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[SScorpio]

The PicoGUS continues to be the Swiss Army Knife for retro PC gamers.

A quick run down, PicoGUS is an open source hardware project using a RP2040 chip on a ISA card. It's original purpose was to recreate the Gravis Ultrasound sound card which are $300-$1,000 on eBay. However it's on the fly re-programmability has allowed it to keep having new features added.

Feature Rundown

• Gravis Ultrasound
• Sound Blaster 2.0
• Adlib (OPL2)
• Tandy 3-voice
• CMS/Game Blaster
• Intelligent Mode MPU401 with internal wavetable daughter board connector and external MIDI device support
• USB Mouse as serial mouse
• USB Joystick/Gamepad as old school PC joystick
• And NOW Panasonic/MKE CD-ROM ODE that supports CD Audio

https://github.com/polpo/picogus/releases/tag/v3.0.1

There have been other software solutions for mounting CD images on PCs. But a way to playback CD audio under pure DOS has already remained an issue. And other ODE devices are far more expensive. While an assembled PicoGUS runs $50 in the US with the regular European markups of 58 pounds or 65 Euro.

 

[Topher]

Tandy?

 

[StereoVsn]

That's a very cool solution for retro PCs. I need to get one at some point, keep meaning to put together Win98 box.

 

[SScorpio]

That's a very cool solution for retro PCs. I need to get one at some point, keep meaning to put together Win98 box.

IMO it's abilities are limited when it comes to Windows. Windows games work fine with PCI sound cards and can be better with things like EAX.

Later DOS games also usually have MIDI support so the GUS functionality isn't as important. You also have USB support built into the OS. And you can just run Daemon Tools under Windows and it supports CD audio.

The PicoGUS is really more of a pure DOS device that supports pre-Sound Blaster sound options along with the GUS. Mine is in a P233MMX system, I wouldn't really put it in anything newer.

 

[TintoConCasera]

Can't I just use OpenAL or some other shit like that? That's how I emulate EAX in some old games and it seems to work fine.

Still cool ofc, the more ways we have to keep playing retro games, the better.

 

[SScorpio]

Can't I just use OpenAL or some other shit like that? That's how I emulate EAX in some old games and it seems to work fine.

Still cool ofc, the more ways we have to keep playing retro games, the better.

OpenAL is needed for Windows Vista and later as hardware accelerated sound supported was removed after Windows XP.

If you want to use a modern PC, just run DOSBox. It does everything the PicoGUS does. The PicoGUS is for doing all of this on a real 486/Pentium computer.

 

[a multicultural team of v]

This is actually amazing, thanks for posting. I wish I knew about it sooner, I just bought a stack of CDRs because I was unsatisfied with mounting ISOs in DOS - the hard drive trashing was just too much, especially under Windows.

Will pick one of these up whenever my discs run out lol

 

[Diseased Yak]

Very cool!

 

[SScorpio]

This is actually amazing, thanks for posting. I wish I knew about it sooner, I just bought a stack of CDRs because I was unsatisfied with mounting ISOs in DOS - the hard drive trashing was just too much, especially under Windows.

Will pick one of these up whenever my discs run out lol

If you're on a newer PC there's also the USBODE which runs off a Raspberry Pi Zero. It requires a newer computer with USB support. Under Windows is should be just fine, but pure DOS support could be tricky. This would let you mount ISOs off a SD card.

It can do audio with a DAC hat, but the extra overhead of USB might be too much for the systems I see the PicoGUS as the target for.

https://github.com/danifunker/usbode

 

[a multicultural team of v]

If you're on a newer PC there's also the USBODE which runs off a Raspberry Pi Zero. It requires a newer computer with USB support. Under Windows is should be just fine, but pure DOS support could be tricky. This would let you mount ISOs off a SD card.

It can do audio with a DAC hat, but the extra overhead of USB might be too much for the systems I see the PicoGUS as the target for.

https://github.com/danifunker/usbode

I've been using SHSUCD which has generally been fine, but sometimes in Windows 3.1 it feels like the hard drive is going a bit hard and performance isn't great. In Windows 95 I've tried using an old ass Daemon tools version which again seems to work fine, but the performance isn't great. I think I have issues with Windows 95 in general though because the way I'm dual booting DOS/3.1 and 95 seems to mess with the hard drive controller drivers in Windows 95 - I think I'm stuck with very low performance IO because of it.

Ultimately I think I either need to ground up re-format and re-do the whole setup, or just get another computer and have one be pure DOS/3.1 and the other 95.

 

[cartman414]

OpenAL is needed for Windows Vista and later as hardware accelerated sound supported was removed after Windows XP.

