The Amstrad PC-1512 : The Affordable IBM PC Compatible for Europe

The Amstrad PC1512, What you See is the Hardware you Got (credit to wikipedia)

In 1986, Amstrad released the PC-1512 for in the United Kingdom.  Amstrad was a leading manufacturer of home computers, having launched the successful CPC series and by 1986, having bought Sinclair Research and would release more computers in the ZX Spectrum line.  However, both the CPC and Speccy's were known more for and better at playing video games than serious work.  Unfortunately, the standard business computer of the day, the IBM PC and clones, was very expensive.  The cost of a minimally configured PC compatible or clone was well out of the price range of most European consumers.

Neither of Amstrad's key computer lines were IBM PC compatible so Amstrad decided to design their own PC Compatible.  The solution they came up with was innovative in many ways but a bit limited in others. Enter the PC-1512.

The Amstrad PC-1512 uses an 8086 CPU running at 8MHz like the Tandy SL, SL/2 or the IBM PS/2 Models 25 & 30, but it came earlier than either machine.  The CPU is in a socket, so it can be upgraded to a V30 for increased performance.  The stock system came with 512KB of parity memory, which was very reasonable for a low cost PC clone at this time.  (The Tandy 1000 EX and HX came with half that and the SX came with 384KB, all non-parity).  The RAM can be upgraded to 640KB with eighteen standard 64Kx1 DRAMs, 150ns or better.  It also has a socket for an 8087 Math Coprocessor and a built-in floppy controller with DMA.

The PC-1512 came with one or two half height 5.25" drives, and in this regard looks very similar to a Japanese NEC PC-8801 or 9801 machine.  The keyboard is based off the IBM 83 key keyboard with many improvements to the layout.  It has 85 keys and looks like an IBM PC AT keyboard. Apparently the PC-1512 was released in the United States, but it was not popular.  Likewise, the Tandy 1000s were released in the U.K. and Europe, but were not popular.  The US and UK keyboard are almost identical and the UK keyboard is rather US friendly in terms of key layout.  The keyboard is not compatible with any IBM-compatible keyboard, but there does exist at least one compatible 102-key keyboard.  Early Northgate Omnikey keyboards also have Amstrad compatibility with a special cable.

Input was also very innovative for the time.  The system came with a mouse out of the box, which was always a separate purchase for other IBM PC compatibles of this time.  The Amstrad mouse is extremely ugly looking, even by the miserable mousing standards of the 1980s. It looks like the designer was inspired by the Moai statues of Easter Island.  You should be able to build an adapter to allow a bus mouse which sends pure quadrature signals to work in the PC-1512.  I believe an Atari ST mouse may also be compatible.  I'm not sure about an Amiga mouse.

Expansion is pretty decent.  There is a standard 25-pin serial and parallel port on the back and three slots inside the machine for ISA expansion cards.  The keyboard connects to the machine via a 6-pin DIN.  Next to the keyboard port is a DE-9 mouse port.  The mouse is a proper rotary optical mouse, but the two mouse buttons are redirected to the keyboard port.  The keyboard will report the mouse buttons as otherwise unused raw keyboard scancodes.  Of course, with the proper mouse driver, this should be transparent to the user.  If you want to assign the mouse buttons to a particular keyboard key, you have that option.

Even more interesting is the Amstrad joystick, which attaches to the keyboard via a DE-9 port.  The joystick pinout is compatible with standard Atari joysticks, but also can support a second button on pin 7, which is not particularly standard (Genesis and Master System controllers use Pin 9).  This is a digital joystick, which is a first in the PC world.  The keyboard treats the joystick simply as six extra keys, giving a unique raw scancode to each key.  The built in firmware translates the joystick directionals to cursor keys but the buttons can be user defined to produce the translated scancode of any key.  The Amstrad can also use a standard IBM PC compatible analog joystick with a standard Game Card or a Sound Card.  This feature was carried over to the PC-1640.

Like the Tandy 1000 EX and SX, the Amstrad has a volume control for the internal speaker.  The dial is accessible outside the machine, like the EX.  The SX's volume dial is inside the machine, an issue fixed with the TX and HX.  There is no additional sound hardware outside the main PC speaker unless you add a sound card.

The Amstrad came with one or two 5.25" 360KB drives.  Upgrading the drives to 720KB can be done.  The data separator in the PC-1512 cannot handle the 500kbits per second speed required for high density drives.  In addition, Amstrad drive cables are untwisted, so you will need a way of setting a modern 3.5" drive to DS0 instead of DS1 for the A: drive.  You do not need to do anything for the B: drive in this case. Installing a hard drive into one of the bays was a standard, if expensive, option.  You would need to add a hard drive controller card into one of the expansion slots or use a hard card.  The Amstrad can accept a 13" expansion card, unlike the Tandys.

The Amstrad had a built in real time clock and CMOS RAM.  It is a standard HD146818 like the one used in the IBM PC AT and powered by 4xAA batteries instead of coin cells, barrel batteries, or the Dallas Smartwatches.  The CMOS setup is pretty basic, but is used to assign the number of disks, starting text/graphics mode, initialize serial port parameters and can be used to assign a keyboard translated scancode to the joystick and mouse buttons.  Tandys of the time required an upgrade for a RTC, either being fitted underneath a ROM chip or on an expansion board.

Most PC compatibles had a fan for the power supply.  Early PC1512s did not come with a fan, even for the power supply.  The reasoning was that the inclusion of the power supply in the monitor allowed for adequate cooling by natural convection.  However, when rumors of unreliable machines popped up, Amstrad put in a fan.

The Amstrad came with MS-DOS 3.2 and Digital Research DOS Plus, the latter of which can run MS-DOS or CP/M applications but was slower.  It also came with DR's GEM graphical user interface and the GEM Paint program.  The Paint program supports 640x200x16.  Tandy provided something similar with its Deskmate II software with the SX, but Deskmate II gave only a text-mode based interface.  The EX's Personal Deskmate used a true graphical interface but it was fairly limited.

The 1512 has a special CGA-style monitor.  This monitor comes in monochrome and "colour" varieties.  This monitor is unique to the 1512 because it provides power to the system unit.  No monitor = paperweight.  The monitor provides power to the system unit via a very unusual DIN-14.  The system unit provides video to the monitor via a DIN-8.  This DIN-8 combines H-sync and V-sync on one pin, standard CGA separates the H and V signals into two pins.  The signals for the R, G, B, & I signals are still digital.  The Amstrad does not have composite CGA output, so the monochrome output is digital and uses 16-shades, giving sharp and distinct image quality.

CGA compatibility on the 1512 is nothing to write home about.  The standard BIOS-compatible CGA modes are supported as is the 160x100 "graphics mode" and the alternate cyan/red/white palette. Composite color is not supported because the PC-1512 was designed in and marketed mainly for PAL countries and CGA composite color was NTSC based.  The MC6845 is only emulated and the emulation is not 100% compatible.  The built-in CGA cannot be disabled, so EGA and VGA will be limited to monochrome modes.  A Hercules or MDA card will work alongside the Amstrad's CGA, but you will need a separate monitor.  A Hercules InColor card will also work to provide high resolution color output, but little software supports it.

