9 ms·
The Snood Bloober is an open-source reverse-engineered Sound Blaster 1.0 clone
- theamk 6y agoa link with more info: http://tubetime.us/index.php/2019/01/19/announcing-the-snark-barker-a-100-compatible-sb-1-0-replica/ http://tubetime.us/index.php/2019/01/19/announcing-the-snark... (especially check out the sidebar, which has links to posts about soundblaster operation)
- rurban 6y agoThis one http://tubetime.us/index.php/2019/01/19/sound-blaster-1-0-principles-of-operation/ http://tubetime.us/index.php/2019/01/19/sound-blaster-1-0-pr...
- djmips 6y agoCheck out this awesome talk on how he reversed the Sound Blaster including never having one in person and how he got inside the 'DSP' chip to read out the ROM. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyged8Vk8uk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyged8Vk8uk
- rasz 6y agoSadly extracted firmware was never published :( There is another project, with reverse engineered firmware rewritten to ATmega328P (of arduino fame): "BLASTERBOARD : A new SB 2.0-compatible ISA sound card" https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=62&t=61098 https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=62&t=61098 Offers vastly improved sound quality "idle noise level is around -94dB RMS". Firmware is available for download, but in binary only form.
- mmastrac 6y agoIsn't it just this? https://github.com/schlae/snark-barker/blob/master/firmware/sb.hex https://github.com/schlae/snark-barker/blob/master/firmware/... EDIT: I think this is the Chinese ROM. It doesn't match the disassembly snippets from his video.
- rasz 6y agoIts in Intel HEX format so you cant see clearly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_HEX https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_HEX You have to convert to binary first xxd -r -p sb.hex > sb.bin and then look at strings strings sb.bin lot of garbage (C)19k 92 Anchor Electronics Co., This is some Taiwanese clone schlae is talking about in his presentation. There is another SB 1.5 clone firmware floating around for "ATI Stereo F/X ISA Sound Card" dumped by MAME people https://forums.bannister.org/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=82634&page=4 https://forums.bannister.org/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Num... https://archive.org/download/MESS-0.151.BIOS.ROMs/MESS-0.151.BIOS.ROMs.zip/MESS%200.151%20ROMs%2Fstereo_fx.zip https://archive.org/download/MESS-0.151.BIOS.ROMs/MESS-0.151... MAME guys also dumped SB16 firmware and its available (ct1741_v413), but afaik there are no public Creative SB/SBPro dumps.
- 2sk21 6y agoFascinating video that answered my question about why bother replicating 30 year old hardware. I had no idea that vintage hardware was going for such high prices. This is becoming similar to the classic car market. I see an analogy with companies that are making car bodies that are replicas of famous historical cars. For example, there are numerous companies making body shells similar to the Porsche 356: https://www.kitcarlist.com/porsche356.html https://www.kitcarlist.com/porsche356.html
- cure 6y ago> Fascinating video that answered my question about why bother replicating 30 year old hardware. I had no idea that vintage hardware was going for such high prices. I guess it depends on exactly which hardware. Looks like a SB16 can be had for $20 on ebay, or $40 'new' in shrink wrapped box.
- csharptwdec19 6y agoSB16s were fairly common so I'm not surprised about that. The Niche cards or later ISA SBs (thinking AWE) tend to be a bit more valuable. It's been a while since I looked at the market, but I know that Gravis and Ensoniq cards tend to be a bit more valued since they were less common but in many ways superior to the SB offerings.
- tssva 6y agoThe hardware of different SB16 cards can vary significantly. For example the earliest versions used a Yamaha OPL3 chip and later ones used software emulation. This is why on ebay SB16 listings generally contain the specific board model number and not just Sound Blaster 16. Differing models have differing values. Some fairly cheap and rarer models more expensive.
- slowhand09 6y agoYou wanna get real with that? Look up the Bill Thomas Cheetah, or the Ferrari 250 GTO. Bodies may/may not be available. Actually, until a couple of years ago you could buy a 1970 Dodge Challenger body and a 1951-3 Chevrolet Pickup body, new reproduction.
- bantunes 6y agoGreat talk, thanks for the link!
- ComputerGuru 6y agoI really hate to be that guy, but do you know if there is a transcript, companion slides, or better yet, a blog post?
- dang 6y agoUrl changed from https://twitter.com/Foone/status/1325564321141678080 https://twitter.com/Foone/status/1325564321141678080, which points to this.
- smcl 6y agoI'm confused - is this called "Snood Bloober" (in HN title, not mentioned on linked page) or "Snark Barker" (in linked page, not in HN title)
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- morsch 6y agoOriginal URL was https://twitter.com/Foone/status/1325564321141678080 https://twitter.com/Foone/status/1325564321141678080 where it's called Snood Bloober.
- misnome 6y agoAh, that's confusing. IMO the original tweet thread was more interesting, I like the foone threads.
- gravypod 6y agoMight have been changed because foone doesn't like our threads. Glad it was posted again though because they always post good content.
- camdenlock 6y ago“doesn’t like our threads”...?
- smcl 6y agoAhhh interesting - so the designer was just having a bit of fun with the name I think :-)
- leokennis 6y agoEither way it's a fantastic name.
- 6y ago
- pjc50 6y agoInteresting. I see the chip part numbers are originals, and I wonder how good the supplies are of those.
- EvanAnderson 6y agoThe "MADE IN ANGER" on the silkscreen cracks me up every time I see it. The juxtaposition of a silly message w/ my experience that only "SERIOUS TEXT" goes on PCB silkscreens makes for total hilarity to me.
- avian 6y agoI wonder if putting art on inner PCB copper layers is more common? Similar to silicon art on ICs? It would only be visible on x-ray and to people in the PCB fab. I've never personally done it, or seen any in the wild, but it seems more likely to get away with? On a commercial product, something silly on a silkscreen is quite likely to be noticed by someone without a sense of humor.
