Does anyone know what sound decoder version QSI used for PS/1 locomotives? I did some research and Quantum sounds similar to MTH's system at least with the steam locomotives.
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What do you mean by sound decoder version? MTH had QSI produce a MTH OEM version. Different than QSI approach in some ways. Also had QSI limit some of the functionality of the processor for what MTH wanted. Basically there is software loaded into the processor that is different. Even as things evolved at MTH, there were software versions that changed until things settled out around 97 for MTH. That is why some sound chips do not work with certain top boards. You get the clanking which means software conflict, instead of the ding ding startup. MTH Techs have several chips that can help with programming, but no one knows what is inside the chip, nor what is inside the processor. Supposedly the QSI engineer was a little quirky and did not document well. By 2000, starting earlier, MTH was moving on to PS-2 and command control. So just like some of Lionel poor documentation on early R2LC stuff, much has been lost. G
Thank you for the explanation. I wasn't aware QSI designed their system specifically for MTH. Has it been documented what type of sound chip is inside the PS1 locos? I asked someone in a Discord server and they thought it was a 32-pin quad flatpack. Don't know if that's correct or not. I'm looking to possibly rip the sound files off one of the reset chips, since the samples haven't been released publicly.
Ask MTH they may share with you. MTH has all the files on an old computer. The machine to program these chips which are obsolete now. They are not reprogrammable just write once, and read only. G
I did actually e-mail them a couple days ago asking if they could release the samples publicly. Not sure when or if I'm going to get a response though. Contacting big companies about stuff like that is a bit finicky.
What do you expect to do with the files? Considering where sound files are today.
Possibly sequence each file into a video and upload it with the title "The forgotten sounds of MTH: Raw samples from the Proto Sound 1 Sound System" or something like that.