Orchid Sound Producer

The Orchid Sound Producer was their first sound card for the PC, and was a licenced version of the Aztech Sound Galaxy BX II.

	Released	June 1992
	Interface	ISA 8-bit
	FM Synthesizer	Yamaha YM3812-F
	Audio Codec	Aztech AZTSB0792-U07 (1st generation)
	Ports	3.5mm jacks for headphone, mic-in, and line-in. Volume thumbwheel. 15-pin MIDI/Game port.
	CD-ROM	None
	Wavetable	None
	Plug & Play	No
	Part #	SP-6125 (v1.1), SP-7524 (v2.3A)
	FCC ID	I38-SGBX21
	Price	£40
	See Also	Orchid Sound Producer Pro

At its core was Aztech's 1st-generation chipset, the AZTSB0792, which was first used on their Aztech Sound Galaxy NX sound card. The chipset provided the card with Ad Lib and Sound Blaster 2.0 compatibility.
Its Sound Blaster 2.0 compatibility meant digital audio was played back at up to 44 KHz in mono, and recorded at 22 KHz (also in mono).

The backplate contains the following (from top): Line-In, Mic-In, thumbwheel volume control, Speaker-Out, Game/MIDI port. All versions had pin headers on the card for CD-Audio and Speaker-Out. Sadly, no line-out to circumvent the amplifier (and the associated noise that invariably comes with it).

The card is known to be "noisy", both in picking up interference from the rest of your PC and due to the design of the card. Given the basic / budget nature of the card, there is no onboard mixer that can be controlled to cut volume on things like the CD-Audio if that is not going to be used.

 

Board Revisions

There were various board revisions of the Orchid Sound Producer, including:

• v1.1 - similar to the Aztech Sound Galaxy BX II version 2.2, with the smaller 24-pin SOP version of the Yamaha YM3812-F. IRQ7 was the out-of-the-box default setting.
• v2.3A - IRQ5 is now the default setting. No other material changes over v1.1.

 

Competition

At its time of release, Creative Labs were already onto their second generation, with the original Sound Blaster having arrived about 2 years prior, and the Sound Blaster Pro about 3 months before the Orchid Sound Producer. Even the Sound Blaster Pro II had launched a few months before, making use of the new Yamaha YMF262 single stereo chip. As such, this was considered an entry-level card for PC owners looking for basic game audio.

 

In the Media

I have no information on this card in the media.

 

Setting it Up

The Sound Producer's settings are configured via a jumper block on the centre-bottom of the card. Pin 1 on each jumper is the one closest to the ISA bus edge connector:

Jumper	Purpose	Available Settings
J1	I/O Base Address	1-2 = 220h (default), 2-3 = 240h
J2	Game Port Enabled/Disabled	1-2 = enabled (default), 2-3 = disabled
JP1	IRQ	Topmost two pins = IRQ7 (default) Second row = IRQ5 Third row = IRQ3 Bottom two pins = IRQ2

Downloads

Because the Orchid Sound Producer is an officially licenced version of the Aztech Sound Galaxy BX II, the Aztech drivers should work just fine with this card.

Operation Manual (missing) Get in touch if you can provide this missing item!

Original Utility Disk (missing) Get in touch if you can provide this missing item!

 

More Pictures

Orchid Sound Producer (1992)