Amstrad CGA has two or three text mode fonts built in, selectable by a jumper on the motherboard.  Normal/Codepage 437/English is the default, Danish is also available as is Greek on later 1512s.  More important is its 640x200x16 graphics mode.  This graphics mode is unique to the 1512.

However, few games ever took advantage of this high resolution graphics mode.  MobyGames indicates that 21 games support Amstrad graphics, but this does not mean these games support the 640x200x16 Amstrad graphics mode.  The Lemmings games do not.  Iznogoud does not, nor do the two Passenger on the Wind games.  While they do have Amstrad selections, I believe this is to ensure compatibility with CGA graphics, not to implement extra color.  Almost all of these games support EGA and sometimes even Tandy or VGA.  All of these games  come from European publishers and except for Lemmings they are very obscure by US standards.

The one commercial game that has been known to support Amstrad 640x200x16 graphics out of the box is Frank Bruno's boxing.  It gives more color to what would otherwise be 640x200 B&W CGA graphics.  Unfortunately, the game is an unlicensed clone of the Punch Out arcade games and is pretty terrible.  Ironically, it does not support the Amstrad joystick.  Here are some screenshot comparisons :

Title - Amstrad

Title - CGA

Opponent Profile - Amstrad

Opponent Profile - CGA

Fight - Amstrad Colour

Fight - Amstrad Monochrome on Colour Monitor

Fight - CGA

The 640x200x16 mode's implementation is unique to the Amstrad PC-1512.  Its successor, the Amstrad PC-1640, has built-in EGA graphics in place of the PC-1512's graphics controller.  The 16-color PC-1512 graphics mode did not receive BIOS support.  Neither did the 640x200x16 mode with the later Tandys.  It requires 64KB of RAM, but the controller only provides a 16KB window into video memory.  In this 640x200 mode, the window is assigned to one of four 16KB bitplanes, with each bitplane representing one of the four RGBI components.  You select each bitplane then write that component's bits.

On top of this, the Amstrad's CGA graphics may be the slowest graphics adapter of all time (next to the PCjr.)  Topbench's benchmarks show the speed of the Amstrad as significantly lower than a CGA card in an IBM PC or the Tandy graphics adapter in an Tandy 1000SX.  Given that you cannot disable the built-in graphics, you are almost always stuck with slow 4-color CGA graphics.  The Technical Reference states that the CPU has wait states inserted when accessing video RAM to maintain synchronization with the graphics controller and the number of wait states (12-46) seems rather high.

One thing I had forgotten about until writing this article was that Sierra offered support for the 640x200x16 mode in its SCI0 and 16-color versions of SCI1 games!  With a driver called PC1512.DRV, you could obtain a proper, effective 320x200x16 resolution in Sierra's games.  In order to achieve this, each pixel is written twice horizontally.  This driver rarely can be found with the actual games themselves, but here is a place to download the driver : http://sierrahelp.com/Patches-Updates/MiscUpdates.html  The SCI games run a tad slow on the PC1512.  As far as AGI games go, there is no Amstrad driver and you are limited to 4-color CGA at best.

Price and Feature Comparison with the Tandy 1000SX

Amstrad PC-1512 US Prices
Monochrome Monitor Single Drive : $799
Monochrome Dual Drive : $899
Color Single Drive : $999
Color Dual Drive : $1,099

Source : http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=183

Tandy 1000SX US Prices :
Tandy 1000SX Dual Drive : $1,199
VM-4 Monochrome Monitor : $129.95
CM-5 Color Monitor : $299.95
Digi-Mouse : $99.95
Digi-Mouse Controller/Calendar Board : $99.95
PLUS RS-232C Option Board & PLUS Upgrade Adaper Board : $94.9

Source : Tandy Computer Catalog RSC-17

So, in order to get the functional equivalent of the Amstrad's Color Dual Drive features (except for CPU and RAM), you would need to spend $1,793.75 at Radio Shack on the SX.  Of course, you could often find Tandy options cheaper elsewhere.

Here is a spreadsheet comparison between the two dual drive systems :

Feature	Amstrad PC-1512	Tandy 1000SX
CPU	8086 @ 8MHz	8088 @ 7.16/4.77MHz
CPU Upgrade	V30	V20, 286 Express
Coprocessor	Supported	Supported
RAM	512/640KB parity	384/640KB non-parity
Keyboard	85-Key	90-Key
Parallel Port	DB-25	Card Edge
Serial Port	DB-25	Upgrade
Real Time Clock	Built-in	Upgrade
Mouse Interface	Built-in	Upgrade
Volume Control	External	Internal
Sound	PC Speaker	PC Speaker + Tandy 3 Voice
Expansion Slots	3	5
Video	Amstrad Enhanced CGA	Tandy Graphics Adapter
Drive Bays	2 x 5.25”	2 x 5.25”
Monitor	Included	Separate Purchase
Monitor Type	Monochrome or Color CGA	Monochrome or Color CGA or Composite
Joystick Interface	Digital, 1 Joystick	Analog, 2 Joysticks
Power Supply	57W	65W
Supplied Software	MS-DOS 3.2, DR DOS Plus, DR GEM, DR GEM Paint	MS-DOS 3.2, Tandy Deskmate II

So, it would seem that Amstrad has more advantages.  But not all things are weighted evenly.

The Amstrad CPU is faster than the Tandy CPU, but the slower switchable speeds of the Tandy makes it more early software friendly.  Moreover, Tandy offered the 286 Express upgrade (at 299.95) that would propel the Tandy beyond the Amstrad.  8086 machines had no such upgrade generally available.  

The maximum amount of RAM is the same, but the cost of eighteen 64Kx1 chips for the Amstrad was probably roughly equivalent to the cost of eight 256Kx1 chips for the Tandy.  

Amstrad's keyboard has a better layout than Tandy's.  The keys are more spread out and areas more clearly defined.  Tandy's keyboard has everything mushed together and the extra keys are seldom used.

Amstrad's parallel port is standard, Tandy's is not and is missing one of the control lines.  The serial port in the Amstrad is a welcome feature, Tandy requires an upgrade that takes up a slot.  Cheap these days, however.  A dual serial card will give you a mouse interface for the Tandy, making Amstrad's mouse interface no longer much of an advantage.

Amstrad's external volume control comes in handy on occasion.  With the SX, you can use the multiplexer to silence the internal speaker and allow the external audio output to output PC Speaker and 3-voice music.  See here : http://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/2013/06/ibm-pcjr-and-tandy-1000-sound.html

Music is clearly superior from the Tandy machine, 3-voice music was supported in hundreds of games and usually sounds decent even when the game supports Adlib music.

Expansion slots are typically a wash, you need at least one slot on the Tandy for a mouse interface.  Amstrad will have no problem with Expanded Memory Boards, but there are modern Expanded Memory Boards available from Lo-tech that fit inside Tandys.  Vintage 8-bit EMS boards are overpriced.

The Tandy 1000SX has its power supply built in and you are not tied to two specific monitors.  They can also use NTSC-compatible composite monitors and TVs when nothing better is available.

Tandy's video slaps down Amstrad's video.  Tandy's video is much more CGA compatible and is far, far faster than Amstrad's.  Hundreds of games use 320x200x16 and 160x200x16 Tandy graphics, almost none use Amstrad's Enhanced 640x200x16 graphics.  You can easily upgrade to an EGA or VGA card in a Tandy SX, you cannot in an Amstrad.

