X68000

The MSM6258 was made by OKI and is used inside the Sharp X68000 or (I think) the NEC PC-FX. It is a 1-channel ADPCM Chip with a build-in DAC. It was later superseded by the MSM6388 and the MSM6588, which include a higher quality DAC (12-bit instead of 10) and a Low Pass Filter.

Akumajou Dracula used the MSM6258 to play the Drums on the X68000

Technical Specifications

• Channels: 1
• Channel 1: 3-bit / 4-bit ADPCM Sample Playback
• Sample Frequency: Supports 15.6 kHz, 10.4 kHz, 7.8 kHz, 5.2 kHz and 3.9 kHz
• Stereo: No (its 1 channel after all)
• DAC: build-in, 10-bit
• RAM: External, could be DRAM, SRAM, ROM or an EPROM.
• The Chip also outputs a (digital) PCM Stream, in case you want to use an other DAC.
• Datasheet for the MSM6258 is available here (PDF)

Used in

Homecomputers

• Sharp X68000

Video Game Consoles

• NEC PC-FX (?)

Special Applications

• Sharp X68000 | Uses the MSM6258 together with an YM2151 (OPM)

Variants

• MSM6258 | Standalone version
• MSM6258V | CPU Interface version

Emulation

• Sharp X1 | Emulated in Hoot

Sound Creation

PCMCONV

• This is a DOS Application you can use to convert PCM Data to the X68000 4-bit ADPCM Data.
  Running it with the default settings should work fine already. If you want something else refer to the document thats included.

• usage: pcmconv input.wav output.wav
• download

The YM2608 was made by Yamaha and got used inside lots of Soundcards for several different (mostly japanese) Homecomputers aswell as a few Arcade Games. It is also known as the OPNA (FM Operator Type N-A).

Games like Popful Mail featured an YM2608 Soundtrack

Technical Specifications

• Channels: 16
• Channels 1-6: FM Sound Synthesis with 4 Operators. Also comes with a build-in envelope Generator (ADSR)
• Channels: 7-9: Squarewave & Noise Synthesis (compatible to the YM2149)
• Channels 10-15: Rhythm Channels. Each of the 6 channels plays a predefined ADPCM Sample. Available were the following instruments: A Bass Drum, Snare Drum, Cymbal, Closed Hi-Hat, Tom Tom & Rimshot.
• Channel 16: 4-bit ADPCM Sample Playback (with up to 256kb Sample DRAM), Sample Rate 2 – 16 kHz. The difference to the channels above is that you can actually upload one or more samples yourself.
• Stereo: Only the FM Channels feature Stereo. The Squarewave, Noise and Rhythm Channels are Mono
• DAC: External, the 2 Channel YM3016 Stereo DAC
• Has an LFO
• Datasheet is available here (Link)

Used in

Home Computers

• NEC PC-8801 FA (with the Sound Board II)
• NEC PC-8801 MA (with the Sound Board II)
• NEC PC-88 VA2 (with the Sound Board II)
• NEC PC-88 VA3 (with the Sound Board II)
• it was also optionally available in other PC-88 Computers.

Soundcards

• NEC PC-8801-23 (for PC-88 computers, its actually the Sound Board II)
• NEC PC-9801-76 (for PC-98 computers)
• NEC PC-9801-86 (for PC-98 computers)
• Mad Factory Otomichan (音美ちゃん) (for PC-98 computers)
• MSI (Idol Japan / Alpha Data) Speakboard (for PC-98 computers)
• Q-Vision Wave Master (for PC-98 computers)
• SIS Planning Amusement Soundboard ASB-01 (for PC-98 computers)
• Yamaha Sound Edge SW20-98 (for PC-98 computers)
• Yamaha Sound Edge SW20-PC (for IBM-PC computers)

Arcade Games

• Hatris
• Mechanized Attack
• Tecmo World Cup ‘90
• and a few others…

Falcom's Brandish 2

Special Applications

• Mad Factory Otomichan | This PC-98 Soundboard uses the YM2608 together with an YM3428, expanding the sound with 6 extra FM Channels.
• Q-Vision Wave Master | Additionally features a CS4231 and a WD33C93BJM
• SIS Planning Amusement Soundboard ASB-01 | This comes without the 256 KB ADPCM DRAM, which, I think, makes channel 16 not usable anymore. I’ve seen hacks though where people added the missing DRAM to the Card.
• Yamaha Sound Edge | The two soundcards feature a lot of additional chips, namely the YMF278B, an AD1848KP and a YSS205.

