Ficara has sent us a MIDI expander with old ISA-BUS sound card project that is based on PIC18F4320 microcontroller. The sounds are generated via the FM synthesizer built in the soundcard. At this moment 16 presets are available, like piano, brass, guitar, banjo etc.

Project is still in progress. Authors plans to implement creation of personalized sounds that will be stored in EEPROM. Right now in first software release expander responds to commands on Channel 1. The ZIP file is available for download and contains: 1) the schematic in PDF 2) the HEX file to burn in the micro 3) a DOS executable to test if a sound card is compatible with the circuit.