Tecnobytes V9990 New Batch

[HigashiJun]

I also just received a full refund.

What a shame it had to come to a barrage of complaint emails to get any movement on this.

Sure, but we finally got our refund and that's the most important thing.

Thanks again to @zhulien for his involvement, even if there's no happy ending to this story.

[Poliander]

I also received a refund yesterday.

[pelrun]

What a shame it had to come to a barrage of complaint emails to get any movement on this.

Old man yells at cloudy sky for a week, weather then clears up. Old man then claims that sun only came out because of his yelling... 

[megatronuk]

Who you calling old? 

[Skunkfish]

Ignore this post!

[Skunkfish]

Ignore this post!

[zhulien]

Hi Everyone,

I have a reply from Tecnobytes today, and it says everyone has been refunded in full.  I can see their refund invoice was made on the 15th September - myself cannot see the money yet, but PAYPAL 'says' it is refunded - just neither in my bank, nor PAYPAL credit yet.

The following forum members I have been notified as having been refunded:

• zhulien
• Neurox66
• craem
• Richard_Lloyd
• Edoz(MSX)
• AnakinTF
• chilli_taff
• Poliander
• valfac
• Evildead666
• HigashiJun
• Joseman
• LewisCPC
• Proteus
• Luis_CPC
• ajcasado
• OncleCed
• franck2
• teopl
• JayBlood
• Skunkfish
• Amsasm
• megatronuk
• Jay1x
• kawickboy

If anyone in that list does not get a refund in full, please raise it in this forum.

Sadly things didn't work out for any of us, I am glad the refunds are coming through though.

I wonder if someone else in this forum (perhaps @TotO) would want to make a Graphics card if all of us pledged to buy?  At least we know there were 25 people here who paid US$150 to have such a card, that is close to US$4000.

[zhulien]

This was Tecnobytes with apology reply:

Hi Julian

We are sorry for all that happened, but we were finally able to resolve it with Paypal, the full Paypal return receipt is attached.
We apologize for any inconvenience that was beyond our control.
And we at Tecnobytes thank you all for your understanding

Be Safe
Best Regards
Team Tecnobytes

[Richard_Lloyd]

My refund 'arrived' a couple of days ago but the money actually re-appeared in my bank account today so all OK.

Thanks to @zhulien again for taking the time and trouble to get us all together!!!

[chilli_taff]

I had my refund over the weekend.  Hopefully others will get theirs soon

Cheers

[zhulien]

I received my refund on 19th (it's dated that but I couldn't see it until 20th).

[kawickboy]

Refund OK.

[Evildead666]

Refunded OK here too

[crisag]

Hi there. I'm resurfacing this post to let you all know that I secured a box of V9990 chips and I'm now producing a cartridge for the MSX line of computers. If you are still interested I have units available for immediate shipping at  Shop – The Retro Hacker

All purchases are secured by PayPal buyers insurance and there is no pre-payment to have the cartridges. They are all built, tested and ready to go.

[zhulien]

Hi there. I'm resurfacing this post to let you all know that I secured a box of V9990 chips and I'm now producing a cartridge for the MSX line of computers. If you are still interested I have units available for immediate shipping at  Shop – The Retro Hacker

All purchases are secured by PayPal buyers insurance and there is no pre-payment to have the cartridges. They are all built, tested and ready to go.

Hi Crisag, do you have an ebay account that you can message me from?  my ebay account is gamekidz .

Thanks, Julian

[zhulien]

Hi there. I'm resurfacing this post to let you all know that I secured a box of V9990 chips and I'm now producing a cartridge for the MSX line of computers. If you are still interested I have units available for immediate shipping at  Shop – The Retro Hacker

All purchases are secured by PayPal buyers insurance and there is no pre-payment to have the cartridges. They are all built, tested and ready to go.

I notice you also have quite a few other cards - which of them use only I/O's to communicate with the MSX and do you have programming info on each that do?  I am guessing you haven't tested them yet on an Amstrad CPC with AMSDAP?

[crisag]

I haven't had the chance to test any of the cartridges on an Amstrad CPC with AMSDAP, as those computers are not common in my area.

The Wozblaster Reloaded is an open-source clone of the Moonsound cartridge, utilizing IO ports 7Eh~7Fh to activate the Yamaha YMF278 chip. This allows it to synthesize FM and PCM with wave-based instruments (wave table). The TRH9000 is an open-source clone of the GFX9000 and utilizes IO ports 60h~6Fh to coordinate access to the Yamaha V9990 VDP.

