Adlib-DigiSnap

Building and using guide

V ERSION 2000.3.4

by Olli Niemitalo a.k.a. Yehar, [email protected],

www.student.oulu.fi/˜oniemita (homepage), mp3.sublevel3.org (music).
1. Introduction

Adlib-DigiSnap 1 is a device that enables digital recording of sound from an Adlib

sound card or old 8-bit Sound Blasters or a Sound Blaster Pro 1, or any other
device that has the original Yamaha YM3812 OPL2 FM-music chip on it.
Physically, Adlib-DigiSnap is a simple board you stick in the printer port, (just like
the good old Covox) and a bunch of wires go to the soundcard you want to record
from. 2
Practical requirements for running the device:

 Two PC’s, one for playing, one for recording. The recording PC has to be a
fast one and have lots of memory (3MB for one minute) for storing the data
during recording. You need two PC’s because recording is a very critical task
and requires the computer’s full attention – even doing any disk operations
would disturb the recording and cause clicks. Though, single Adlib tones
could perhaps be recorded and played on a single PC.

 MSDOS in the recording PC, because that’s the operating system i’ve writ-
ten a driver for. Don’t try to run the driver under WIN95, because it’ll just
crash...

 EPP, Enhanced Parallel Port in the recording PC. Adlib-DigiSnap uses EPP
handshaking with the PC, so be sure to enable EPP mode from BIOS setup.

You may have thought that Adlib is entirely analog – oh no, it is entirely digital
until the point of converting the digital signal to analog. And that’s the where
Adlib-DigiSnap puts its tentacles in the picture.
OK, what’s the big deal anyway? Well uh erm. . . Allrite, you get 100% digital
sound from Adlib, isn’t that great enough as such?!? My original idea was to
utilize the device in making an Adlib emulator by recording the original waveforms
and doing other snooping around as well. It’s great for recording Adlib “classics”
too (like Dune, Wolfenstein, Mortal Kombat, Doom, Commander Keen, Ultima
Underworld etc).
Go to my homepage and search around to find everything you need to build one
of these babes for yourself! (The PCB film and software drivers are there)
1 The name has nothing to do with the author of XM2WAV { it just sounded the nicest, so i

picked it.
2 Hardware geeks would perhaps gain from knowing that Adlib-DigiSnap is just a 16-bit serial to

parallel converter with EPP handshaking that divides the output to two times 8 bits. It generates

parallel port interrupts when it has a new 16-bit set ready and waits for the computer to read it

by using EPP data read and EPP address read.

1
2. Building

Here are instructions for building the device. One Adlib-DigiSnap has already
been built (by me) with these instructions so, don’t fear this would be just bullshit!
The PCB film can be found from my homepage.
Essential requirements for building the device:

 Experience in building printed circuit boards, or a knowledgeable friend or

daddy!

 Possibility to print the film (Epson Stylus Color 740 fooled to print a photo
on a glossy film with full quality did just fine on an InkJet transparent)

 Possibility to make a single-sided PCB with down to 0.3mm line thickness.

 Possibility to do all the drilling, sawing and soldering stuff

 Some money (very little!) for the parts – or perhaps you have them already!

There are three main parts in the device. The board, the cable and the soundcard-
side connector. (See cover page pictures!)
Shopping list:

 For the board and the connector:

– 1 x Blank board at least 50mm x 63mm in size

– 1 x 90-degree 25-pin male D-connector (for connecting to printer port)
– 2 x 74HC374 standard logic IC (10 legpairs)
– 2 x 74HC164 standard logic IC (7 legpairs)
– 1 x 74HC00 standard logic IC (7 legpairs)
– Sockets for the IC’s: 2 x 10 legpairs, 3 x 7 legpairs, 1 x 4 legpairs (for
the YM3014B DAC 1 you’ll pull off from the soundcard and attach to the
soundcard-side connector). You can use longer sockets too, but then
you have to cut them shorter.
– 5 x Any type of surface-mount capacitor (I used ones with markings
225, 20V)
– 1m of jump wire

 For the cable between the board and a soundcard:

1 Digital to Analog Converter

2
2.1. PREPARATION OF THE PCB 3

– 5 x cable length plus a little over of plastic coated single core copper
wire (I used Finnish army detonation cable). This sort, because the
soundcard-side connector is easy to make when it’s solid-core.
– Possibly a roll of all-around air conditioning tape for bunching the wires
in the cable.
– Some label stickers for marking the wires “DATA, CLK, GND, V, LOAD”.
(I used cut-up video cassette label stickers)

Here’s a picture (should prove well worth the ink) that will be referred to many
times in the rest of the text:

Overview

2.1 Preparation of the PCB

First, you need to print the picture of the film. (You should just have grabbed it
from my homepage) Check, from the bottom of the picture, for the right print size.
The size typed there is for the whole picture, not just the circuit part.
4 2. BUILDING

