Re: IIGS sound sampler!

[derek@slab.slip.uiuc.edu (Derek Taubert)]

> Attention: the following may be common knowledge, but assuming that
> everyone else is as ignorant as i am...

Fortunately, no...  :-)

> Here's how to make a sound sampler for your GS, reeeel easy.  I notice
> that many companies are charging $50 and upwards for digitizing cards. 
> This is a total ripoff.  To make a sampler to receive input from a tape
> player, CD player, whatever, all you need is:
>  1  1/8" phono jack.  This is the same size as on walkmen.  
>  1  molex connector
>  2 molex sockets.

But what you fail to mention here is that any bad signal or spike that you may
feed into this circuit will completely blow up your Ensoniq chip.  Unless
you've got "connections" and can order one directly from the company, you're
looking at a motherboard swap to fix this.  Oops.

What you get for your $50:  a cheap REPLACEABLE op-amp that will happily die
in place of the Ensoniq when you decide to feed it a really nasty signal.

One more thing that you should at least do if you haven't listened to me, is
to add a capacitor in series with the signal input so that you can get rid of
DC offsets.  This is what killed mine when I did the exact same thing a few
years back.  Take my advice, it's REALLY not fun trying to get ahold of a new
Ensoniq chip.

Derek