Variants

• YM2608B | This is the name that is actually printed on the chip.

Emulation

PC-88 & PC-98

• Hoot | Emulates both the PC-88 aswell as the PC-98 just fine. You can read more about Hoot over Here.
• S98 | a fileformat which actually contains logged music data which was recorded using an emulator. It’s playable in Winamp using th e S98amp Plugin from here.
• OVI | a fileformat which stores OPNA Music. You can play it with inFMPMD (Winamp Plugin) from here or with FMPMD2000 from here.

Arcade

• The Music of the Arcade Systems can be emulated with M1. M1 is a music player which is based on MAME and thus supports a lot of Arcade Games, although the Sega Mega-Play and Mega-Tech seem to be missing from it. More about M1 can be found here.

The YM2608 running in Hoot

Battle Toads (Arcade)

The BSMT2000, or “Brian Schmidt’s Mouse Trap”,  was created by Brian Schmidt and introduced in the early nineties. It got used inside a few Arcade Games aswell as a number of Pinball Machines, like in the WhiteStar Hardware from Sega and Stern. The last Pinball Game to use it was Terminator 3 in 2003. Being an AudioDSP the Chip is all PCM/ADPCM based and does not allow sound synthesis.

Brian Schmidt himself composed music for lots of the Games using the BSMT2000. He later played a large role in designing the X-Box / X-box 360 Audio Architectures.

Technical Specifications

• Channels: 13 max.
• You can set the Chip to several modes, if you want higher quality then you get fewer channels:
• Mode 0: 12 PCM Channels & 1 ADPCM Channel; 24 kHz
• Mode 1: 11 PCM Channels & 1 ADPCM Channel; 24 kHz
• Mode 5: 12 PCM Channels; 24 kHz
• Mode 6: 8 PCM Channels; 34 kHz
• Mode 7: 9 PCM Channels; 32 kHz
• Stereo: Yes, except Mode 0
• DAC: unknown

Used in

Arcade Games

• Battle Toads
• Police Trainer
• Taito Assasins

and more single games..

Pinball Machines

• Data East Version 3 (with games like Jurassic Park or Leathal Weapon 3, though some games have another soundchip..)
• Sega/Stern WhiteStar (with games like Batman Forever or Starship Troopers)

Special Applications

• The BSMT2000 was hardware emulated using 3 FGPAs and an additional CPU on the successor of the WhiteStar Hardware, the WhiteStar II, to allow backwards compatibility with the old games.

Variants

• 320C15 | The BSMT2000 is actually based on the 320C15 made by Texas Instruments.

Battle Toads Music running in M1

Emulation

• Arcade (Games & Pinball) | The BSMT2000 works fine in M1. M1 is a music player which is based on MAME and thus supports a lot of Arcade Games. More about M1 can be found here.

The YM3802 was made by Yamaha and is used for controlling MIDI Data. It is also known as the MCS (MIDI Communication & Service Controller).

Technical Specifications

Using the YM3802 games like Power Dolls 2 could play their SC-55 Soundtrack

• Features an asynchronous serial communication interface
• An interface for cassette tape recording
• General purpose 8-bit parallel input/output Port
• General purpose 14-bit Timer
• 128 Byte FIFO Buffer for receiving Data
• 16 Byte FIFO Buffer for sending Data
• Detection function for the MIDI Clock from the recieved Signal
• build-in MIDI Clock

Used in

MIDI Boards

• System Sacom SX-68M (for the Sharp X68000)

Application

• You could use the SX-68M Midi Board to hook up external MIDI Synthesizers to your X68000. Some Games used this feature to play Music, for example with the Roland SC-55. Aside from games, it was used for composing and playing music.

Hoot is a Multi-Soundchip Emulator – mostly focussing on japanese Homecomputers, but also with support for lots of other Systems (from the Sega Genesis to old PC Soundcards like the MT-32).

It features playlists, the ability to mute single channels, a great filebrowser, WAV logging and even such things as replaying MT-32 songs with a real MT-32!