The joystick issue is not an easy one.  Some games do explicitly support an Amstrad joystick.  Many games which use cursor keys support it by default.  Games that do not use the cursor keys or games that read raw scancodes from the keyboard will not work with the joystick.  The analog joystick of a Tandy is always supported in any game that supports a standard joystick. An analog to digital joystick converter for the Tandy joystick is now possible : http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?44532-Tandy-Color-Computer-Digital-Joystick-Adapter 

When The Doctor Met the Monster - Product Placement in Godzilla 1985

Better than the Japanese title

When New World Pictures (NWP) was developing "The Return of Godzilla" into "Godzilla 1985", it made a deal with the soft drink maker Dr. Pepper.  Dr. Pepper was conducting an advertising campaign at the time where commercials showed Godzilla being destructive until calmed by some Dr. Pepper.  NWP was a smaller studio which could use all the publicity they could get to advertise the film they were going to release into theaters in the summer of 1985.  NWP made a deal with Dr. Pepper, Dr. Pepper would shout out the film in their advertising campaign and NWP would conspicuously engage in product placement for Dr. Pepper in its film.

You should have seen that birdie I made on the 13th hole...

This film has a reputation for having "numerous product placements" (according to wikipedia) for Dr. Pepper. I remembered Dr. Pepper products being featured in the film, but I could not specifically recall in how many instances or how long they could be seen.  Because Godzilla 1985 is not available except on the dead formats of VHS and LaserDisc, I had to "track down" a more watchable and widescreen copy from other sources.  The channel MonstersHD broadcast Godzilla 1985 in the mid-2000s and a DVR transfer of this broadcast remains the best source for the film that is readily available.  The version I used was in SD but comparable to DVD quality and uses anamorphic widescreen.  There are a few minor differences between this "workprint version" MonstersHD used and the theatrical prints,
http://hkfilmnews.blogspot.com/2007/10/godzilla-1985-widescreen-on-monsters.html, but none that would affect this particular issue.

A peaceful scene, for the moment

With a copy with which I could easily manipulate the playback,  I counted exactly four instances where Dr. Pepper is plugged.  The first instance is the scene introducing General Goodhue and Major McDonough at 18:02.  There is a Dr. Pepper vending machine in the middle of the background as the camera tracks the two men down the hall.  The scene with the vending machine visible lasts 26 seconds.  The second instance is at 30:52 when Steven Martin's grandson is playing with his toys.  A can of Dr. Pepper is among his toys and gets knocked around.  The can is visible on screen for about 13 seconds and can be seen in two shots.  The third instances is of Maj. McDonough taking a drink from a Dr. Pepper can at 1:18:59 and is visible for about 2 seconds.  The final instance is a Special Thanks to "The Dr. Pepper Bottling Co.", among others, in the credits.  The credits last for 2m50s and the text can be seen for about 10 seconds, just like any other line.

I am Godzilla, you are Japan!

I would note that the filmmakers took steps to avoid overly gratuitous use of Dr. Pepper.  They determined that it would not be unreasonable to have a vending machine in the office building like the Pentagon, so they set it in the hallway scene with the General and Major.  However, it would have been crass to put the machine in the Command Center itself where most of the rest of the subsequent US footage would be shot. Dr. Pepper is not the only beverage shown to be consumed in the film, even in the later-added US footage. The General is shown drinking coffee twice.  Although US Director Kizer tried to get Raymond Burr to take a drink of Dr. Pepper on film, that was not about to happen.

Is Dr. Pepper is the reason why this guy is such a dweeb?

The scene with the vending machine has the longest shot of any of the Dr. Pepper instances, so I think it is worth some attention.  If this film was being made in 2015 instead of 1985, a more conscious effort may have been made to emphasize the machine.  One way would be for the General and the Major to stop to have their conversation in front of the machine with each actor standing on either side of it.  Another way would be for the General and the Major to walk toward the machine with the camera following them, allowing the machine to gain more prominence as the men get closer to the Command Center.  In the existing scene, the camera pulls away from the machine.

I'm sure Dr. Pepper would have preferred a few more gratuitous shots of its soda

Godzilla 1985 is 83 minutes long between the opening titles and closing credits.  The US version added about 10 minutes to the film's runtime and the remainder is from the original The Return of Godzilla (which is 103 minutes long).  While Dr. Pepper did exist in Japan, it was nowhere near the most popular soft drink there and it is not present in the Japanese film.  The Japanese film released in December 1984 and only after that did NWP obtain the rights to recut and release the film in the US.  In the context of the complete film, Dr. Pepper has only a very minor presence.


I would not have been surprised if the Marketing people at Dr. Pepper, after viewing the film, were a little disappointed.  They probably would have expected a few more shots with a Dr. Pepper can in it or perhaps a second scene in the hallway, preferably with Burr in it.  However, for NWP, it was a small price to pay for some very generous support from a national brand.

Bonus : A Bit about Burr

Steve Martin - 1956 Vintage

NWP made an inspired decision to bring back Raymond Burr and his character, who had been introduced in Godzilla, King of the Monsters in 1956.  Burr treated Godzilla seriously and brought the same gravitas to the role 30 years later, now with the added years.  Whatever his faults in his personal life, (his own accounts of his personal life were filled with fiction), Burr always took acting seriously and never gave an undignified performance.  His presence helps keep the grim tone of the original The Return of Godzilla intact between the Dr. Pepper plugs, the goofy comedy relief provided by Major McDonough and the dubbing.  The Return of Godzilla sans-Pepper & Burr is a bit dull by comparison.  When Sony localized Godzilla 2000, even the decent dubbing and judicious trimming could not quite make up for the absence of Burr and new American scenes.

Steven Martin - 1985 Vintage

Although Burr is frequently referred to as "Steve" or "Steve Martin" and never as "Steven" in Godzilla, King of the Monsters, the shorter "Steve" is never used in Godzilla 1985.  This was to avoid any association with the comedian Steve Martin, who was some years away from being known for his fine dramatic skills.  Burr's character's first name, "Steven", is only given in the credits and in the script.  In the film itself, he is always referred to as "Mr. Martin" except in one instance.  In fact, when he introduces himself to the General, in the script he is supposed to say his full name, but in the film he just says "The name is Martin, you asked for me to come here."

Pontificate all you want Ray, but here is the real star of the film

It is worthy to observe that Godzilla portended good things for Burr after both times he appeared in a Godzilla film.  When he appeared in Godzilla, King of the Monsters in 1956, his mainstream breakout role in Perry Mason was very close at hand.  Godzilla, King of the Monsters had premiered in April, 1956 and Burr had won the role in TV series Perry Mason by the next month  I'm sure the financial success of Godzilla, King of the Monsters did not hurt his chances or make the producers of Perry Mason reconsider their choice.  Burr's film appearances virtually disappeared for the next twenty years between Perry Mason and Ironside.  However, after Ironside his subsequent TV shows failed and he was not in huge demand in feature films either.  When he was working on Godzilla 1985 he was simultaneously working on the first Perry Mason TV movie.  It premiered at the end of December, 1985 and it was so successful to launch a series of twenty five more TV films, an Ironside Renunion film and four more "Perry Mason Mystery" films after Burr's death.  He only made one more film appearance after Godzilla 1985, ultimately it is his work in TV and in Godzilla films (and portraying the villain in Hitchcock's Rear Window) for which he will be most remembered.

