AdLib sound card on a parallel port

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Hardware > AdLib sound card on a parallel port Why? | Pictures | Schematics | Explanations | Software | Samples | Links | Disclaimer

why?

AdLib sound cards were one of the first sound cards to be produced for IBM compatibles personal computers. They required a single 8 bit ISA slot, and were based on Yamaha's YM3812 chips. This chip is a FM (Frequency modulation) synthesizer, is also known as the OPL2 and has 9 channels.

AdLib sound cards have a unique sound (listen to samples) which reminds me of the time where I got my first sound card :)

Nowdays, most motherboards do not have no ISA slots, so you cannot use an AdLib card with them. It's also not possible to use an AdLib card on computers which are not PC compatible, such as Macs and Suns. Laptops are out of question too.

However, we can still listen to AdLib music by emulating the card. There is an open source AdLib emulator called AdPlug. AdPlug is available on sourceforge: http://adplug.sourceforge.net/ and works as a unix command line player, xmms or winamp plugin, or under dos.

Even though emulation is possible, I felt sorry to keep my good old AdLib card collecting dust in a closet. That's why I decided to interface it to the parallel port. In order to be able to listen to adlib music files, I wrote code to make adplug use the card connected to the parallel port to produce sound instead of emulating the card. (This means I did not have to write loaders and interpreters for more than 15 music formats :).

I'm now enjoying the sound of my AdLib card again, but using much faster computers than before(Pentium III 800), and on machines that the card was not designed to be used with! (Amd64, Sparc64).

I hope this page will help other AdLib music enjoyers to use their card again, as in the good old days.

Pictures

First of all, here is an overview of the assembled project:

I decided to use an ISA backplane instead of soldering directly on the card connector contacts. I have used the power supply from an old VCR power supply (A PC power supply would be fine too). The VCR power supply had a 5 volts output, but did not have +12 and -12 Volts outputs. Fortunately, it had other outputs which I converted to +12 and -12 volts using regulators. (lm7812 for +12 and lm7912 for -12).

The ISA bus provides a 14.318Mhz clock and the adlib card uses it. I built a crystal oscillator to generate this frequency. I took the crystal on an old motherboard (I guess it's purpose was to generate the very same signal!).

Here are other views of the project:

devant

Schematics

Here is the main schematic:

And here is the crystal oscillator schematic:
shema oscillateur

shema oscillateur

This was the first time I built a crystal oscillator. I know there are simpler circuits without a transistor and with only one inverter gate, but I was not able to make it work. I think it would have been easier with 74hct family instead of 74ls family. Feel free to build it differently.

Explanations

First of all, I closely looked at the card to find out which ISA signals were used. The following tables lists all the used signals, where I connected them and what they are for:

# ISA signal	Name	Connects to	Direction	Use
A2	D7	Parallel port 9 (Data 7)	Bi-directional	Data bit 7
A3	D6	Parallel port 8 (Data 6)	Bi-directional	Data bit 6
...And so on...
A9	D0	Parallel port 2 (Data 0)	Bi-directional	Data bit 0
A11	AEN	0 volts	To the card	Address validation, used for DMA. The adlib card will ignore read and writes if this signal is high.
A22, A23, A24 et A28	A9,A8,A7,A3	5 Volts	To the card	Address bits 9,8,7 and 3 (See note 1)
A25, A26, A27 et A29	A6,A5,A4,A2	0 Volts	To the card	Address bits 6,5,4 and 2 (See note 1)
A30	A1	Parallel port 17 (Select)	To the card	Address bit 1 (See note 2)
A31	A0	Parallel port 1(Strobe)	To the card	Address bit 0 (See note 1)
B1,B10,B31	Ground	0 Volts	Power	0 Volts
B3,B29	+5Vdc	5 Volts	Power	5 volts
B7	-12Vdc	-12 Volts	Power	-12 volts
B9	+12Vdc	12 Volts	Power	12 volts
B30	OSC	Oscillator output	To the card	14,31818 Mhz clock
B13	/IOW	Parallel port 16 (Init)	To the card	When low, the data byte present on the BUS is written to the card handling the current address on the BUS.
B14	/IOR	Port parallèle 14 (Autofeed)	To the card	When low, the card handling the current address on the BUS writes the byte on the data BUS.

Here is a link to a page resuming all the ISA signals and where they are located on the ISA connectors:
http://pinouts.ru/data/ISA_pinout.shtml

Card addressing:.
This AdLib card uses the address 0x388 and 0x389. Those two addresses differ by only one bit, as shown in the following table:

3		8				8
1	1	1	0	0	0	1	0	0	0
Bit 9	Bit 8	Bit 7	Bit 6	Bit 5	Bit 4	Bit 3	Bit 2	Bit 1	Bit 0
3		8				9
1	1	1	0	0	0	1	0	0	1
Bit 9	Bit 8	Bit 7	Bit 6	Bit 5	Bit 4	Bit 3	Bit 2	Bit 1	Bit 0

This explains why address bit #0 is connected to an output pin on the parallel port.

Note 2: Since there still was an output pin available on the parallel port, I decided to connect it to address bit #1. This will allow me to use a card with 4 consecutive ports in the future.

Software

I wrote a C++ class which can be used with adplug to play back adlib music files with this setup.

To test, I wrote a simple command line music player based on adplug and my c++ class.

Someday I may decide to make a more complex version (xmms plugin?) or I might try to submit my class to the AdPlug maintainers. Meanwhile, here are the sources:
paradlib.tar.gz

Samples

Here are a few tunes played back on my AdLib card, in ogg and original formats:

Fichier ogg	Fichier original	Description
adlibsp.ogg	adlibsp.s3m	StarPort BBS intro tune, by Purple Motion
monkey1_theme.ogg	mi1_theme.laa	Monkey Island 1 Theme
monkey2_theme.ogg	mi2_monkey_island_2_introduction.laa	Monkey Island 2 Theme
madness-chipmunks.ogg	madness-chipmunks.amd	I dont know where this tune comes from, but I like it.

Links

Music:
http://chiptunes.back2roots.org/ A huge archive of game music in various AdLib formats.
http://adlib.superfighter.com/ RAW music captures of many good games.

Other:
http://www.iki.fi/jrop/specials/digisnap/ Electronic project to capture the sound coming out from the OPL2 digitally for best quality.
http://www.oplx.com/opl2.htm Programming information for the OPL2 chip.

Disclaimer

I cannot be held responsible for any damages that could occur to you or your equipment while following the procedures present on this page. Also, I GIVE ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY on the correctness and usability of the informations on this page. Please note, however, that the procedures above have worked in my case without any damages or problems.

Now you cannot say that I did not warn you :)

Other hardware stuff on this site:
Hardware section index | Snes controller on a PC | 100 Watts audio amplifier | PSX memory card reader | High voltage and electric sparks | Insulation transformer, variac, etc... | Using Nixie display tubes | Dreamcast VGA output | Laser show | Vacuum tube scope | Stepper driver | Remote reset for NES | Heating PCB | Projects pictures | Phone line audio interface | DTMF decoder | PC Caller ID decoder | VGA to "Sync-On-Green" cable | Arcade style controller for Snes/PC | Snes APU on a PC

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