The YM3812 running in Hoot

Installation / Setup

Getting hoot to run for the first time might be somewhat complicated (although its worth it for sure!). Maybe its the best thing when I just send you to the Hoot Archive. At the left, at “Problems with hoot?” you can find a detailed explanation on how to get it to run.

Supported Hardware:

• 2A03
• AY-3-8910
• Beepers
• DMG-CPU
• HuC6280
• K051649 (SCC)
• Roland CM-64
• Roland MT-32
• Roland SC-55
• Roland SC-88
• SPC700
• Vermouth
• YM2149 (SSG)
• YM2151 (OPM)
• YM2203 (OPN)
• YM2413 (OPLL)
• YM2608 (OPNA)
• YM2610 (OPNB)
• YM3438 (OPN2C)
• YM3812 (OPL2)
• YMF262 (OPL3)
• YMF288

You can grab Hoot from its Official Homepage !

The Gamecube Logo

The Flipper was developed by Nintento and ArtX for the Gamecube. Being a GPU the Chip handles all the Graphics and also features a DSP, which again was developed by a company called Macronix.

The Flipper Chip was later superseded by the “Hollywood” Chip found inside the Nintendo Wii.

Technical Specifications

• Channels: 64
• Channel 1-64: ADPCM Sound playback with 32 or 48 kHz in 16-bit
• Stereo: Yes (incl. Dolby Pro Logic II)
• DSP Features: 256 Volume Levels for both the left and the right signal
• DAC: External, 48 kHz
• Software: The Gamecube API also features MIDI File Support incl. DLS 1.0,  see “File Formats” further down.
• Runs at 81 MHz

Used in

Videogame Consoles

• Nintendo Gamecube

Arcade Systems

• Namco Triforce
• Sega Triforce

F-Zero GX for the Gamecube

Special Applications

• Game Boy Player | allows you to play GB, GBC and GBA Games on the Gamecube. It comes with the ARM7TDMI afaik, which is the GBA CPU (and the build-in Soundchip).

File Formats

As most Gamecube Games use Streams for their Sounds, there is no file format designed to play back Gamecube sequenced music. It is always possible that a games uses an internal softsynth though, which passes a stream to the DSP.

Some formats you might encounter, see further down for a way to play those:

ADX

• Popular format used for streams. An advantage is that you can, for example, easily define start- and endpoints to have the music looped.
• Used in: Phantasy Star Online 1-3, Shadow the Hedgehog, Sonic Heroes, Viewtiful Joe 2, F-Zero GX, and more..

DSP-ADPCM

• The official Nintendo Format that is intended for streams and used by many developers. The SDK features a tool called dspadpcm.exe which converts and compresses 16-bit WAV and AIFF to the DSP-ADPCM Format. A test song with 22,6mb was reduced to 6,46mb after the compression.
• The default extension is .dsp and the format supports loop points.
• Used in: Metal Gear Solid – Twin Snakes, Metroid Prime 1 & 2, Skies of Arcadia Legends, Wario World, and more..

vgmstream playing DSP-ADPCM

SPT/SPD

• Its Nintendos official format for packed DSP Files.
• Used in: BloodRayne, Bust-a-Move 3000, and more..

OGG Vorbis

• Open Source Format used for streams.
• Used in: Mega Man X Collection, Time Splitters – Future Perfect, True Crime – New York City, and more..

MIDI

• As for sequenced Music, the Gamecube provides a softsynth which can replay standard MIDI Files with a Wavetable that the programmer provided. The Wavetables are converted from DLS 1.0 Files and should be inside a .wt and a .pcm file. There are also a few effects to further work with the sound like an LFO, ADSR or Panning.
• Supported Events: note on, note off, program change, pitch wheel and “some controller events”.
• Used in: Donkey Konga 3, maybe more?

Playback

vgmstream

• vgmstream is a plug-in for Winamp which supports numerous streaming formats from many videogame consoles. As for the gamecube, it supports DSP aswell as ADX and many others. You can grab it from this link.

The Minx was made by Nintendo in 2001 and is used inside the Pokemon Mini Handheld. Besides being the main CPU of the system, it is also responsible for the sound generation.

Technical Specifications

• Channels: 1
• Channel 1: Squarewave Synthesis
• 2-bit Volume Control (0%, 50% and 100%)
• Variable Pulse Width (PWM)

Used in

Handhelds

• Pokemon Mini

Pokemon Pinball Mini

Special Applications

• -

Variants

• -

Emulation

• To my knowledge there is no sound format that allows replaying pokemon mini songs on your pc. But of course there are Emulators for the whole system.