NES PowerPak and EverDrive N8 Mapper Reference

This blog entry is dedicated to the various mappers files and collections for the NES PowerPak and EverDrive N8.  I have previously discussed each device elsewhere in this blog.  This blog entry will always have the latest compatibility information for these flash carts.

NES PowerPak Mapper Sets

Latest Official Mappers : v1.34, 10-14-2010
Expansion Audio Support : VRC6, FDS, Namco 163, Sunsoft 5B (all by an older version of Loopy's Mappers)
http://www.retrousb.com/product_info.php?cPath=24&products_id=34

Here is the Mapper Support Matrix :

Latest Beta Mappers : v1.35b2, 11-10-2010
Changes to Official Mappers : 1, 3, 4, 79/4F
http://www.retrousb.com/downloads/POWERPAK135b2.zip

Latest Loopy Mappers : No version number, 01-21-2019
Mappers supported : 3, 4, 5, 19/13, 21/15, 23/17, 24/18, 25/19, 26/1A, 34/22, 69/45. 71/47, 90/5A, FDS
Expansion Audio Support : VRC6, FDS, Namco 163, Sunsoft 5B
http://3dscapture.com/NES/powerpak_loopy.zip

Latest Save State Mapper : v1.6, 01-01-2014
Mappers supported : 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 69/45
Note : No Expansion Audio Support for Mapper 69/45
http://www.mediafire.com/file/8dq23vlpfsoqy3m/save-state-mappers-v16.zip/file

Latest PowerMappers : v2.3, 12-28-2015
Mappers supported : 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 9, 10, 11, 34/22, 66/42, 69/45, 71/47, 118/76, 119/77
Note : No Expansion Audio Support for Mapper 69/45
https://kkfos.aspekt.fi/downloads/powermappers-v23.zip

Other Noteworthy NES PowerPak Mappers :

UNROM 512 Mapper 30:
http://forums.nesdev.com/viewtopic.php?p=236715#p236715

Used by several homebrew games

GTROM Mapper 111 :

http://forums.nesdev.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=16631

Used by several homebrew games

Nintendo World Championships Official Tournament Time Mapper 105/69 :

The NWC had jumpers to set the time from 5m04s to 9m46s.  The standard mapper only gives 5m04s, but the official tournament time was 6m15s.  This mapper gives you the official tournament time.

Comments : The NES PowerPak uses a MAP.XX file for each mapper.  The iNES mapper number is in hexadecimal for each MAP.XX file.  So iNES Mapper 79 decimal turns into 4F hexadecimal and is supported by the MAP.4F file.

http://nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=8&threadid=97798

Myask Mapper Package

Adds mapper support for 32, 33, 48, 65, & 107.  All but the last were used by Irem & Taito games for the Famicom.

http://forums.nesdev.com/download/file.php?id=5989

Introfix :

This file fixes a bug where the save file will not load if you start the previous game immediately upon turning the power on.

http://forums.nesdev.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=9880

EverDrive N8 Mapper Sets

Latest Official OS : v.20, 12-23-2019
Expansion Audio Support : VRC6, VRC7, FDS, Namco 163, MMC5, Sunsoft 5B
http://krikzz.com/forum/index.php?topic=7811.0

Here is the Mapper Support Matrix :

Game Issues Common to both the PowerPak and EverDrive N8 :

Action 52 - At 2MB this game is too large for these 1MB flash carts and cannot work.  If you really want to play Cheetamen, try this extracted and improved ROM  : http://nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=22&threadid=151720

I managed to split the games up so they can load on the PowerPak and EverDrive. You can download them from here : https://archive.org/download/everdrivepack/

Mapper 64 - Skull and Crossbones has a garbage scanline above status bar when the main action screen has been scrolled down as much as possible.  The Hard Drivin' prototype also exploits this chip in ways not yet supported by flash carts.  This is due a lack of information on how the IRQ counter in the RAMBO-1 chip inside this cartridge works.

Galaxian (J) - This is a Mapper 0 game with only has 8KB of PRG-ROM and 8KB of CHR-ROM, whereas the official iNES 1.0 specification does not allow for less than 16KB of PRG-ROM ad 8KB of CHR-ROM with Mapper 0.  Use an overdumped 24KB combined ROM to get this game to work.

Study Box (J) - This game will never work properly on any Flash Cart because it embeds a cassette deck.

All Japanese games using a speech synthesizer chip, such as the Moero Pro games, will not play the speech samples because the speech data has never been dumped and the speech synthesizer chips have never been emulated.  Most of these games have U.S. counterparts that use the NES's PCM channel to produce speech but not the sound effects.

Mappers 153, 157 and 159 - Games requiring these mapper assignments, instead of the base Mapper 16, will not likely work correctly.  They were almost exclusively used by Bandai's Japanese games. These games use similar hardware but different methods to save (none, S-RAM, 128 byte EEPROM, 256 byte EEPROM).  These mappers also cover the Datach Joint ROM expansion device, which has a barcode reader which most of the games use.

Karaoke Studio, Mapper 188 will never work correctly because the real cartridges use the attached hardware, specifically the microphone.

Like Karaoke Studio, Nantettatte!! Baseball, Mapper 68, used a cartridge lock-on system that allowed an expansion cartridge to be plugged into the top of the base cartridge.  These expansion cartridges, which update team statistics, had a protection IC which the EverDrive and PowerPak do not emulate. The base game plays fine.

Specific Game Issues with EverDrive N8

Cybernoid - This game relies on bus conflicts, which the EverDrive N8 has difficulty with.  Use or permanently patch the US ROM with Game Genie code SXZNZV to get the game to work properly after you change the sound mode from sound effects to music.

Gauntlet - Backgrounds will be incorrect if this game is assigned to Mapper 206 because it uses four-screen mirroring, so assign it's iNES header to Mapper 4.

Money Game, The & Tatakae!! Ramen Man: Sakuretsu Choujin 102 Gei - Appear to work when the mapper is changed from Mapper 155 to Mapper 1

Fudou Myouou Den - Appears to work when the mapper is changed from Mapper 207 to Mapper 80.

Mapper 210 is not supported, most games should work as Mapper 19.

General Game Issues with PowerPak (assuming loopy mappers and PowerMappers are added)

Racermate Challenge II - Uses Mapper 168, which is not supported.  This game also requires a custom and rare peripheral that attaches to a stationary bicycle.

Most MMC5 games are playable, but Uncharted Waters, Uchuu Keibitai SDF and Bandit Kings of Ancient China will show graphics glitches.  No expansion audio support.

Super Mario Bros + Tetris + Nintendo World Cup - A PAL only release, uses Mapper 37 which is not supported by the PowerPak.

Games using MMC3 scanline interrupts will often show jumpy status bars (Super Mario Bros. 3, Crystalis, Mega Man 3) or occasional graphical garbage (Kirby's Adventure, Mickey's Adventures in Numberland).  This issue may vary from PowerPak to PowerPak (my PowerPak is a first batch PowerPak), and is ameliorated with the Save State Mappers and PowerMappers.