If you want to use a modern PC, just run DOSBox. It does everything the PicoGUS does. The PicoGUS is for doing all of this on a real 486/Pentium computer.

Aren't 86box and PCemu supposed to be even better?

 

[Hudo]

Wasn't aware of this. Sounds like a pretty cool project.

 

[Nikodemos]

OpenAL is needed for Windows Vista and later as hardware accelerated sound supported was removed after Windows XP.

I'll never forgive MS for bowing down to RIAA, and destroying the chance for true accelerated audio.

 

[dave_d]

I need to read more about it here https://picog.us/ plus they have videos.
Actually I'm wondering if it supports more ram than a real ultrasound. (My brother had one back in the day. Yes it was better than the sound blaster but you usually had to play around with miles drivers to get it working. Either that or use the soundblaster/roland mt32 emulators.

 

[SScorpio]

Aren't 86box and PCemu supposed to be even better?

It's different, don't use the stock DOSBox as it's outdated, there are several forks with different features that are very large upgrades. It depends on what your goals are.

86Box started as a fork of PCEm but has diverged enough to be its own thing. These are full PC emulators which emulate all of the hardware so like a NES or SNES emulator. DOSBox doesn't attempt to emulate the full computer, just the DOS environment all with hardware like sound card, and Voodoo for GLIDE support, etc. The emulators require much more power to run and even the latest PCs cap out at Pentium 2/3 and even then even the latest can't run the higher speeds Pentium 3 CPUs could hit.

The emulators do let you install and run Windows. But there's also WINEVDM and DxWnd for running old Windows games directly on new systems which work great when paired with DOSBox.

I just use DOSBox, if I want to more I have a MiSTer which can handle 8086 through slow 486. And then real PCs for anything faster.

I'll never forgive MS for bowing down to RIAA, and destroying the chance for true accelerated audio.

Creative deserves more of the blame. Not only did they kill Aureal by suing them out of existance even though Aureal won the lawsuits. But they wrote shit drives that would crash Windows.

Vista moved a lot of things out of the Kernel so the sound or GPU driver crashing would just cause a restart of that driver and the system would remain running. Thankfully we're finally getting back to the level of audio we had back in the glory days. I was glad to see Sony showing off their advanced audio that finally did what my Vortex 2 card did 20 years ago.

I need to read more about it here https://picog.us/ plus they have videos.
Actually I'm wondering if it supports more ram than a real ultrasound. (My brother had one back in the day. Yes it was better than the sound blaster but you usually had to play around with miles drivers to get it working. Either that or use the soundblaster/roland mt32 emulators.

I'm not sure on the memory size front.

But I have one one of these connected to the wave table header on my PicoGUS. It brings MT-32 and General MIDI sound fonts onboard and it's configurable from a commandline utility.
https://www.serdashop.com/WP32-McCake

 

[Nikodemos]

Creative deserves more of the blame. Not only did they kill Aureal by suing them out of existance even though Aureal won the lawsuits. But they wrote shit drives that would crash Windows.

Oh, Creative deserved to be dismantled over that bullshit. Or at least their products banned from sale.

 

[ShirAhava]

You mean the days of having to have a custom speaker jerry-rigged internally for MS-DOS Games are over?
but playing audigy driver roulette that might (will) crash the entire OS that you have to recover
using the ARCHAIC software you made the backup with in 2002 is the best game of all! (NOT) .....this is great news!

 

[SScorpio]

You mean the days of having to have a custom speaker jerry-rigged internally for MS-DOS Games are over?
but playing audigy driver roulette that might (will) crash the entire OS that you have to recover
using the ARCHAIC software you made the backup with in 2002 is the best game of all! (NOT) .....this is great news!

I still have a bit of a mess as I have a SB16 along with the PicoGUS that has a MP32 McCake on it.

Then for Win98 I have a Sound Blaster Audigy with Live Drive, and Diamond Monster MX300 (Vortex 2). The Vortex 2 card has it's SPDIF output to the internal input of the Live Drive, and CD Audio is also to SPDIF input on the Audigy. So the Audigy can mix everything but it's all digital so no sound quality issues. The Vortex 2's drivers are also cool as their MPU401 lets you choose the MIDI device on the fly. That lets me switch DOS window MIDI output to the builtin wavetables of the Audigy and Vortex 2, or Audigy with Soundfont, or External MIDI on the Live Drive.

Which bring in all the MIDI synth fun

Finally I also have another toy called the USB4VC which lets you use USB keyboard, mouse, and controllers and it adapters them to PS2, AT, Serial, and Gameport.