Re: mystery card in GS

[Mitchell Spector <mitch2gs@hotmail.com>]

 dempson@actrix.gen.nz (David Empson) wrote:

>sporadic <sporadically@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I bought yet another IIgs off eBay, this one had a mystery card that I
>> can't ID:
>> 
>> It's a tiny card that doesn't actually sit in a slot, just screwed to
>> a rear port.  The SuperSonic card is connected to the card, and the
>> card has a ribbon cable header that goes into the J25 header.  There's
>> also a cable that goes into the FAN header on the GS motherboard, and
>> a fan that mounts on the power supply that plugs into the card.
>> 
>> The silk screen on the back of the card reads "Roger Wagner
>> Publishing" and the FCC ID is HYORWIIGS.  The card itself has a
>> standard headphone plug on the back.  The biggest chip on the card is
>> a "CA324E".
>> 
>> it's pretty obvious that it pipes the output from the SuperSonic to
>> it, but I don't get the purpose: the fan can just as easily plug
>> direct into the motherboard, as can the SuperSonic cable.
>
>That's the audio input card which came with HyperStudio (along with a
>microphone that plugs into the card). 

    Just to add to that, the official name for the card was the "Hyperstudio
Slotless Digitizer". The name was based on the fact it didn't require a
physical slot like most other audio digitizers. I have one (in fact it's one
of the cards I scanned with my flatbed scanner) and can't remember
it's sound quality, but it definitely was monaural-audio recording only.

>Its standard connection arrangement goes straight to J25. I have one 
>somewhere, but it isn't installed in my IIgs any more.
>
>The ribbon cable is supplying audio input to the Ensoniq.

    Also worth mentioning, the card itself had two pass-through connectors:
one for the fan and one for the Ensoniq (that way, installing the slotless
digitizer didn't prevent the use of those connectors on the motherboard
through which it needed to plug in).

>The SuperSonic is a separate product. It provides amplified audio output
>from the Ensoniq. I haven't looked at mine for several years, but I
>expect it has a pass-through connector so that some other device can
>piggy-back to supply audio input.

    The MDIdeas SuperSonic Stereo Card, as the name implies, also
provided two channel stereo audio. And yes, it did have a rear pin
connector which you could slide a daughterboard card onto. Then
there was the SuperSonic Digitizer, which had a RCA female plug 
(monaural input) with an adjustable pot to set the sound input level. 

    Alternatively there was a full sized card (that used a second slot)
called the MDIeas Digitizer Professional that connected to the same 
pin connector. It was a two-channel (stereo) audio digitizer. I don't
own one, but somewhere here I have a photo of it in a products 
phamplet I saved from MDIdeas.

Mitchell Spector