Specific Game Issues with PowerPak and PowerMappers :

Asmik-kun Land - Status bar on the bottom of the screen constantly shakes.  This can be fixed by using MAP04.MAP from the Save State Mappers.  You rename the file to something unused like MAP06.MAP and assign the game to Mapper 6 in its header.

Battletoads & Double Dragon - The game may crash when the Level 1 Boss appears.  This is also another open bus issue.  If you encounter it, it can be fixed by creating a Battletoads & Double Dragon.sav 8KB file filled in entirely with hex 00.  Battletoads & Double Dragon does not use S-RAM, but if the game reads these values from where RAM is supposed to be, there will be no glitching or crashing here.

Jackie Chan's Action Kung Fu - Glitchy garbage as the scroll unfurls just before you begin a level.  This can be fixed by using MAP04.MAP from the Save State Mappers.  You rename the file to something unused like MAP06.MAP and assign the game to Mapper 6 in its header.

Jurassic Park - Extra lines in the wavy Ocean logo on the title screen. This can be fixed by using MAP04.MAP from the Save State Mappers.  You rename the file to something unused like MAP06.MAP and assign the game to Mapper 6 in its header.

Low-G-Man - Music for Level 1 Boss is not correct, but it does not crash.  This can be fixed by creating a Low-G-Man.sav 8KB file filled in entirely with hex FF.  Low-G-Man does not use S-RAM but relies on open bus and this workaround allows the game to obtain the right values it needs for the music engine.

Little Ninja Brothers - Shaking in status menus, text boxes and the like, which did not appear in prior mappers.  This can be fixed by using MAP04.MAP from the Save State Mappers.  You rename the file to something unused like MAP06.MAP and assign the game to Mapper 6 in its header.

Metroid FDS - Will load to a black screen or a screen so corrupted Samus cannot move.  Others have been able to get this game to work, but I cannot.

Mickey's Adventure in Numberland - Certain tiles in Mickey's sprite flicker constantly similar to Startropics.  This can be fixed by using MAP04.MAP from the Save State Mappers.  You rename the file to something unused like MAP06.MAP and assign the game to Mapper 6 in its header.

Mickey's Safari in Letterland - Status bar shakes because these games requires the IRQ timing for Acclaim's MMC3 clone, which is different from Nintendo's MMC3.  

Rad Racer 2 - Occasional flickering of yellow/orange lines in the road.  The Save State Mappers do not support the 4-screen mirroring this game uses, so use Loopy's Mapper 4 instead.

Startropics 1 & 2 - Half of Mike's small sprite flickers constantly, as does his inventory in the action sequences.  This can be fixed by using MAP04.MAP from the Save State Mappers.  You rename the file to something unused like MAP06.MAP and assign the game to Mapper 6 in its header.  If you see that the subweapons on the action screen noticeably flicker if you have acquired more than one, then make sure the save state function is turned off in the blue menu before you finish loading the ROM.

Ultima - Exodus - Due to bugs with uninitialized cartridge RAM, you could see shaking text, font corruption and bad audio if you play this game without a corresponding sav file.

Expansion Audio Support

Here is the expansion audio support breakdown for both flash cartridges and the Analogue Nt Mini :

Expansion Sound Type	NES PowerPak	EverDrive N8	Analogue Nt Mini
Famicom Disk System	Supported	Supported	Supported
Konami VRC6	Supported	Supported	Supported
Konami VRC7	Not Supported	Supported	Supported
Sunsoft 5B	Supported	Supported	Supported
Namco 163	Supported	Supported	Supported
Nintendo MMC5	Not Supported	Supported	Supported
Jaleco/Bandai Speech	Not Supported	Not Supported	Not Supported

Remnant of the Golden Age of Arcades : Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga 20 Year Anniversary

Recently I conducted a survey of all establishments, arcades and restaurants within a thirty minute radius of my house or within my county to find some classic arcade machines.  I used this ancient site, http://www.arcadelocations.net/ and my memories of seeing classic machines in my travels.  I live in the sticks but there are several major population centers within that distance and well over half a million people live within it.

Any video game made during the Golden Age of Arcade Video Games, the 1970s or the first half of the 1980s was to be included.  After having visited every place that had been reported to possess a classic arcade machine or was likely to possess a classic arcade machine (i.e. malls), I technically came up empty for finding machines built and released during that time period

However, this did not mean that a classic experience was impossible to find within a reasonable distance from my house.  In 2001, Namco released a machine called Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga Class of 1981 / 20 Year Reunion.  As its name suggested, this was a 2-in-1 arcade machine that allowed you to play Ms. Pac-Man or Galaga.  The machine was hugely successful and mush have sold at least 10,000 units.  Considering the huge decline in arcade machines sold after the Golden Age, this was an impressive achievement.  As is well-known, there is a special code you can input to play Pac-Man instead of Ms. Pac-Man.

In my area, I found two Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga machines, one of which was a cocktail unit.  I also know of that two other machines were available until recently, but I believe one of the units belonged to an establishment that may have gone out of business.  I found nothing else of note, although I did note a few arcade machines from the 90s in one or two locations.

Namco would later follow the machine with a Pac-Man 25th Anniversary Edition in 2005 (allows you to select Pac-Man without a code) and Pac-Man's Arcade Party in 2010 (adds more games but Ms. Pac-Man is lost for the arcade versions).  However, these machines have not been nearly as successful as Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga.  I have been pretty sharp about spotting classic machines but I am not sure if I have ever seen one of the later machines.

If a classic arcade game is running in a machine has an LCD screen or looks like it is running MAME, I would not have considered it.  I did not find any such machines, but I know they exist in more tourist-pandering areas along the coast.  LCDs and classic arcade machines go together like oil and water.  The lag generated by an LCD (especially the cheap ones they use) is absolutely hostile to improving your skills on an arcade machine.

There are several differences between the original Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga and the original machines.  The standalone 1981 games were sold in three styles, a large vertical "Upright" unit with a 19" monitor, a smaller vertical "Mini" unit with a 13" monitor, and a horizontal "Cocktail" unit with a 19" monitor.  In 2001, there were only two versions, an Upright and a Cocktail, and both had a 24" monitor.  This made the resulting graphics look a lot sharper if blockier.  I have also read complaints that the monitor size is so large that it is harder to keep track of everything going on on the screen.

The original Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man used a large PCB with two (Pac-Man) or three (Ms. Pac-Man) daughterboards.  These boards were populated entirely of discrete components and a Z-80 CPU.  Galaga had two large boards sandwiched together and used three Z-80s.  The Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga uses one small board with a Z-180 CPU and two custom circuits to handle most of the gameplay.  While the original games used lots of small ROMs and PROMs for game code, video and color data and waveform sample storage, the Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga only uses two large ROMs.

Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man had 4-way joysticks, but Galaga only needed a 2-way joystick.  For obvious reasons, the joystick on the Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga machine is a 4-way stick.  The sticks for the original games were all leaf sticks where contact was made by pressing one metal strip against another.  The stick on the Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga machine uses micro-switches.  Micro-switches pretty much work on the same principle, but have a click to their activation.  I believe true aficionados of these games prefer the smoother action of the leaf joysticks.

