yes, you can get really good software synths. But if you already have a soundcard for the better audio quality anyways, then why not use it? Why would you run something in software on the CPU while you have a dedicated chip for just that function sitting idle in your machine?
@@TSteffi But musical instruments don't need a sound card, just a MIDI interface. Assuming you mean things like samplers, ROMplers, keyboards, beat boxes, etc.
There's very little to benefit from dedicated hardware processing now for soft-synths. The CPU is MORE than capable of handling virtually infinite polyphony, even with the best resampling algorithms.
I have $thousands invested in DAW plugins from, e.g., Waves, Native Instruments, Digital Sound Factory, etc. None of that stuff expects or would even take advantage of dedicated wavetable hardware. All you need is a decent DAC to play it through. My MBP's internal audio, and AirPod Pros work great for just about all I ever do, and I use outboard rack interfaces for the times when I need something high end, or just tens of channels. But even then, it's just an output device for PCM, nothing more.
Just fyi the PCIe internal cards can sometimes still pick up noise from the rest of the system buses, whereas external USB ones (provided you have clean enough power) are usually relatively more shielded and have lower noise. If you can't notice a difference that's great, and the rear outputs are definitely cleaner on the internal card than hooking-up the front panel audio connectors. But if you really want to minimise noise you'll be using the USB one. (But then, if the Bose speakers are self-powered, their own power supply noise might be louder than either the PCIe or USB audio interfaces' noise floor.)
23:48 Take a big, heavy Cr steel plate like 60in60in2in and glue Joystick to it using epoxy resin for stability issue.
What mod file is playing at 38:39 ? Love that and would like to get it somehow.
Port 378 is LPT1 on PCs so it may have a conflict.
Personally tested on my dev machine and any activity on the ISA bus will be seen by PicoPOST. As long as the chip handling parallel is on the same bus, the data flows through without issues.
With AMIBIOS, I could see each and every NVRAM access for reading stored BIOS settings and checksum computing, even if that's buried in the Dallas clock chip in this machine.
The problem Adrian was having was simply firmware related, because I like adding bugs 😄
Write-only cards can't cause bus conflicts. I suspect Olivetti chose that port _because_ it's the parallel port. It means they could connect POST code readers to the parallel port without needing to open the case.
Best wishes from Poland 🇵🇱🎉🤗
That looks like a Sanwa style joystick core with a bat-top handle.
37:45..."Press any key to continue" "I pressed the wrong key"...That made me laugh so hard. I needed that Thanks for the video Adrian.
oh man, i remember somehow figuring out how to get a demo working by forcing it to run even without a GUS so i could extract the MODs from RAM. i believe it was Witan's Facts of Life (or maybe just the "Rave" part) which didn't seem to like the family SB or SB16 (edit: MCD!)
I really want to design / have designed that has a mount plate for a 5.25 or 3.5" bay. I think it would be a sweet addition to a Retro build.
the capacitor plague in the 90s had a specific cause which shouldn't impact Nichicon through hole caps because it was related to a specific brand of electrolyte in China/Taiwan in the late 90s. So this is less likely due to quality but due to failure due to storage for a long period of time (especially if these are low-ESR caps), without charge, or in a hot space.
There was another reason to buy pricier soundcards. You got horrible sync issues when capturing with the cheap soundblaster cards. The drivers of these big ones where often more precise with their timings and so the syncronisation between video and audio lasts for much longer captures.
"...showing diagnostics about addressing or so..." So, Adrian essentially wanted an POST-analyzer card for his POST-analyzer card 😅
Suomi mainittu, torille! 🎉
I think everyone ran their GUS with a SB didn't they? I certainly did for the same reason as you, well I had an Opti (Viper?) clone SB but IT was much the same.
I tossed the GUS around 2006, and when I look at what they go for now I feel nauseous lol.
Finland and Spain... in one trip... ??!! ;0)
Many an hour was done playing Pinball Fantasy back in the day..... :)
Still play Computer Pinball now with Pinball FX3 on the PS4....