Music Creation

• I have yet to see ‘real’ music software for the Pokemon Mini. The homebrew scene uses assembler to write their music, which again is not that hard to do because of the high limitations of the (sound) system.

The YMF724 was made by Yamaha and mostly used inside different Computers of the 90s aswell as some PCI Soundcards like the Yamaha Waveforce WF192G. It’s also known as the DS-1 and as for sound synthesis, it supports OPL3 aswell as Wavetable Synthesis. The YMF724 was actually the first of the YMF7×4 Cards, which stands for XG Tone Generation and legacy support for older DOS Applications.

The name that is actually printed on the chip is YMF724F-V. It was later superseded by the YMF744.

Technical Specifications

• Supports Wavetable Synthesis with up to 64 Voices, DirectSound Hardware Acceleration, DLS, DirectMusic & DirectSound3D
• Supports OPL3 (YMF262)
• Compatible to GM / XG & Sondius-XG Standards and Sound Blaster Games
• Ports: MPU-401 MIDI I/O, Joystick & Zoomed Video Ports
• Interfaces: AC’97 & AC3F2
• Stereo: Yes
• S/PDIF Output
• Hardware Volume Control
• 2 Channel Output
• Datasheet for the YM724 is available here (PDF)

One of the many games that could make use of the YMF724: Descent

Used in

90s Computers

• e.g.: Dell XPS T550

Sound Cards (IBM-PCs)

• APAC SC-724A
• Atrend ATC-6655
• Atrend Harmony 3DS724A
• DCS S817
• Labway A301-G50
• NEC PK-UG-X013
• Yamaha Waveforce WF192G

Special Applications

• -

Variants

• YMF724E-V
• YMF724F
• YMF724F-V – The Name printed on the chip (144 Pin LQFP)

Emulation

• For the FM Part, see YMF262

The YMF715 was made by Yamaha and was mostly used inside different Computers and Laptops of the 90s. It’s also known as the OPL3-SA3 (OPL3 Single-chip Audio System 3) and as for sound synthesis, it supports OPL3 aswell as Wavetable Synthesis.

Technical Specifications

• Supports OPL3 (YMF262)
• Ports: MPU-401 MIDI UART I/O & Joystick Ports
• Compatible to the Windows Sound System, Sound Blaster Games & YAMAHA Enhanced 3D
• Full Duplex Operation
• Stereo: Yes
• DAC: 16-bit, internal
• ADC: 16-bit, internal
• Datasheet for the YMF715 is available here (PDF)

One of the many games that could make use of the YMF715: Command & Conquer

Used in

90s Computers (esp. Laptops, it seems)

• YMF715 | Several ThinkPad Models (310, 310E, 310ED) or the Toshiba Satellite 4010 Laptop
• YMF715E | Even more ThinkPad Models (i Series 1410, 1411, 1450, 1451)0

Mainboards

• Micro-Star International MS-6125

Special Applications

• -

Variants

• YMF715
• YMF715E
• YMF715E-S (100 Pin SQFP)

Emulation

• For the FM Part, see YMF262

The YMF738 was made by Yamaha for use with AMR (Audio/Modem Riser) Cards in the 90s. It’s also known as the DS-2 and as for sound synthesis, it supports OPL3 aswell as Wavetable Synthesis.

Today it’s kinda hard to find information about the chip, looks like this one got released only in low numbers. It seems to be similar to the YMF7×4 Chips.

Technical Specifications

• Channels: The Software Driver can handle up to 73 concurrent audio streams
• Supports Wavetable Synthesis with up to 64 Voices, DirectSound Hardware Acceleration, DLS & DirectSound3D
• Supports OPL3 (YMF262)
• Compatible to GM / XG & Sondius-XG Standards
• Compatible to the AC2.1 Standard and Sound Blaster (Pro) Games
• Ports: Zoomed Video
• Interfaces: AC’97
• Stereo: Yes
• S/PDIF Output
• ADC: 16-bit

One of the many games that could make use of the YMF738: Grand Theft Auto

Used in

AMR (Audio/Modem Riser) Cards

• examples needed

Special Applications

• -

Variants

• -

Emulation

• For the FM Part, see YMF262