The other obvious difference between the original and Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga machine is the addition of continues to the games in Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga.  The original games did not allow you continue once you used up all your lives.  You had one credit and that was it.  A second credit meant starting over.  All three games contained in the Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga machine allow you to continue from exactly where you left off, even during the middle of a level.  If your ship is captured in Galaga, you will be able to rescue once you continue your game, essentially giving you an extra life of sorts.  Your score is not reset, so you can feel good about obtaining a high score after spending $10 in quarters at each game, but no one else will be impressed.

The title screens for Ms. Pac-Man and Galaga have a website address www.namcoarcade.com.  When the originals were released in 1981, only the academic community and the military had access to ARPANET, but by 2001 everyone was able to access the Internet.  Unfortunately you cannot buy these machines from Namco anymore.  Arcade dealers do have them, but the going rate for a full, working cabinet is at least $1,000.

The original games used dipswitches to change settings like how many coins it would cost to play a game and how many lives you were given with each coin.  Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga uses a test switch and an in-game menu.  The options for Ms. Pac-Man also apply to Pac-Man.  Except for the number of credits per coin, the options for the standalone games and the Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga versions are the same except as noted below.

Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga Galaga's options include Attract Sounds On/Off.  Stand-alone Galaga had sound when it was playing automatically in the "Attract Mode".  The bonus lives for Galaga follow the Midway version released in the US.  Galaga also features a Rapid Fire option as well as a Fast Shot option.  Rapid Fire allows you to hold down the Fire button to shoot multiple shots.  Original Galaga always required a button press for each shot.

Each game has a default fast/slow setting.  When the fast Pac-Man/Ms. Pac-Man option is selected, you move extremely quickly relative to the ghosts in the earlier levels.  When the fast shot is selected in Galaga, you can spam the fire button to fire many shots instead of the two shots on screen the game typically allows.  These options are throwbacks to the speedup modifications and hacks often done on the original machines.


















The Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga machine has two well-known secret codes entered with the joystick and fire buttons.  The first code allows you to play Pac-Man.  The second code allows you to toggle the fast  Pac-Man/Ms. Pac-Man and fast shot option on and off.  If the machine has been set to fast mode, you can input the code to use the slow mode, and vice versa.

Codes are entered only when you are on the game select screen.  The code for Pac-Man is Up, Up, Up, Down, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, Left.  If you are successful, you will hear the sound in Pac-Man indicating you earned an extra life and Blinky will turn into Pinky.  The code to toggle the fast Pac-Man/fast Shot is Left, Right, Left, Right, Up, Up, Up, Fire.  If you enter it correctly, you will hear the sound of Pac-Man or Ms. Pac-Man eating a fruit.  You should take your time when entering these codes, unlike the Konami code, slower is better.  Each code only lasts until game over (including continues).

You will have to input the code again on the game select screen to play Pac-Man or toggle the game speed.  Even if you see the Pac-Man attract screens giving the ghost names, you must still input the code.  You will not see the following screen, you will only see the Ms. Pac-Man or Galaga select screen.

Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga Galaga has an error in the Galaga attract mode compared to original Galaga.  The enemies in Galaga fire shots that white and red, with the red end going toward you.  In the Attract Mode for Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga Galaga, the shots are reversed.  The in-game shots look correct.



















Tricks in the original games work as they should in the Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga machine.  Thus, for example, you can hide Pac-Man in the upper left corner of the "T" junction where he starts and the ghosts will never catch him.  You can control the ship in the Galaga Attract Mode by using the controls when the enemy comes to capture the ship and cause the machine to reset itself (allowing you to view the version of the ROM it uses).

Electronic Recycle Bin Rescue Super Socket 7 System

My town has a shipping container where you can rid yourself of old electronics like TVs, computer systems and monitors and printers.  The town charges a small fee per item.  Even in my small town there seems to be no lack of residents with old PCs.  Usually the container will have three to four PCs dumped in it by the time it is picked up and sent to a recycling center.  I have been known to explore the leftovers and have taken the occasional graphics or sound card from PCs.

Last week, I saw a system that interested me.  Usually I see stock Dell or HP machines from the mid-2000s, but this system was inside an AT-style enclosure.  My interest was naturally peaked.  The system did not have a cover and I could see a socket 7 motherboard.  There was no heatsink on the CPU, which identified itself as an AMD K6-2 350MHz.  I did not need any more advertising, I had to have this machine.  Three discrete trips to the bin later, I had the CPU, the motherboard on a removable tray, the CPU heatsink and all the header connectors I saw.  I did not take any disk drives, I do not need floppy or CD-ROM drives and there is an unwritten rule about taking hard drives (to protect residents against identity theft.)  I left the case, drives and power supply for the recyclers.

The unknown motherboard

Motherboard Overview :

• Socket 7 or Super Socket 7 CPU
• 3 x DIMM SDRAM
• 2 x IDE, 1 x Floppy
• 1 x VGA (header)
• 1 x Parallel, 1 x Serial (header)
• 1 x PCI Audio, Game/MIDI & Modem (header x 2)
• 1 x LAN (header)
• 1 x AT Keyboard connector
• 1 x PCI, 1 x ISA (not shared)
• AT and ATX Power Connectors
• 1 x CPU Fan Header & 1 x Case Fan Header
• 512KB of External L2 Cache (this board supposedly has 2MB : http://www.ebay.com/itm/PC100-VIAGRA-SUPER-SOCKET-7-SOCKET7-MOTHERBOARD-WITH-HEATSINK-MODEM-SOUND-VGA-/221616294322)
• 2 x USB 1.1 ports (via header)

As this is a late AT class motherboard, there are headers and ribbon cables for just about everything.

Identifying the Motherboard :

Not to busy looking from this angle

The VIA Southbridge chip is the VT82C686A (labeled as HT82C686A on this board).  Although the identity of the Northbridge chip is obscured by the headsink, the motherboard has integrated video but no external chip to provide that functionality.  According to the Southbridge reference manual, it was designed to integrate with three VIA Northbridge chips, VT82C598, VT82C501 and VT82C691.  The VT82C598 (Apollo MVP3) is a Super Socket 7 chip which provides AGP, the VT82C501 (Apollo MVP4) is a Super Socket 7 chip has integrated 2D / 3D graphics and the VT82C691 (Apollo Pro) is a Socket 8 / Slot 1 chip.

Obviously, the VT82C691 is not the chip and the VT82C501 looks better than the VT82C598 because the VT82C501 advertises integrated graphics, which fits with my board. Therefore, the Northbridge is a VT82C501.  The MVP4 is otherwise identical to the MVP3.

There is no official name of the motherboard or who manufactured it on the board itself, but judging by this thread it is highly likely a PCChips product.  http://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=46530&start=0

The heatsink on PC Chips' boards is very distinctive.  Other manufacturers like ASUS and Gigabyte proudly identify themselves, but PC Chips left their identity to their golden heatsink. It uses a VIAGRA PC100 chipset.  No chipset was ever more unfortunately named and a Google search does not really work well.

