Hey all

        I just found out about the vectorlist while browsing through wiretap looking for pinouts....

        In any case, I browsed through the archives and saw that some people were curious about the status of my Cinematronics Multigame Sound Board. I had been talking with Steve Ozdemir about this a couple of months back.

        Anyways, I haven't been able to devote much time to it in the past month, because I got involved in my first bulk buy from an operator (I got a few vector games from it!!!) In any case, that's all done now.

        Here are some details, for those of you who I have spoken to about this in the past, and for those that are interested.

        I was hoping to use "my" chip (i.e. at work -- the chip that I am supposed to be working on right now, as I write this email) as the heart of this board. I can't disclose the details about "my" chip since it hasn't been released yet, but I can direct those who are interested to existing Crystal products that it will "probably" resemble. Go to the Crystal web page (www.crystal.com) and look under products. Go first to "Digital Audio/Video" and look at the CS4922 (A DSP, basically.) Then, look under "Consumer Audio Codecs" (which is under "Consumer/Profesional Audio") and look at the CS4226 (A surround sound CODEC.) "My" chip is an enhanced version of those two.

        Since I am going to begin working on my Ph.D. this fall (while still working full-time) I'm going to haul ass and get this multigame sound board done before then. Since "my" chip hasn't been released yet, I will use a CS4922 and a CS4226, initially. Later, it will be replaced with "my" chip.

        The overall strategy is to use a DSP to generate everything it can, and then convert that stuff to analog. Maybe I'll do some continuous-time filtering at the end to make it sound more "analog." (Though, if you look at the CS4226 datasheet, it has a dynamic range around 96 dB. I don't think the quantization noise will be anywhere near audible if I build the filters right.) There is some stuff that I will have to generate analog, so I will do that too.

        I just bought a Rip Off cabinet (I already had a Star Castle) so I will first build a stand alone Rip Off/Star Castle sound board. This way I don't have to waste time doing a multi-game Motherboard (although it's already been done by Sean Riddle, and probably others.)

        Anyways, I just wanted to let everybody know what was up with this project, since I had interested a lot of people with it. I've just been busy over the past month or two, but that's let up now. Let me know if you have any question about the project or want to get involved in some way. I still need some manuals, but I would actually like to build this up so that I don't get overwhelmed trying to build an entire multigame sound board from the beginning.

Joe
   

         
Received on Thu Jun 5 15:25:05 1997