The PicoGUS 2.0

Ian Scott, also known as polpo, has upgraded his Raspberry Pico based Gravis Ultrasound clone to version 2.0. It can now be fully factory assembled, and has WaveBlaster support as well as a new design. Let’s test drive the card and see what it can do!
Support me on Patreon: / root42
Support me on Ko-Fi: ko-fi.com/root42
Support me on PayPal: paypal.me/ArneSchmitz
Support me on KZbin: / @root42
Music: A Little Wonder by Spino2006
0:00 Introduction & Unboxing
11:02 Software & Hardware Setup
15:25 GUS Emulation: ModMaster XT
17:15 MPU-401 Emulation: WP32 McCake
18:50 CMS Emulation
21:03 Adlib Emulation
22:27 Tandy Emulation
25:22 MPU-401 Emulation: Real MT-32
30:17 GUS Emulation: Legend Demo
32:24 Conclusion

[@JimLeonard]

I have no business being on the PCB but of course I'm grateful :-)

[@KitelessRex]

Managed to get one of these for an upcoming 486 SX 33 build. I also have a Labs Blaster Board I built in my 386 DX33 build and an arGUS I'll be building this summer. Too many projects! Great video as always!

[@bad.sector]

Interesting thing, I already saw it on Adrian's channel - thanks for showing its capabilities! Have 3 GUS (bought them when they were cheap), but the USB and Tandy capabilities make this an interesting feat to play with...

[@JohnSmith-iu8cj]

Good stuff

[@NightSprinter]

Honestly, it would be amazing if it could do GUS and Adlib at the same time. Would make for an amazing ScreamTracker card.

[@root42]

Maybe you can use two..? The programming port would need to be on two different values though…

[@micv2]

Nice video, unfortunately sold out at the moment. Greetings 👍

[@damouze]

Nice! I recall that there were issues with the pitch in the original version of the PicoGUS. Were they fixed in this release?

[@root42]

I didn’t notice any pitch issues. That sounds more like a firmware problem, not like an issue with the card itself. If it isn’t fixed yet I guess it will be, as the firmware gets relatively regular updates.

[@Retrojuju]

These were false reports, polpo did a comparasion video some months back showing it's not the case.

[@ianpolpo]

CMS emulation was too high pitched but that's been fixed. If we're talking about GUS emulation, MDFourier results show the GUS and PicoGUS are within 0.006% of each other in pitch, and the PicoGUS is closer to perfect pitch accuracy.

[@damouze]

@@ianpolpo By no means did I intend to put you down! You've created a marvellous product. It's a thing of beauty and you should be proud of it. I do recall watching a youtube video about the PicoGUS where they ran the demo Second Reality and noticed the pitch difference between what I heard and what I remember from first hearing it run a friend's PC (who owned an original GUS at the time). That is what I was referring to. I assumed it would be fixed eventually (after all it's a matter of firmware) ;-).

[@kunka592]

Monkey Island sounds amazing with the CMS, to be honest. Can't wait for my PicoGUS order to come in.

[@root42]

Make sure to try Colonel‘s Bequest. I used it with the Snark Barker in CMS mode.

[@vasyamamin1914]

wow, nice!! :)

[@ePiKAx]

Where did you get that floppy to molex power adapter? The one on the McCake.

[@root42]

IIRC it was from either Amazon or eBay. I have had it for many years...

[@douro20]

How is the noise level on this compared to a regular Gravis Ultrasound?

[@root42]

Much better. More modern DAC. Good design.

[@chupathingy5862]

Kinda wild that you can put a new computer in your old computer. I wonder if someone could do something like this for more productivity oriented stuff, like the old Macintosh pc sidecar.

[@root42]

Sure, FreddyV designed the PicoMem which gives more memory to Pc/XT systems.

[@Omarkoman]

Can you share more info about the mt-32 emulator using raspberry pi on the wavetable port pls? Where can i buy it? Thanks

[@root42]

It’s the McCake. I made a video about it a while ago. kzbin.info/www/bejne/j6CTeml_e52cesUsi=Wu-uVRowVRIRtk-E

[@naib_stilgar]

I noticed quite a bit of popping and clicking. Is it a DMA issue, or a recording problem? I do not experience the issue with my PicoGUS 1.0.1

[@root42]

in which segment did you notice that? In person I didn't hear it. Perhaps a recording or playback issue.

[@naib_stilgar]

@@root42 There was popping throughout the video but I was listening to it over BT so it may have been a playback problem. I will recheck!

[@ianpolpo]

I think it's an artifact in the recording, as you can hear it on the recording of the real MT-32.

[@root42]

Then we can probably blame OBS. I will have to re-hear this and my recordings. Didn’t notice it during editing.

[@lugaidster]

There's poping and clipping when no music is being played too so I think recording issue

[@AndrewHelgeCox]

The RP2040 costs £0.90 up to hundreds retail in UK.

[@root42]

Nice. Mouser lists single RP2040 for 0,66€ (excluding taxes).

[@retroianer422]

CMS emulation of monkey island seems to sound different from Original SAA1099.

[@root42]

IIRC the CMS emulation is not super advanced. Same with Tandy.

[@retroianer422]

@@root42 at least it works 🙂

[@root42]

@@retroianer422 That it does. Plus the firmware is open source, so people could in theory improve on it, even if Ian doesn't work on that particular part of the code anymore.

[@stephenwhite506]

Clocking a 125MHz RP2040 to 400MHz is some serious overclocking.

[@root42]

I think the base clock is pretty conservative...

[@AndrewHelgeCox]

You have to increase the flash clock divider to go that high but apparently it's very achievable, but the power usage ramps way up which is not a good tradeoff for many applications, like battery powered ones. Down-clocking to save power is another option. It can go down to 16MHz. You can also control the clock in code to dynamically adapt to the current workload.

[@root42]

Power consumption is obviously no issue in this application… :)

[@cesaru3619]

AVGN? Is it you?

[@root42]

I am like the non angry version of AVGN.