Every retro sound device on an 8-bit card

Every retro sound device on an 8-bit card

Finding sound cards for your retro PC setup is hard. Used sound cards can easily run you more than $100.

PicoGUS is an 8-bit ISA sound card and CD-ROM drive emulation on the Raspberry Pi Pico’s RP2040 microcontroller. PicoGUS can emulate a wide variety of sound cards as connect your old IDE CD-ROM drives:

  • Gravis Ultrasound (GUS) – the primary focus of PicoGUS, hence the name
  • Sound Blaster 16 (OPL3) / Sound Blaster Pro 2 (OPL3) / AdLib (OPL2)
  • MPU-401 (with intelligent mode) – outputs MIDI data on 3.5mm MIDI TRS connector
  • Tandy 3-voice
  • CMS/Game Blaster
  • Game port joystick
  • Panasonic/MKE CD-ROM

It’s not quite perfect (see the compatibility list), but

Available at Joe’s Computer Museum Shop for $50

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