Category: Announcements

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New Prototype Complete! Resound 2 MCA aka PS/2 Microchannel!

Pardon the mess, but it works! Ok, I’m getting ahead of myself, here is our latest working prototype the Resound 2 MCA! What is it? It’s a stereo Yamaha OPL3 (OPL2/Adlib compatible) sound card for the IBM PS/2 microchannel bus! I don’t usually like to show prototypes, but it was just too exciting hearing sound from a PS/2 machine this evening, so I had to show it!

TubeTime recently completed a replica of the Adlib for the MCA bus and I was very interested in the heart of his card, the P82C611 MCA bus controller. After doing quite a bit of deciphering of datasheets and schematics I was able to adapt the OPL3 chip to work on it just fine! The P82C611, while a bit difficult to get a hold of, does give me a lot of ideas… 🙂

I am performing a few minor fixes to the card, and I will be send off for them very soon and hope to have them available for sale within a month!

BTW… We have several new products coming out soon. I was doing a lot of design work during the lockdown, and a few things are about to hit the pipeline. Stay tuned for more updates soon!

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SAAYM Pre-Release Sound Card

Happy Thanksgiving from TexElec! We hope you’re having a great holiday! I have a quick update to share on the SAAYM dual SAA1099 & YM2151 ISA sound card. I spent about a week tweaking the audio levels and incorporating several changes into the card to get it where it needed to be. I sent it off for a small pre-production run a little over a week ago. Late last evening, DHL showed up with our boards and we immediately went to work building one. Just after midnight, our first test was immediately a success! The card is now recognized as a CMS / Gameblaster and works with DOS games which support it. SBVGM v1.7 by OPLx also supports this card and will playback VGM/VGZ files in DOS on real HW! There are a few more cool features on this card I will discuss in more detail upon release which I hope to be in the next few weeks! I have a few minor physical tweaks to do, but here is a sneak peek of what the final card will look like. Take care everyone!

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Dual SAA1099 & YM2151 ISA Sound Card “SAAYM” Demo – Commander X16 Audio System

Hey Everyone! I’ve been working on a ISA card for the PC with 2 SAA1099s & 1 YM2151. It’s not complete yet, but it is working, mostly. (I plan Gameblaster / CMS compatibility, but I made a little mistake, which will be resolved.) I designed this so I could tweak the audio circuit for the final system, and have at least part of the Commander X16 sound-system available on another platform. It’s working well enough for a demo, so here goes!

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Commander X16 – The Prototype is Working!

Hello Everyone! Have you been wondering what we’ve been up to all year? We planed to develop and release new products but it seems fate had other plans. Many of you may know that we’ve been working with The 8-Bit Guy on various aspects of the Commander X16 project. As time progressed, we were tasked with developing the motherboard itself! It’s been several long months of reading data sheets, forums, and routing in KiCad; but the prototype machine is complete, and it works! David just completed the second video for his “Dream Computer” series and it explains the system with great detail. Thanks to David and the whole Commander X16 team for making this all possible, it’s really amazing to be part of this project!

(Just as a little inside for my followers, we do have it working @ 8Mhz now, it just didn’t make the cut.)

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Tester with a Yamaha C1 Music Computer Needed!

**UPDATE: We have found a tester. Thank very much to everyone who responded! We will post another update once the card has been fully tested.**

Please share, retweet, help us spread the word however you can. Maybe you have a friend with a nice computer collection or maybe you have one yourself. We need someone who has a Yamaha C1 Music Computer. It looks like this:

photo credit mu:zines – music magazine archives

James at Lo-tech has designed a Yamaha C1 HDD interface that will allow a CompactFlash card to be used as a hard drive in a Yahama C1 Music Computer. The Yamaha C1 Music Computer uses an MFM hard drive, over time these commonly quit functioning properly which, of course, renders the machine very difficult to use to say the least. Here is the development thread started by James on the Vintage Computer Federation forums.

As you can see, the prototype is ready to go, now we just need someone to test it for us:


Please contact us if you have a Yamaha C1 Music Computer and would be willing to do some testing.


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New Commodore 64/128 Prototype Card and 8-Bit Guy’s Dream Computer

We’re happy to introduce another prototyping board to our catalog. Take a look at the Commodore 64/128 Cartridge Port Prototype Card v1.0 for more details. You may find it handy for your next Commodore project!

Kevin and I met David Murray at Retropalooza back in October, you may have seen a post or two about our visit there here on our blog. On a side note the coupon code from that post is still good in the store. Anyway, it would seem Kevin and David have a lot in common because since that meeting they have been getting together to work on various projects. So when David reached out to Kevin about his dream computer, he was intrigued. Next thing I know Kevin is… well… just take a look…

We have ordered a small run of PCBs for the Video Development Board for the Commander 16 Prototype so we will have them available soon.

Stay tuned, we have more headed your way!

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KeyTronic “Foam and Foil” Capacitive Pads are Back in Stock!

I’ve got more “Foam and Foil” Capacitive Pads for KeyTronic Keyboards stocked now and they go fast! I am punching up more each day as well as getting more material ready to try avoid going out of stock again. The weather has been cutting into curing time as humidity can make this take a bit longer. Please rest assured I am doing what I can to stay in stock, hopefully I am ahead of the game now. However, if do you arrive at the store only to find they are gone again, just send me an email and I will personally contact you as soon as I have more listed again.  Thank you for your patience!