Instant "vintage" soundcard collection?

[Great Hierophant]

Well, the LAPC-I is out on eBay. I'd been keeping it, not as a spare, but for want of having both card revisions. Since there aren't any functional differences between the two, and given that I'll probably never use the thing, away it goes, into oblivion.

What are the differences between the two revisions?  I have heard of many possible differences:

Sounds like the old-style MT-32 vs. sounds like the CM-32L.
IRQ fixed at 2 vs. any 8-bit IRQ can be selected
EPROM for Control ROM vs. PROM or OTP EPROM Control ROM

[Alistair]

That IS a bit touchy Eric- I didn't infer from Mike's comments that you could have sold a busted card to Greencmp->Mike, but rather a working card to Greencmp which ended up busted in Mike's hands.

Either way, please let us know how much moolah you garner!

And:

In fact, he had quite the little monopoly going for some time, wherein he would buy every A-80 that became available, and resell for twice the purchase price. I am noticing more and more of these trends.

The good thing about eBay is, there are NO monopolies (really). If an A-80's worth 50 dollars (for example), you can't sell one for more unless you get lucky with a buyer or if it's new and in a box or with some bonus.

So, what your comment says to me is, "I don't do market research". It doesn't take much effort to use eBay's search function and see what the selling prices (going rate) for A-80's are.. then you can see how much you'll make. Otherwise, you could price too low and lose a ton of money!

- Alistair

[Cloudschatze]

Well, the LAPC-I is out on eBay. I'd been keeping it, not as a spare, but for want of having both card revisions. Since there aren't any functional differences between the two, and given that I'll probably never use the thing, away it goes, into oblivion.

What are the differences between the two revisions?  I have heard of many possible differences:

Sounds like the old-style MT-32 vs. sounds like the CM-32L.
IRQ fixed at 2 vs. any 8-bit IRQ can be selected
EPROM for Control ROM vs. PROM or OTP EPROM Control ROM

The only documented differences include a single capacitor change (or maybe it was a resistor... I'll have to check), the addition of a metal shield to one of the chips, and, as you noted, a change in the control ROM type. The purpose of the first two changes is to protect against RFI/EFI, although I don't recall ever having an issue with it.

In fact, he had quite the little monopoly going for some time, wherein he would buy every A-80 that became available, and resell for twice the purchase price. I am noticing more and more of these trends.

The good thing about eBay is, there are NO monopolies (really). If an A-80's worth 50 dollars (for example), you can't sell one for more unless you get lucky with a buyer or if it's new and in a box or with some bonus.

So, what your comment says to me is, "I don't do market research". It doesn't take much effort to use eBay's search function and see what the selling prices (going rate) for A-80's are.. then you can see how much you'll make. Otherwise, you could price too low and lose a ton of money!

- Alistair

Don't mistake my comment as discontent - I intended to get back what I paid for the keyboard, and nothing more.

If you buy out the competition, thereby becoming the only seller of a commodity, you have a monopoly. Though they don't seem to last, they do exist at times, and the prices reflect it accordingly. eBay supports the practice by making market research irrelevant and inaccessible (unless you want to pay for it, that is).

[kreatorb]

I've certainly had bad and good experiences with ebay.. once I sold a LAPC-I (I found another with the MCB-1, so I had 2) for $70 AUD on ebay and the buyer sold it straight away for double that with a much less verbose listing.. sometimes things like that happen with no real reason.

But then again when you find a crazy bargain it makes it all worth while..

I'm not a huge fan of blatant profiteers either, but so long as they aren't gobbling up everything I'm after I'm happy to live and let live.

PS cloud: I've got a saved search and your lapc isn't coming up on it.. got a link to the auction?

[Cloudschatze]

PS cloud: I've got a saved search and your lapc isn't coming up on it.. got a link to the auction?

I can't provide the link from work, but try searching the completed auctions.

[kreatorb]

aha - very nice

[Sedryn]

Crap!

I can't believe I missed the LAPC-I auction.   

I've been looking for one of those forever!!!

That'll teach me to let a little thing like Thanksgiving distract me!!!

[Cloudschatze]

I've been looking for one of those forever!!!

The person who bought it said the same thing.

I don't normally watch for LAPC auctions, but one sold earlier this year, in similar condition to the one that I let go.

Have you considered either a CM-32L or CM-64?

[Great Hierophant]

I've been looking for one of those forever!!!

Although I am extremely fortunate in owning one, entirely due to Cloud's efforts, I often vacilliate between the elitness of owning the card versus the inconvenient ways available to operate the card at its full potential. 

One thing I will say about vintage sound cards, they work with the utter reliability if you know what you are doing.  None of this driver crap we have to suffer through today.  If you kept an LAPC-I at its default settings every piece of software ever written for the MT-32/CM-32L would work on it without complaint.  The Adlib Music Synthesizer Card was perfect because it had no real need for drivers and no real way to change the settings.  The Sound Blaster really has only one important adjustable setting, whether to use IRQ7 or IRQ5.  Of course, things could get a little more tricky when you wanted to use two Sound Cards...

