Re: ZVG firmware / the future of ZVG

Wait wait wait, how did we get from me wanting to redesign and reprogram
the ZVG for USB connectivity to sound in DOS?

On Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 11:17 PM, Jamesjonhagen <jamesjonhagen@gmail.com>wrote:

> Exactly, sometimes a different card can work as well. I have several
> Creative sound blaster 128s PCI that have worked in a pinch when a Live
> would not, bought those for $5 each.
>
> Getting back to the OP though- It can often be hard enough to get sound
> going even with older PCs... but using a PC that's newer (and missing the
> p. port) I've found the chances of DOS sound working with those MBs to be
> slim. I would make sure you can run sound in DOS Mame first on various
> newer MBs before attempting to modify the ZVG to use USB.
>
> That said, I've had no luck with DOS Mame sound on anything beyond the P4
> era but would love to be proven wrong.
>
> James H
>
> On Apr 16, 2012, at 10:56 PM, James Rhew <james@rhew.org> wrote:
>
> I had lots of trouble with my Dell P4 / OEM Soundblaster Live! value. An
> Ensoniq 1371 based Soundblaster worked fine. It's a time intensive but
> inexpensive crap-shoot.
>
> On Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 10:20 PM, Jamesjonhagen <jamesjonhagen@gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> Not to be overly negative but I've had failure with SB live cards too.
>> Especially with MBs using integrated sound. Turning that off in the BIOS
>> allowed to use the Live card but the frequency sounded double or just
>> didn't work.
>>
>> I'm just saying, it can be a real crapshoot depending on the BIOS.
>> That said, I've had good luck with PIII Gateway AMD based MBs
>>
>> James
>>
>> On Apr 16, 2012, at 8:00 PM, Al Warner <alw@alsarcade.com> wrote:
>>
>> From what I found out, if you want a PCI sound card to work in DOS, it
>> has to be a Soundblaster Live! Now that said, i paid like $12.00 shipped
>> for one on eBay.
>>
>> -Al-
>>
>> On 4/16/2012 7:26 PM, Jamesjonhagen wrote:
>>
>> Not all PCs of the PIII P4 era work well with sound cards in DOS. Having
>> a parallel port is just half the battle. That's good that you can spread
>> the word of a model that works Al.
>>
>> James Hagen
>>
>> Sent from my iPhone
>>
>> On Apr 16, 2012, at 7:22 PM, Al Warner <alw@alsarcade.com> wrote:
>>
>> I used a Pentium 4 Gateway to build mine - still real easy to buy
>> cheap on eBay. Video of the details at:
>>
>> http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL51665B28C8D84DA5&feature=plcp
>>
>> Just sayin'
>>
>> -Al-
>>
>> On 4/16/2012 7:04 PM, Gary McTaggart wrote:
>>
>> I'm not too deep on this, but I've heard from coworkers that have done
>> some general latency testing (not related to ZVG) that USB can introduce
>> quite a bit of latency compared to even an add-on parallel port, although a
>> lot of the newer add-on parallel ports can be terrible too. They takeaway
>> they had from these tests is that anyone that really wants low latency
>> should buy an ancient PC. :(
>>
>> Gary
>>
>> On Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 3:59 PM, Jeremy Abel <jeremyabel@gmail.com>wrote:
>>
>>> Well crap, there goes that idea. I'm going to call Zonn, see if he's
>>> into me redesigning and recoding the zvg for usb. That's pretty much the
>>> only option at this point, assuming he set the lock bits (although I never
>>> have for any of my projects...)
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 6:39 PM, GamingDevices <gamingdevices@tx.rr.com>wrote:
>>>
>>>> The Atmel ATmega16 & ATtiny2313 devices used in the ZVG have lock
>>>> bits, so I doubt that you can just read the part.
>>>>
>>>> Mike
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 4/16/2012 4:59 PM, Jeremy Abel wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Hello all!
>>>>
>>>> So, I've got my vector monitor (or at least the post office does; I
>>>> have to go pick it up), and I've been investigating ways to control it. So
>>>> far, the ZVG seems like the best / only option. However, they seem to be
>>>> hard to come by, and a bit out of my price range, not to mention the fact
>>>> that they just aren't being made anymore. Making it even more complicated,
>>>> I don't even have a PC with a parallel port (only a macbook). Instead, I've
>>>> come up with several other options, which I will talk about below.
>>>>
>>>> Using the schematic that's available online, I've managed to re-enter
>>>> the whole thing into EagleCAD, and have begun to design my own board for
>>>> it, using only through-hole parts (because I don't have the patience /
>>>> skill to solder SMDs). So far, only the power supply area is done, because
>>>> I don't want to put too much effort into it before getting some more
>>>> information about the whole thing. I'm doing this only because it would
>>>> cost me $100 to print the board, and then $50 in parts, which is about $100
>>>> less than I'd end up paying for an original ZVG. There is one snag though:
>>>> basically, I need the firmware that goes on the two Atmel chips. Without
>>>> that, I might as well not even bother. So, I've come up with some solutions
>>>> to that problem. Here's what I've been thinking:
>>>>
>>>> *Option 1: *I somehow manage to get ahold of Zonn (no luck with that
>>>> so far), and somehow convince him to open-source the firmware (something he
>>>> talked about here<http://www.ukvac.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=328991&PID=752487&SID=5dbcd2zb-da95-5c822ae9-cezbbae5-3z84c2e1&title=zektor-zvg-limited-run-hurry#752487>,
>>>> about a year ago). With access to the actual code, I could pretty easily
>>>> convert it to communicate over USB. With Zonn's permission, I would then
>>>> open source the entire thing, and thus you all would have a lovely new
>>>> open-source USB-enabled ZVG. This, I think, is the best option, as I don't
>>>> need anyone to dump the firmware for me, I don't need to logic probe the
>>>> thing and figure out what's being sent over the parallel port, and I don't
>>>> need to program an interpreter to convert the thing into USB.
>>>>
>>>> *Option 2*: Someone with a ZVG solders up headers to J5 and J6, and
>>>> uses an AVR programmer to read off the firmware and sends it to me as a hex
>>>> file. I can then use this to program my own atmel chips, and proceed.
>>>> However, this will make it difficult for me to get around the parallel port
>>>> problem without a large amount of logic-probing and then adding another
>>>> microcontroller to convert the signals being sent to the parallel port into
>>>> signals I can send over USB. In order to keep Zonn's IP safe, I'd keep the
>>>> whole thing to myself. Still, this feels shady.
>>>>
>>>> *Option 3: *I buy a ZVG from someone, dump the firmware myself, then
>>>> sell it back to someone else. This feels just as shady, maybe more, than
>>>> option 2.
>>>>
>>>> What do you all think about all of this? I'd love to get the ball
>>>> rolling on this, preferably on option 1 if anyone knows how to get ahold of
>>>> Zonn.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>> ~Jeremy
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>

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Received on Tue Apr 17 00:00:04 2012