This board is not documented in TotalHardware '99.  However, there are board shots of many of PC Chip's motherboards at motherboards.org.  Even in low resolution, these photos correspond almost exactly to my board :
http://www.motherboards.org/mobot/motherboards_d/PC%20Chips/M585LMR/
http://www.motherboard.cz/mb/pcchips/M585LMR.htm

Therefore, my motherboard is a PC Chips M585LMR.  Its PDF manual can be downloaded from here :
http://www.motherboards.org/mobot/manuals/pc%20chips/M585LMR/

There is a thread about the motherboard here : http://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=44260&p=435581, but without pictures it would be difficult to associate this board with the thread.

Integrated Functionality :

This chip incorporates the Trident Blade 3D AGP 3D Accelerator.   http://www.anandtech.com/show/248

The LAN is provided by the Davicom 9102F chip.  It is a 10/100Mbit PCI-based LAN card, and Windows 9x has drivers for it.  It cannot be disabled, but there is no reason you have to use it except that wasting a PCI slot on a LAN card is silly.

The audio and modem is provided by the SoundPro HT8738AM chip, which has dual functionality.  The audio portion is provided by a core functionally identical to the C-Media CMI8738.  The modem capability is provided by a core fundamentally identical to the PCtel HSP56 MicroModem.  This is a Winmodem, so do not expect good performance.

Jumpers : 

The only jumpers on this board are JBAT1, JP2, JP4 and JP5.  JBAT1 clears the CMOS memory, JP2 enables and disables the onboard audio and modem functionality and JP4 enables and disables the onboard LAN.  JP5 selects the SPDIF voltage output for the SPDF I/O connector, allowing for 5 volt or .5 volt.  5 volt is suitable to power an optical or TTL output, while 0.5 volts is appropriate for a coaxial peak-to-peak output.  There is also an audio and modem disable in the BIOS, but hardware disable seems better than software disable for completely eliminating the device from Windows.

There is information silkscreened for JP6 (CPU multiplier selection) and JP9 (front side bus speed selection), but no pins or dipswitches on the board to access these selections.  These settings are entirely controlled by the BIOS.

Headers :

Then you look on the other side of the board

This board has lots and lots of pin headers.  Some of them appear to be standard, others are not.  

COM1 : Serial Port, standard 10-pin header (pin 9 is key)

PRINT1 : Parallel Port, standard 26-pin header (pin 26 is key)

VGA : Monitor Display port, standard 16-pin header.  Uncommon but not unknown, pin 16 has no connection)

LAN1 : RJ-45 port module, non-standard.  

DAA1 : Winmodem 2 x RJ-11 module, non-standard.  This does not have a ribbon cable, it attaches directly to the motherboard and its header is positioned so the module aligns with a case slot.  This can be found by searching for PCTel Fax/Modem DAA module

SOUND1 : Game/midi port and line in/out/mic, 26-pin non-standard header.  The first 16 pins of this header are for a gameport, and that is standard (pin 16 not connected).  The subsequent 10 pins are used for the audio jacks, but do not follow the standard for front panel audio designs.  Instead, 4 pins are used for the stereo line in, 4 pins for the stereo line out and 2 pins for the microphone input.  This header adapter appears to be identical : http://www.ebay.com/itm/new-PC-Audio-cable-with-Line-in-Mic-Line-out-for-Asus-Intel-MotherBoard-MORE-/121321453854?_trksid=p2141725.m3641.l6368

ATX FORM : PS/2 mouse, Infrared Port, and 2 x USB ports, 18-pin non-standard, pin 14 is the key.  I do not have this particular connector, but it appears identical to the one sold here : http://www.cablesonline.com/usbatxforcar.html

USB1 : USB1.1 x 2 ports, 8-pin semi-standard.  The standard ribbon cable has 10 pins, but pins 9 & 10 are no connected.  A typical adapter should work.  This board supports 4 USB ports between this header and the ATX FORM header.

CD-ROM : Although not labeled as such, there are what appears to be two CD-ROM headers.  One of them has a white snap-in box around the pins.  The white box should have the pins in GLGR format, while the no-box header should have the pins in the LGGR format.  

SPDF I/O : 8-pin header, pin 3 is key.  Provides coaxial spdif input and output and stereo line input with an adapter which I cannot find.

J7 : 2-pin header for CD-ROM SPDIF input.  This cannot be used if the external SPDIF bracket is being used.

J4 : 8-pin header, pin 8 is key.  Not documented in the manual

There is a header, J11, for the switches, LED and speaker.  This header is a little odd.  The 4-pin header for the speaker and the 3-pin header for the Power LED are connected horizontally, but the other LEDs and the Power/Suspend switch are connected vertically.  They all use 2-pins, so this will work.  The silkscreening on the motherboard does not make this crystal clear.  

Special Features :

The motherboard theoretically supports up to 768MB of RAM in its three DIMM slots.  However, not all of this RAM is cacheable.  2MB cache systems can cache up to 508MB, 1MB cache systems up to 254MB and 512KB boards only 127MB.  If for some reason you need more RAM than this, the performance of the extra RAM will suffer.  My system reports itself as having 512KB of RAM, so a single 128MB stick of PC-100 SDRAM will suffice.  PC-66 SDRAM is also supported.

Front side bus speeds supported are 60, 66, 75, 83, 90, 95 and 100MHz.  If the silkscreening is to be believed, this board supports multipliers from 1.5x to 5.5x.  This pretty much encompasses the world of the Socket 7 and Super Socket 7 CPUs, from a Pentium 90 (1.5 x 60) to a K6-2+ at 550MHz.  These CPUs do not have locked multipliers, so for example, my K6-2 350 can be unclocked to 90MHz.  The system can run CPUs with 3.3v to 2.0v core voltages.

The Southbridge chip supports UDMA/66 IDE.  This limits you to 28-bit LBA, so hard disk drives should be no more than 120GB.  Windows 9x also has similar limits.

The Trident Blade 3D integrated graphics cannot be disabled.  The integrated graphics will use 4MB or 8MB of system RAM for a frame buffer.  Discrete graphics cards using this chipset may use SGRAM instead of SDRAM.  There is Direct 3D support for 3D accelerated graphics as well as an OpenGL ICD for Quake-engine game support.  There is also hardware support for DVD decoding.  This graphics controller is AGP based, but does not take full advantage of the AGP specification.  When it came to 3D accelerated graphics, an nVIDIA TNT card smoked the Trident, as shown in the Anandtech article linked above.

The Trident adapter supports 640x480x32bit @ 160Hz, 800x600x32bit @ 160Hz, 1024x768x32bit @ 120Hz, 1280x1024x16bit @ 100Hz and 1600x1200x16bit.@ 85Hz.  DOS VGA and SVGA compatibility appears to be solid.

The CMI8738 chip appears to be a quite decent all-rounder.  It supports DirectSound/DirectSound 3D, EAX 1.0 and A3D 1.0 with updated drivers.  It provides Head-Related Transfer Functions for 2-speaker 3D positional audio.  It can record and output 24-bit SPDIF and will output 5.1 AC3 from DVDs.  The SOUND1 bracket supports using four speakers by repurposing the line-in connector.

The CMI8738 will emulate a Sound Blaster 16.  It possesses an excellent FM synthesis core.  I do not know if it was licensed from Yamaha, but it sounds very close to a Yamaha YMF-724 FM recording.  If you want to use an ISA card for DOS games and keep the PCI audio, you can move the I/O ports of the Sound Blaster, MPU-401 and/or FM Synthesis to ports that will not be used.  Interestingly, the VIA Southbridge also supports Sound Blaster Pro emulation, but this may be disabled on the motherboard or the chip itself to allow the CMI8738-based chip to be the only on-board audio system.

