AmiGUS is a modern high quality sound card for the Amiga. It was designed to provide the right combination of accelerated hardware and software features to bring the full multimedia experience to all Amiga users.
By supporting established frameworks such as AHI and MHI, we ensure that the card is compatible to a wide range of already existing applications. In addition, the card's true power lies in its highly sophisticated wavetable engine, which provides a powerful feature upgrade to PAULA, supporting 32 true hardware voices using 32 MB of sample memory.
The good news is that, in order to use these features, you don't need a fast CPU. AmiGUS can be used on ALL Amigas with a free Zorro Slot, since all of the computational heavy-lifting is performed by the hardware acclerated functions on the card.
And since we are at it right now, you can own an AmiGUS too, either by buying it from one of our supported resellers, or you just download the card's design files provided here and build one on your own!
- Zorro II card for Amiga 2000 / 3000 /4000 computers, or compatible bus boards.
- Standard RCA stereo output, 192kHz @24-bit.
- TOSLINK optical output, supporting 48kHz, 96kHz & 192kHz @24-bit.
- 3x analogue audio inputs (PAULA, CD-ROM, EXTERNAL), sampled at 192kHz @24-bit.
- High-quality digital mixer which operates at full 192kHz @24-bit resolution.
- AHI stream interface, supporting 8-/16- & 24-bit modes for playback and recording.
- MP3/OGG/FLAC/WMA hardware decoder (VLSI VS1063), enhanced by a powerful DMA stream buffer.
- 32 channel wavetable engine - featuring per voice:
- 8-/16-bit sample support, 192kHz @24-bit mixing rate.
- Sample start, stop and loop pointer for effective one-shot or continuous playback modes.
- 32-bit sample phase accumulators for extra fine grained pitch definition.
- Optional sample interpolation for smooth sounds.
- Channel independent left / right stereo panning.
- Hardware ADSR evelope generator.
- 32 MB on-board sample memory - ready to be used for Multichannel Sample Tracking or MIDI.
- Flash-based mixer settings which are automatically loaded on start-up.
- Upgradable FPGA Core via JTAG, or Amiga-based flash tool.
- Open Hardware - Gerbers and FPGA Bitstream freely available.
- Amiga 2000
- 68000 @7.09MHz
- 1 MB Chip / 4 MB Fast
- OS 1.3
- Amiga 2000 / 3000 / 4000
- 68030 @25Mhz
- 2 MB Chip / 16 MB Fast
- OS 3.9 or 3.2.2
| AmiGUS User Manual |
|---|
| Download |
| Part | Function | Documentation |
|---|---|---|
| Altera 10M08 FPGA | Main processing unit, receives and generates digital audio streams in 192kHz | Register Map |
| 32MB SDRAM | Memory for sample storage, clocked at 122.2MHz | Datasheet |
| VS1063 Decoder | Decoder chip from VLSI, supports MP3,OGG and FLAC | Datasheet HW Guide |
| PCM1862 ADC | Analogue to digital coverter, captures audtio from all external inputs @192kHz, 24-bit | Datasheet |
| PCM1794 DAC | Digital to analogue converter, outputs final mixing result @192kHz 24-bit | Datasheet |
| ZORRO II Bus | AmiGUS supports Zorro II, non-DMA I/O accesses. | Zorro Spec |
| Port | Function |
|---|---|
| TOSLINK | Optical output to sound system, supports up to 96kHz @20-bit. |
| Analogue Output | Stereo output via RCA jacks at 192kHz @24-bit. |
| JTAG Port | FPGA programming interface, Altera USB blaster compatible. |
| Expansion Port | Digital output of final mix, can be input to other cards. |
| PAULA Input | Internal connector for mixing PAULA sound to AmiGUS output. |
| CDROM Input | Internal connector for connecting a CDROM drive to the AmiGUS. |
| EXTERNAL Input | External line-in jack to mix or capture any sound source. |
Here you find all materials to build your own personal AmiGUS card. Most soldering parts have been chosen so that you can build the card, even if you have novice soldering skills. If you are unsure, we recommend to either contact a person who is trustworthy and has the required soldering skills, or buy the card from one of our resellers.
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| Download | PCB manufacturing files |
| Download | BOM for all components and Mouser references (if available) |
| Download | AmiGUS card schematics. |
In terms of PCB manufacturing, both PCBWAY and JLPCB were able to produce functional boards during our prototyping phase. It is recommended that you specify either chamfering or beveling for the slot edge connector in order to prevent mechanical damage to the Zorro slots.
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| Download | AmiGUS slot bracket holes. |
Firmware release can be found here.
The Quartus folder contains .pof files for Altera's Quartus software. These are needed for the initial bring-up of self-made AmiGUS cards especially.
The Amiga .upd files can be flashed using the AmiGUS Flash & Configuration tool.
The AmiGUS Flash tool and the latest .upd file are part of the software release package for your Amiga.
AmiGUS base software and driver packages can be found in the release section as lha archives or adf images.
These demo files have been generated by direct digital stream capture from the AmiGUS, and then downconverted to 44.1kHz MP3.
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| Example 1 | Amiga MOD standard playback on AmiGUS |
| Example 2 | Amiga MOD playback using interpolation on AmiGUS |
| Example 3 | S3M playback using interpolation on AmiGUS |
| Example 4 | MIDI instrument played using all 32 channels |
Here you will find links to other projects which support AmiGUS.
| Link | Description |
|---|---|
| amigaos-AmiGUS | Driver development project for AmiGUS. |
| HippoPlayer | Music player which has preliminary AmiGUS support. |
AmiGUS PCB
Copyright (C) 2025 by Oliver Achten
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International License.
AmiGUS Base Software
Copyright (C) 2025 by Oliver Achten
These programs are free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
These programs are distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with these programs. If not, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.
AmiGUS AHI Driver
Copyright (C) 2025 by Christoph Faßbach
AmiGUS.audio driver is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, version 3 of the License only.
AmiGUS.audio driver is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU Lesser General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License along with AmiGUS.audio driver. If not, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.
AmiGUS MHI Driver
Copyright (C) 2025 by Christoph Faßbach
mhiamigus.library is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, version 3 of the License only.
mhiamigus.library is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU Lesser General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License along with mhiamigus.library. If not, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.
- Oliver Achten - product idea, concept, PCB design, FPGA logic, docs, base software
- Christoph Faßbach - AHI & MHI driver framework
- Simon Neumann & Torsten Hees - AmiGUS prototype production coordination & support
- Thomas Ziegert - AmiGUS bracket redesign & production
- Henryk Richter - EaglePlayer support, lots of suggestions ;-)
- Kari-Pekka Koljonen - lots of help for HippoPlayer support
- Greg Donner - AmiGUS manual proofreading
- Oliver Eschbach - AmiGUS AmigaGuide link testing