[Sedryn]

"The person who bought it said the same thing.

I don't normally watch for LAPC auctions, but one sold earlier this year, in similar condition to the one that I let go.

Have you considered either a CM-32L or CM-64?"

Actually, I do have a CM-64 I'm currently using with my retro PC to play the old DOS games.  It works perfectly with the MPU-IPC-T.  Do you remember that you generously donated the MPU-IPC-T ISA card to me?  I could only find the breakout box on eBay.  I really, really appreciate that by the way.  It was very cool of you to do that.

I'm just after the LAPC-I for the novelty of being able to have the entire deal in one ISA card. 

For now, the CM-64 with MPU-IPC-T gets me where I need to be though, thanks to you.   

[Sedryn]

Hey, if that MPU-IPC-T is still up for grabs I'll take it off your hands!   

[Cloudschatze]

Hey, if that MPU-IPC-T is still up for grabs I'll take it off your hands!   

I still haven't decided what I'm doing with everything just yet... 

[Sedryn]

Gotcha

Well, keep me in mind if you do.

Those MPU-IPC-T thingys don't grow on trees you know!

 

[HondaSiR]

Sedryn: You've recently won a complete MPU-401 set from ebay (Congratulations!)...I take it this is your second MPU unit?  You still want more MPUs? Why? I'm just curious.

[Sedryn]

Actually, it was just the MIF-IPC that I won:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ih=015&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWN%3AIT&viewitem=&item=250056159807&rd=1&rd=1

At a glance, the auction looks like it's the Roland MPU-401 with interface kit, doesn't it?  It isn't. 

After I placed the bid I did some more research and realized that even if I managed to find the entire Roland MPU-401 unit to go with this interface kit that it would probably only work correctly on an XT PC.  I wanted to retract my bid once I realized this but it was too late in the auction so I just ate the cost.

I do, however, already have one complete MPU-IPC-T unit.  To answer your question, as to why I'd want a second, I'm constructing two retro gaming rigs.  One is a Pentium 75MHz and the other a Pentium III 500MHz.  Each system will be used to play a particular set of games for specific reasons, and I need an MPU-IPC-T for each.

[Cloudschatze]

Actually, it was just the MIF-IPC that I won

Just an observation, but it appears to be missing the interface cable.

After I placed the bid I did some more research and realized that even if I managed to find the entire Roland MPU-401 unit to go with this interface kit that it would probably only work correctly on an XT PC.

The XT dependency seems to be restricted to early MPU-401 units, and not the MIF, though I haven't been able to verify this conclusively.

I do, however, already have one complete MPU-IPC-T unit.  To answer your question, as to why I'd want a second, I'm constructing two retro gaming rigs.  One is a Pentium 75MHz and the other a Pentium III 500MHz.  Each system will be used to play a particular set of games for specific reasons, and I need an MPU-IPC-T for each.

I'll try and save you some money. If you don't plan to play any games with MT-32/CM-32L soundtracks on the PIII, then you only need a UART MIDI interface. So, depending on what you're using in that box for digital audio, you may only need to buy a gameport-to-MIDI adapter cable.

[Sedryn]

"I'll try and save you some money. If you don't plan to play any games with MT-32/CM-32L soundtracks on the PIII, then you only need a UART MIDI interface. So, depending on what you're using in that box for digital audio, you may only need to buy a gameport-to-MIDI adapter cable."

Nope, I need a genuine Roland MPU. 

The reason for the Pentium III system is it is the first processor to support APIC.  APIC is needed to use the method 3 slowdown in Moslo Deluxe, the only slowed method that plays certain games correctly, such as Ultima 7.  I tried using slowdown methods 1 and 2 on the 75MHz setup, but it just doesn't do the trick for certain games.

Trust me, after all the trial and error on my setups, I've figured out what I need at this point.  One more MPU-IPC-T and I'm all set.  My quest will be finished!

[Cloudschatze]

Trust me, after all the trial and error on my setups, I've figured out what I need at this point.

A 486? 

[Sedryn]

A 486? 

Funny you mentioned that because I've considered going with a 386 at times!  However, there's a number of reasons why that's not a good solution.  No reason to get into them individually here.  Suffice it to say, Moslo slowdown method 3 on a 500Mhz Pentium III is the best alternate I've found so far.  On the prototype I constructed, it can run Ultima 7 perfectly - far smoother than running it through DOSBox on a modern Windows XP system where the animations are jerky.

Thanks for your suggestions, though.  It's always nice to get some perspective on this stuff. 

[Alistair]

Turbo's nicer than Moslo, BTW.

- Alistair