Polish speaker wanted - DivIDE 2k20 AY

[PeterJ]

I recently purchased one of these from LOTHAREK. Its a nice little unit, but if you are expecting documentation like you get from the likes of ByteDelight and others, I feel you would be exceptionally disappointing. The creator is very good at answering questions, but by his own omission his answers are very short.

Would a Polish speaker be able to give me the gist of the below video? I'm particularly interested in:

AY sound generator with ABC/ACB selector
Beeper sound on both channels

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYNiQ8bazsE

Many thanks

[akeley]

Geez, this is why I don't watch any youtube videos. It was painful. He's just rambling on about some obvious stuff or says "I don't really know" about the less obvious. It's a one hour video which would make a few minute read. Unfortunately nobody writes anymore...

I didn't watch it all, just skimmed so maybe I did miss the stuff you are interested in (though I don't think so, it's mostly rather basic demonstration). Maybe somebody else can chime in, if not I can ask some questions for you on a Polish forum.

And yeah, the thing about our hardware wizards not bothering with mundane stuff like manuals/descriptions is common I still don't quite know how to operate my SIO2SD for Atari, or, what's even more amusing, what some of the devices on Lotharek's page actually do!

[PeterJ]

And yeah, the thing about our hardware wizards not bothering with mundane stuff like manuals/descriptions is common

That certainly seems to be the case!

Just did some more Googling (is that an official word now?) and this document from ByteDelight explains the ABC / ACB channel mixing.

I wonder if Ben copied the idea from Przemyslaw, or vice versa

http://benophetinternet.nl/hobby/sales/ ... Manual.pdf

I also got a divMMC AY from Zaxon, and that came with no documentation as to the the DIP switches or anything The build quality and the case is excellent though. I did manage to work it out through trial and error though.

[1024MAK]

ABC vs. ACB "stereo" channel mixing has been a 'thing' for a great many years.

Basically, there was mono audio. 8 bit computer fans were happy just having a three tone generating sound chip. Then some bright spark came up with the idea of having a "stereo" output. Of course, someone else also had the same idea. Hence two different and incompatible new 'standards' were born...

On one, channel A is one stereo channel, channel C is the other stereo channel, and channel B is mixed equally to both stereo channels.

On the other, it's the same, but the two stereo channels are A & B with channel C being mixed equally to the two stereo channels.

Hence software written for ABC does not sound right on ACB hardware and of course the reverse is also true.

Some hardware has a switch so you can choose.

Mark

[PeterJ]

Thank you [mention]1024MAK[/mention],

Can I ask you about the AY chip? From what I read it's pretty much the same as in the 128 models and above, so apart from good quality stereo out, are the any other reasons to use on a 128K model Spectrum?

Hope the plants are well watered this morning?

[akeley]

I also got a divMMC AY from Zaxon, and that came with no documentation as to the the DIP switches or anything The build quality and the case is excellent though. I did manage to work it out through trial and error though.

Just to confirm, I think it's like that with DIPs:

1. up = MMC ON, down = OFF
2. down= zx 48, ZX 48 plus, (maybe)(sic) +3 , down= ZX 128

I'm also used to super brief replies from this lot (or completely bypassed questions . I know it's caused by the amount of queries they get, but one would think this could be alleviated by writing some sort of a manual in the first place.

[1024MAK]

Don't worry, all drooping plants have recovered

There are a number of different AY sound chips. But the sound section on the AY-3-8910, AY-3-8912 and AY-3-8913 is the same. So it should sound the same as the chip fitted in a 128K machine.

More detail here

Obviously if used on a 16K/48K/+ it will add AY sound.
The advantage when used on a 128K or later machine is simply it's separate output and the easy way to have "stereo".

It is possible to modify the circuitry in a 128K or later machine, but it's not for the faint hearted.

Mark

[PeterJ]

I know it's caused by the amount of queries they get, but one would think this could be alleviated by writing some sort of a manual in the first place.

That was my thought exactly. I'm just so busy answering support requests, I don't have time to write a manual

[Ralf]

Are you interested in any particular moment?

I could help but it's over one hour long Translating it all would be a pain

[PeterJ]

Thanks [mention]Ralf[/mention] , appreciated.

I think with the help of [mention]akeley[/mention] and [mention]1024MAK[/mention], I'm probably sorted.

Thanks again.

[Seven.FFF]

Neither ABC nor ACB stereo hardware sounds particularly good unless the program was designed for stereo in the first place.

In one of my own games I used three channel round robin AY sound effects, which sound like they are bouncing around the stereo space in a really distracting and unintended way. Also whichever one it picked as the middle channel was louder than the other two, which sounded bad.

In the end I rewrote the engine to let me pick a channel and have more control over the round robin. It’s annoying that things that used to be under the dev’s control get retrospectively changed, and the more emulators that default to stereo the further away from devs’ intentions to get.

[Jbizzel]

Hi I just ordered one of these, and while I wait for it arrive I want to prepare my CF card.

I have a 4 GB CF, does this need to be partitioned, or just formatting to fat16?

Any advice would be appreciated.