When you have it printed, and on a transparent, you got the film ready! The right
orientation for it is such that the text ”ADLIB-DIGISNAP” will show properly on the
copper side of the board. The components (except for the surface-mount) will be
inserted on the other side.
Now do the stuff you need to to print the board.
Drill the holes – all hole positions are marked with a small non-copper dot. The
two D-connector attaching holes require a large bit size. Check the D-connector
and see what size you need.
Saw off the unused edges of the board. Also, as you see from the overview, on a
corner of the board there is a separate square with pads (and an arrow marker in
the middle), which you can use for making the soundcard-side connector. Saw it
loose. Drill holes in it a little larger than in the rest of the board.
When you’re done with the drilling, you may wish to do little gentle wiping with
water and fine sandpaper.

2.2 Making the cable

Be sure to label the single wires properly near both ends. I coated the whole
cable with a slice of air conditioning tape, and it holds together real well. I’m using
a one-metre cable, but you may want to make it longer.
From overview you see that the labels “V, GND, LOAD, CLK, DATA” exist on both
the board and the connector. Eventually, the cable should connect those points.

2.3 Assembly

Start soldering from the surface-mount capacitors (C1 - C5). Some types of ca-
pacitors require correct polarisation, see overview for that.
Then IC’s. You may wish to connect only the IC sockets now, and leave the IC’s
to last (you don’t need to solder them if you use sockets).
Then the jump wires (J1-J13). There are 13 of them, sorry for that (i mean the
large number). On overview you see the right spots. For example, J3 must be
connected to another J3 with a jump wire.
Then the D-connector.
Last, the cable wires (V, GND, LOAD, CLK, DATA). (At this point the cable should
be finished!) Before soldering them, make a knot in the cable, drill a hole on the
bottom of the board where it doesn’t cause trouble and attach the knot and the
hole with for example a piece of iron wire. This makes an efficient protection from
2.4. SOUNDCARD-END CONNECTOR 5

cable pulling:

Pull-protection

2.4 Soundcard-end connector

Now we focus on the other end of the cable. We have the piece of board with
holes drilled on the pads and the V, GND, LOAD, CLK, DATA wires ready.
You have two options here. Do you want to hear sound when you do recording?
In other words, do you want to drag the DAC along and make it do its job?
If no, just solder the cable wires to their appropriate pads, so that they stick about
5mm from the bottom – these will be sticked into the DAC socket on the sound-
card. When recording, you’ll put the DAC in a safe place somewhere. . . Add the
missing legs to the connector from pieces of copper core.
If yes, scratch broke the arrow-pointed printed wire on the piece of board. This
enables the DAC analog output (disconnecting it from ground). Attach the re-
maining 4-legpair IC socket (for the DAC) to the piece of board and stick the cable
wires through the same holes (this is why you need wider holes here), again leav-
ing about 5mm of plain copper stick from the bottom. Solder it all up, and add
the missing legs to the connector from pieces of copper core. Done all this, and
having installed the DAC from the soundcard (instructions later) on the connector,
it should look like this:

Connector
3. Using

3.1 WARNING!

You’ll be very sorry for the burnt hardware if you skip this section. When us-
ing two computers and improper grounding, there can be a voltage difference of
something like 100V between the computers! Want to put 100V on your precious
Adlib? No. . . ?! Or the printer port. . . ? You can avoid this by attaching the com-
puter cases together with a cable. Additionally, i’ve attached my system to the
water radiator, to make it grounded with the rest of the world. Now i don’t even
get a shock from touching the network card connector (did before)!
The Adlib-DigiSnap has itself proven to be quite an insensitive device. I have kept
mine here and there, and handled it with no respect whatsoever, and it still works
as new! (Huh. . . )

3.2 Connecting

Stick the device to the printer port. Good. The other end of the cable is more
tricky. Looking at the soundcard, you should find a large IC with label “YAMAHA
YM3812” (may be hidden under a sticker, or scratched away). If you can’t find it,
see this picture for a hint of its shape and dimensions:

YM3812 (OPL2) and YM3014B (DAC)

If still no resemblance, you got the wrong soundcard pal!

OK, say you now have found it. Close to it, there should be a smaller chip, the
DAC. It is labeled YM3014B, Y3014B or, again, covered with a sticker or scratched
unidentificable. Pull it off from its socket, and put on your connector (if you chose
this option when making the connector), and put instead the connector into the
socket. Remember to preserve polarisation. The small triangle on your connector
is a polarisation mark.

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3.3. RECORDING 7

3.3 Recording

Run the program ”READER.EXE” (my MSDOS driver for the device) and start
producing sound you wish to record with the soundcard. You should see a scope
pumping with the sound. If you don’t, something is wrong. Refer to the program’s
documentation on other issues.