DOS Days

Ant System Corp.

ASC was a Taiwanese manufacturer of PC multimedia equipment, including sound cards.

There is very little known about the company, aside from them appearing to be in business around 1994 and 1995.

 

Sound Cards

Sound Trouper 4x4  

Introduced: 1995
FM synthesizer: Clone of Yamaha YMF262 (OPL3)
Audio codec: ASC Trouper 4X4 (OPTi 82C929A)
Chipset: ASC Trouper 4X4 (OPTi 82C929A)
DAC: Sierra Semiconductor SC18075CV
CD-ROM Interfaces: IDE, Sony, Panasonic and Mitsumi

I'm not even sure 'Trouper 4x4' is the name of the card, or the audio controller only. It's a non-descript 16-bit ISA sound card able to support the Ad Lib, Sound Blaster, and Sound Blaster Pro standards.

The main Trouper 4x4 IC is a relabelled OPTi 82C929A, also known as the MAD16 Pro.

The card shown has a clone of the Yamaha YMF-262, marked as 'DSP24S', along with what is probably a clone of its related DAC (YAC-512), marked as 'DAP16S'. The Intel chip is an N8051 microcontroller.

The card does come with all the CD-ROM interfaces you would need, plus a wavetable header. Oddly, the topmost 3.5mm jack is marked 'Vol Ctrl' - it would be interesting if this were actually a Line Out.

This card appears to be very similar to the ViewTOP / Britek Electronics card here with FCC ID of "ILLAS1".

DOS & Windows 3.1 Drivers

 

More Images


All images courtesy of DOS Days' contributor, targeted.