Any idea what code 30 might be on a pentium mmx machine? Its a Packard bell. it beeps at me with no ram.
Is it true that playing back the "Second Reality" music will give a copyright strike? I doubt that this is the case.
He's played it in older videos so I'm assuming this is spoken from experience
With all the modern FPGA and commodity replacements for classic computers, would it be possible to build an entire, say, C64 with modern replacements? All new parts, but still "correct?"
13:20 The thing is that, at the time, external speakers were SO BAD. All of those terrible 4 inch cube plastic speakers. I doubt many people were noticing background noise issues.
The Apple II VGA cards also use Picos.
So does using a GUS equate a 16-bit dance party?
extra points for using DOS debug. Next time you need an excuse to use edlin ;-)
Yes that controller is definitely 3D printed you can see the levels. It looks like he sanded it though
the only game that come to mind that uses the 4 player adapter was blitz bombers a 4 player bomberman clone.
After watching this I now think i know what is wrong with my classic GUS card will have to take a look at the caps .
my first pc was a Pentium 200 MMX, which had a S3 Virge 325 video card, and a SB16 ISA card. when it died, the computer store decided to reuse the video card instead of the sound card (I had no say in the matter, was too young), so I ended up with a Pentium 3 computer with a SB128 pci card, and the S3 video card. I eventually got a real gpu, but the SB128 never worked as well as the original sb16 for old games. I was greatly annoyed by it.
You're describing an original GUS, and if that's what you had, you probably stopped using it when you started using Windows, since the original was wholly unable to work with Win95 at all, because of a hardware conflict in the DMA or something like that. I still have mine, tho. :D
Awesome!
❤ to Adrian
from Austria.
The legendary 850 Evo...
Does anyone have a link to that C64 PSU replacement PCB?
Bruv, what knife do you have? Made quick work of that box.
monster joysticks do the large arcade ones.
Happy New Year Adrian.
What about going with a ASUSTEK EN9500GT and that Sound Card and use a SPDIF cable to connect the SPDIF out on the Gravis to the SPDIF in on the EN9500GT then you can use a HDMI cable to go to a TV set and the audio is brilliant as well as the picture.
I used to have the same Ultra MAX version.
I had a GUS MAX back in the day... it was a great card, but the noise floor is pretty bad. It's one of the few PC cards that I regret getting rid of. :(
It seems the link to the joystick is missing in the description?
Unfortunately I don't have a link for it
@@adriansdigitalbasement2 Ah, ok, no problem. Thanks!
I tried posting both the link to the user's website along with their Printables model, but it appears RUclips moderated it. If you search "hac-2 joystick" in Google, you'll find both at the top of the results.
I had the same issue last night
If you search for electronoora, a link to printables website comes up, all the files seem to be available there. Noora also has a website, but the domain may be considered suspicious by YT as it hasn't come up in the comments yet.
31:05 Print 3D bracket for PicoPOST and put OLED screen there using this as permanent solution for Your way of testing methodology. T-shape bracket with OLED board on top for easy asses ability ?
Wait what playing second reality will result in a copyright claim? Thats just baffling as it is surprising....why?
Competition Pro is held in the hand, not put on the table. Then it is perfect.
i would put a plastic clip on the display and clip to the diag board
Can that Pico emulate a Mt-32?
You may not even be able to use that SSD with an older system. Because I tried putting Windows XP on an SSD and it did not work. So I don't think Windows 95 will work on that SSD. I believe the firmware is a little bit different from a standard conventional hard drive to a solid state hard drive
I've _never_ run into a situation where a SATA HDD worked but a SATA SSD did not. But there are plenty of situations where SATA drives don't work, for example XP needs drivers (like an F6 disk) to use most SATA controllers. Those SATA->IDE adapters also have compatibility problems with many motherboards.
Can someone please tell me the po box address for the channel thank you
Please send me an email and we can discuss. You can find my email address on the channel about page here: www.youtube.com/@adriansdigitalbasement/about