Beavis Ultrasound PnP ISA Sound Card Replica
This article provides a technical overview for hobbyists interested in building an open-source replica of the Gravis Ultrasound PnP sound card. It details the necessary components, potential substitutions, and specific hardware challenges involved in the assembly process.
Why it matters
It serves as a resource for the retro-computing community, preserving hardware history through open-source documentation.
Uhhh... I'm, like, angry at numbers. Yeah, there's like, too many of them and stuff. The Beavis Ultrasound PnP is an open source replica of the Gravis Ultrasound Pnp. Unlike other clones, this design includes the entire schematic as well as the reverse-engineered source code of the GAL.
If you want to build this board, first make sure you have an AMD InterWave chip, the AM78C201. The design of the card is quite simple since essentially all sound card functionality is built into the AMD chip.
Note: I have not generated the fab package since I have not actually fabricated the board and tested it for functionality. Build this board at your own risk.
The board is 8.2 x 4.2 inches (208 x 107mm) and 4 layers. Feel free to go with ENIG plating for the edge fingers; although hard gold is technically better, it is ludicrously expensive.
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