Both of these cartridges are relatively straightforward in their use of IO ports, and I don't anticipate any issues with compatibility with AMSDAP, provided you have software specifically created for the chips/carts.

In addition to these, I also manufacture the MSXUSB and the Obsonet Reloaded. The MSXUSB uses ports 10-11 for communication, while the Obsonet doesn't rely on IO ports but instead operates on a memory/register-based system, as described here: konamiman.com/msx/obsonet/onetm-e.txt. Issue with those two is that they have a specific BIOS to allow proper interface with the MSX, so I don't think they are good candidates for AMSTRAD lovers... unless you're up to a software development challenge.

The Carnivore2 is a well-known project within the MSX community, and I have proper authorization to manufacture and distribute the cartridges. It's a versatile compilation of multiple add-ons for the MSX, including additional PSG, memory expansion, SCC/SCC+, FM, and flashROM, among others. While it does use IO ports for some of its features, it's not suitable for attempting to run on an AMSTRAD system IMHO.

[zhulien]

Thanks @crisag for the ebay message.

For others who haven't heard of your company i can vouch that you have a good positive 100% ebay rating.

With the graphics card and the wozblaster, do they use the same ports as the tecnobytes v9990 card and moonstone cards?

I am interested in a v9990 card for my msx, but I also have an amsdap for which to verify it works on the amstrad if others want to buy one for their amstrads.

Do you know what approx postage cost is to Melbourne Australia?

[crisag]

Thanks Julian.

My passion lies in electronics and retro computers, which not only serve as hobbies but also help me to make more friends. While it is not my primary occupation, I dedicate part of my time to open-source projects, where all the earnings are reinvested into new ventures. All the source files to create those carts are available on GitHub.

My boards were designed to use the same ports as those used in Moonsound and GFX9000, ensuring full compatibility. Though I may lack specific insights into technobytes projects, they too are clones of the original cards. Rest assured, my cartridges function flawlessly with software created for the original boards.

I don't have any agreements with shipping companies, so I rely on standard postal services. The store features a module to calculate shipping costs, and for deliveries to ANZ, the charge is 38 USD for up to 4 cartridges.

Cristiano

[Prodatron]

My boards were designed to use the same ports as those used in Moonsound and GFX9000, ensuring full compatibility.

I already tested 3 different MSX Moonsound versions (Sunrise, Tecnobytes, a spanish one) and 2 different MSX GFX9000 versions (Sunrise, TMTLogic) on the Amstrad CPC with Amsdap and SymbOS/SymAmp, they were all working fine, so I guess this will be the same for your cards as well, if MSX software is running without issues

[HAL6128]

@Prodatron: Haven't you already written a music player within SymbOS support for the OPL4 chips?

[Prodatron]

Yes, SymAmp supports the OPL2 (Willy board)/OPL3/OPL4 (Moonsound and compatible).

Currently Amiga MOD files are supported for the wavetable part of the OPL4:

The SymAmp plugin has been written by Maarten Loor/NOP (MSX).

For the FM part of the OPL2 (still included in OPL4) there is SA2 module support (Adlib Tracker II):

Originally MadRam converted the x86 player (which is very crappy) to Z80 for CPC-ISA, PulkoMandy made a WillyBoard adaption, and later I rewrote and debugged it and added most missing effects.

What is currently missing is a VGM player for full OPL3 support.

[HAL6128]

The Wozblaster Reloaded is an open-source clone of the Moonsound cartridge, utilizing IO ports 7Eh~7Fh to activate the Yamaha YMF278 chip. This allows it to synthesize FM and PCM with wave-based instruments (wave table). 

Does it also utilise the IO ports &C4-&C6 for the FM banks?

[crisag]

Yes. As any Moonsound clone. It is 100% compatible with the original specification, except that the version I currently have has 1Mb of sample memory. The original Moonsound I guess had 128K or something like that. 

[darkhalf]

@Prodatron received my boards thankyou!

At the moment I am using an ebay HD9800 converter (so VGA from the GFX9000 card to this and then GVA to the LCD TV) which works fine. I plan to wire the VGA connector straight to SCART on my Amiga monitor (15khz) next up

I did have some questions about the configuration files for these. I am using an M4 board with latest file system and applications.

1. When copying the GFX9000 SYMBOS files over the original ones (I ended up making another folder in the end to run both instances) when initially booting up, no files were found. So I manually ran the cp.exe Control Panel and modified the file from A: to C:\symbos to get things working again