- toast0 6y agoAtari hid silly messages on arcade PCBs. "I wish you were a beer" is on the audio amplifier in my T-Mek.
- jberryman 6y agoIt's really common to see weird messages or jokes printed on guitar pedal PCBs
- nchelluri 6y agoSlightly off-topic, but the original Sound Blaster came with a piece of software called Dr. Sbaitso. It was the first chat bot I interacted with and you could ask him to say swear words and stuff. I had so much fun with that program. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Sbaitso https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Sbaitso I named a chatbot I wrote for work after him :)
- pnutjam 6y agoI have a working copy of Dr Sbaitso. I was showing it to my kids afew years ago... Good times.
- teel 6y agoHeh, I had forgotten that already. I had so much fun with Dr. Sbaitso in the early 90s when I bought my first sound card, SB Pro 2.0. After all these years I can still remember the introduction lines word-by-word. Scary..
- res0nat0r 6y agoDr. Sbaitso by Creative Labs. Please enter your name.
- tartoran 6y agoI remember that fondly. We spent many a night chatting away at Dr Sbaitso only to get a vague but sometimes snarky response on a blue screen with yellow text.. if my memory doesn’t fail me? Also SB pro came with a few more tidbits, one of them was the nutcracker demo and a parrot app, breathtaking at the time too.
- hahamrfunnyguy 6y agoI am glad to see old hardware is being preserved. Is there a fanbase for old Sound Blaster cards? The only thing I remember about my SoundBlaster 16 is that the MIDI presets sounded nothing like the instruments they were named after.
- paulryanrogers 6y agoThere seems to be interest in older Midi devices like the Roland, at least judging by the number of retro shows on YouTube like LGR.
- protomyth 6y agoI think due to copying old discs to new storage, I still have copies of my old config.sys and autoexec.bat with the settings for my Sound Blaster. I remember getting it to work and never touching it again.
- wolco2 6y agoI found setting the irq to 5 or 8 was all I needed as the default was already used.
- protomyth 6y agoI had a DEC PC (not the Rainbow, the actual compatible line with the S3, I think it was the 4XX line), and I had some other settings. I think it was because of the S3 to be honest. I do admit I liked the Turtle Beach stuff better.
- readingnews 6y agoWhile I love this, and I totally appreciate the work and effort... why ISA? I mean, why not jack it up to be a clone that works with newer PCs? I get that it is a clone, but it might have been even better if we could use it today. (of all the old junk I have, I no longer have a mobo with ISA, VLB or AGP slots)
- panpanna 6y agoMaybe because ISA is very simple to implement? You can support a subset of PCI with a fairly simple fpga implementation, but even the antique pci with its 33/66Mhz bus can be tricky to design with correct signal integrity.
- nsxwolf 6y agoThis is intended for the retro PC community. Interest in building vintage PCs has taken off, but it's getting really hard/expensive to find certain working components like the Sound Blaster.
- panpanna 6y ago"Chips not available from Mouser can be purchased from a variety of sources in China" Good luck figuring out why your code doesn't work on your "genuine" 8051. From my experience, as soon as there is some demand (this has hit HN after all) the resellers start selling fake or inferior chips. Doesn't really matter how common or cheap they are, its just hope things work now. Edit: when we really have to buy from China, I always create a test rig to verify component characteristics. Easy for transistors and opamps, not so easy for CPUs.
- ajnin 6y agoThe SB card uses a number of old sound ICs that are simply not manufactured any more, and can't be bought from Mouser. Chinese shops are now the only source for these, and in my experience buying a few, they do work. No idea where they got them from however, maybe all that electronic junk that was shipped to China did get in part recycled.
- Marazan 6y agoThey've cloned them. They are in too perfect a condition to be recycled.
- avian 6y agoIt would be fascinating to find out where some of these parts come from. CuriousMarc had a video sometime ago where he got a batch of exotic HP custom ICs for his HP 9825 from a random seller in China. He first thought they were counterfeit, but after testing and decapping they turned out to be genuine. I don't think there's any profit in cloning such rare, old chips. Even in China I suspect fab runs are too expensive to justify making old chips for a handful of retro-computing enthusiasts. I think it's more likely these are parts pulled from old boards before recycling or forgotten new-old-stock someone found in a corner of a warehouse somewhere.
- kens 6y agoCuriousMarc's video on the TI watch chip inside the HP clock module is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeXYZKg5jdo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeXYZKg5jdo The chip itself is examined around 2:00.
- bayesian_horse 6y agoYet another one of those projects which is an incredible achievement and where I find myself wondering if this is a just a total waste of time and creative energy.
- dylan604 6y agoPeople like to learn things. There's no better way to learn something than to do something. It's even better if your first project is recreating something that is known to work. In that case, if it doesn't work its because something in your build doesn't work. If you design from scratch and then build, you don't know if the build is wrong or if the design is wrong. Not everyone can ride a bike without training wheels when they learn to ride a bike. It just happens that training wheels for real world things tends to look a lot like making a copy of something else that already exists. If that falls outside of what you approve of how someone spends their time/energy/money, then find something else to worry about.
- pvg 6y agoWe'll have to update our priors on leading a bayesian horse to content.
- tubetime 6y agoyou should see my other project! https://monster6502.com/ https://monster6502.com/
- cybervegan 6y agoWhy does the title say "Snood Bloober" but the linked article say "Snark Barker"? Just curious - did it change or something?
- ChuckMcM 6y agoSo why is the title 'Snood Bloober' when the project is 'Snark Barker' ?
- tubetime 6y agoThe card has multiple names--it's a bit of an inside joke. The official name is the "Snark Barker."