Sound Card 2.0 PCB Build

In this running post, I will share the buildout of my sound card for my 65816 PC. Having the PCB in hand, I can say this will be the largest sound card I've ever had. It's a little crazy.

Blank PCB

Blank PCB in motherboard

I'm going to build out and test one section of the sound card at a time. I plan to work through it in this order:

1. 65816 "core" (65816, ROM, RAM, PLD, oscillator, CD4078, and 7414).

2. Dual-port RAM and VIA #2 with an LCD (for testing). At this point, I'll be close to what I had posted in Sound Card 2.0: Breadboard Build.

3. VIA #1 and #3, programmable sound generators (PSGs), and storage ROM.

4. Shift registers for SPI and SPI SD card reader.

Starting population of the 65816 "core"

First Fire Up

I populated the 65816 core, VIA #2, and the LCD. I updated my previous 65816 assembly test code to use VIA #2, port B, for the LCD. All good! As far as clock speed, 12.59 MHz runs great. 14.16 MHz fails. I do not have an oscillator between these two speeds to test. I think I will run the card at 12.00 MHz for the primary clock, as that's a convenient oscillator value.

Population Complete

Bonus: I finally have the bracket mounts and spacing dialed in.

* The lower oscillator is 12 MHz. I guess when I cut the background out of the image, it took out the shiny oscillator, too.

Sound Card Emulator

See Emulator^2 -- Sound Card Emulator.

First Audio Output -- It's Working!

With the card fully populated, I was quite curious if it would fire up and work (without bodge wires). At first, I wasn't getting output as I expected. After a little troubleshooting, I narrowed it down to my assembly code. Somewhere, I was messing up switching between 8-bit and 16-bit registers. Anyways, I resolved the code issue. The hardware appears to be in working order so far. I have not yet tested the ROM, VIA #3, the shift registers, or the SPI card reader.

65816 Sound Card: First Song Playback from Media ROM (rehsdonline.com)

65816 Sound Card: First Song Playback from SD Card (SPI) & Updated Output Schematic

Creating New Music for My 65816 Sound Card

Next Up

More music, sound effects, and integration into the rest of my 65816 system.

More to come!