Description

Genuine Yamaha Sound Chips

Ever wanted to relive the days where FM still reigned supreme in home PC sound sources? The Throwback Operator features a genuine YMF262 FM sound chip paired up with its original YAC512 DAC. Forget emulated sound that falls short, with the Throwback Operator, you’re listening to old-school PC and arcade tracks straight from the source. If you at one point owned a Sound Blaster Pro 2 or a Sound Blaster 16, you’re already familiar with the rocking power of the OPL3.

Backwards Compatibility

One of the perks of using an OPL3 is that it can be programmed to operate in “OPL2” (YM3812) mode. That means your favorite Adlib and original Sound Blaster tracks will sound even better through the greatly improved OPL3 FM sound source. Further still, since OPL2’s are backwards compatible with the original OPL chips, you can also play soundtracks featuring the YM3526.

How do I Use It?

Simply grab a FAT32-formatted microSD card, load it up with uncompressed VGM files, pop-in the card, and plug in the USB/Audio cables. You can find VGM files all over the web, but a good starting point is vgmrips.net

If you download any VGZ files, simple use a program like 7Zip to extract the uncompressed VGM files. Note: VGM files don’t require a “.vgm” file extension to work. As long as the file contains valid VGM data, it will work.

Open Source Hardware

The source material for this project can be found here.