PicoPCMCIA - a newly made PCMCIA sound card

[Bondi]

Hey guys,
Just want to share some info about a great project of a newly made pcmcia sound/networking card that is going to be released very soon(pre-order is available). It's a 16 bit pcmcia card made by vogons and this forum member - yyzkevin. It pretty much covers all your laptop sound/joystick needs and much more. It features the following functions:
- Sound Blaster digital sound in real and protected mode games
- FM/Adlib music
- GUS emulation (not 100%, yet to be improved)
- MIDI synth (onboard DREAM SAM2695 chip)
- MPU-401 MIDI port for external devices
- USB mouse/joystick
- Bluetooth mouse/joystick
- CD-ROM emulation - SD card+images
- NE2000 network adapter emulation + WiFi for networking

You can find more details in the links below.

Video updates
https://www.youtube.com/@yyzkevin416/videos
For detailed info and card reservation
https://www.yyzkevin.com/picopcmcia/

Just to be clear: I’m not affiliated with the project. I’ve been following it closely and I’m in contact with the owner, but I don’t have any stake in it.

[axur-delmeria]

That's a very interesting device.

If I still had a working ancient laptop, it would be an amazing add-on. Would probably be great on a Toshiba Libretto or a Thinkpad 560E.

[branpurn]

I love this. Realistically, it does a whole lot more than sound card. Ex., Wi-Fi.

[axur-delmeria]

I love this. Realistically, it does a whole lot more than sound card. Ex., Wi-Fi.

IDE CD and HDD emulation, Soundblaster and Gravis Ultrasound, NE2000 LAN card emulation (via WiFi). It's a veritable Swiss Army Knife of a PCMCIA card. It's great for subnotebooks that only have 1 PCMCIA slot like the Compaq Contura Aero.

[Bondi]

That's a very interesting device.

If I still had a working ancient laptop, it would be an amazing add-on. Would probably be great on a Toshiba Libretto or a Thinkpad 560E.

Oh yes, fur sure. even if the laptop has some sound capabilities, this card will be of use anyway. Not many laptops have joystick or MIDI ports. Also networking is very easy with this card. It has a built in NAT router that is accessible from any browser, including DOS browsers, so connecting to wifi via this web interface is very straightforward.

[Bondi]

So I got an early sample card to test. Hardware is mostly finalized i think, the internal speaker output is being fine-tuned right now. Current efforts are focused mostly on software for games and different PCIC controllers compatibility.
It currently has this high pitched noise, but it won't be there in the final product. Output to an external speaker is very clean. Here is a couple of quick videos I made(sorry, i'm not very good at it). Laptop is TP X60s.
https://youtube.com/shorts/hh_wP_K0nY0
https://youtube.com/shorts/FS7ak0ziOVo

[axur-delmeria]

Looks like my X60s (Core Solo 1.06GHz) can be pressed into service as a retro-gaming machine.