Expansion :

Meet your expansion options

A typical AT case will have seven or eight card slots.  The motherboard included five header brackets, sound, modem, LAN, VGA and Serial/Parallel.  The manufacturer offered the ATX and SPDIF brackets as optional purchases.  You may not be able use all the headers and both expansion slots, one must be sacrificed in a seven slot case.  Typically the modem is the best choice to go without, especially in today's world.

This board is on the edge of the AT to ATX transition.  Most Socket 7 and even Super Socket 7 boards used the AT form factor, while virtually all Pentium II boards used ATX.  The AT keyboard connector has purple plastic, which is a PC97 requirement.  With the ATX FORM bracket and an ATX power supply, this system becomes a fully ATX compliant computer with its various suspend and sleep functions.  Use of AT power supplies makes fewer of these energy saving options available.  I personally find sleep, suspend and ACPI functions a nuisance.  I prefer to turn a system on and turn a system off rather than worry about whether it will wake itself from sleep.

The board is very small for the period, not much larger than a mini-ITX board.  Even so, very little that an average user may need is left out.  A parallel port and one serial port is provided.  The one serial port is intended for a mouse, and instead of a second serial port you get a built-in (if crappy) modem.  Use the ATX FORM bracket and a PS/2 mouse and you can rescue the serial port for something else.  By adding basic 3D accelerated video and audio and a LAN, there is not a heck of a lot of need for expansion for most people.

The ISA slot is in line with the switch and panel headers, so using long cards with this system may be tricky. The PCI slot is in line with the secondary IDE port, so caution is advised with using a long PCI card.

If you want to use this board for 3D gaming, you may want to add a 3D accelerator.  A Voodoo, Voodoo 2 and PowerVR PCX1 or PCX2 are add-on boards without 2D capabilities.  They should be able to co-exist without difficulty with the on-board video.  Because Voodoo 2 SLI requires 2 PCI slots, the only way you will be able to use Voodoo 2 in SLI is by obtaining a Quantum3D Obsidian 2 X-16 or X-24, which combines two 8MB or 12MB Voodoo 2 boards onto one board.

Building the System :

The 486 motherboard had to get the boot

The K6-2 is recognized as a K6-2 at 350MHz.  You can set the speed, multiplier and core voltage in the BIOS.  For multipliers, you can select 2.0x through 6.0x in 0.5x increments.  For core voltage you can select 2.0-2.5v in 0.1v increments.  Front side bus speeds supported are 60, 66, 75, 83, 90, 95, 100, 105, 110, 115, 120, 124MHz.  Perhaps a Pentium or a Cyrix CPU would have different settings available.

There is no way this board will fit inside an modern ATX case.  The mounting holes for the motherboard are in different places in an ATX case and there are not enough common holes to give this AT board sufficient support.  Even if you remove the ATX I/O panel to allow you access to the AT keyboard connector, the expansion slot holes in an ATX case do not correspond to the expansion slots on the board.

I'll win no prizes for my cable routing

Getting all the ribbon cables to cooperate with the bracket placement was a bit of a challenge.  Even though no ribbon cable had more than 24 pins, ribbon cables are not the most flexible of connectors.  The floppy drive ribbon cable also connects in the area where the on-board peripherals connect.  I could not get the modem daughterboard, which connects directly to the motherboard without a ribbon cable, to fit in the AT case I have, so I just left it out.

Lots of ribbon cables

I originally could not get the board started.  I tried an AT power supply and an ATX power supply, but neither seemed to work.  I thought I had a dead board and was beginning to believe I had wasted my time.  I looked at the trace side of the board and it appeared that the ATX traces did not make any sense where the AT traces did.  The AT connector is not keyed, making inserting the connectors a bit tricky.  Once I realized that the ground wires (black) are always together and in the middle with the AT connectors, I was able to start the board.

The ATX connector still did not work.  The silkscreening for the switch/LED block was a little confusing.  I did not realize until I found and read the manual that the 2-pin connectors were to be inserted vertically, not horizontally.  I figured they were inserted vertically just as the other connectors, which is how they are inserted in my ASUS P3B-F.  Once I inserted the power switch connector vertically in the last pair of pins, the board fired right up.

So much for that AWE32 I wanted to put into the ISA slot

If you want to use an ISA card that extends over the switch/LED pins, you will have difficulties with the LED and power and reset switches due to the lack of clearance.

The system did not come with any RAM, so I grabbed a 64MB and later a 128MB stick of PC-100 SDRAM I had lying around, the system did not have any trouble with the RAM.

Installing the OS and Drivers :

I was only prepared to use a 540MB hard drive for experimentation.  I decided to use Windows 95 for a change, since it is smaller and faster with lower end hardware than Windows 98.  I have a Windows 95 OSR2.1 CD, which I found out was not bootable.  A truly fresh install will require a boot disk with a DOS CD driver and MSCDEX.  Installing the operating system was fast and easy.  Getting the drivers to work, well that was not easy.

A streamlined boot screen

The chief difficulty is finding the right drivers for this board.  Originally the board came with a drivers CD with drivers for the LAN, Video, Sound, Modem and IDE Bus Master.  Of course I did not have this CD, so I had to search for the drivers online.  I managed to find them, thanks mostly to Driver Guide.  Installing the Sound and Bus Master drivers was easy.

Only 512KB of External Cache, I want my money back!

Installing the LAN driver was not so easy.  Even though the chip used is a Davicom 9102F, there is more than one driver set for it.  The driver set that finally worked for me was not easy to find.  It has folders for win95, win95osr2 and win98.  Even with this driver, I still got a yellow exclamation mark in Driver Properties.  What finally worked was deleting the "Unsupported Device PCI LAN" after installing the driver. Once the driver was installed properly, the LAN was well-behaved.  Connecting to a Network Drive was not a problem.

The OS installed in the exposed system

Finding a good video driver for this motherboard has been a more difficult trial.  The Blade 3D does support Direct3D, so hardware accelerated games should be possible.  The first drivers I tried refused to give me anything but standard VGA capabilities.  The second set gave me full 2D capabilities at first, but not 3D capabilities.  The first set identifies the video chipset as a Trident Blade3D, but the second set identifies itself as a Trident CyberBlade i7 AGP.  It seems that like the LAN adapter, different drivers may be required depending on whether you have a standalone expansion card or an embedded solution.  Even Windows 98SE is unlikely to have video drivers for this adapter as implied here :  http://www.anandtech.com/show/253/3.

You have to install the card using the setup program, not the Add/Remove Hardware, in order to obtain full 3D capabilities.  I had a non-working Diamond Monster 3D in the system, and it seems that it was blocking the Trident setup program from working.  Unfortunately, the pickiness of the drivers means that they really cannot be upgraded.

Windows 95 stripped of all its nonsense

The graphics adapter was able to run 3dmark99, so it should be able to run Direct 3D and OpenGL games from the mid-to-late 90s reasonably well.  Glide-only and Glide-preferred games have another system to run on.