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The Beige Years

Sound Blaster compatibleHow a Copy Became the Standard

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The Sound Blaster had the AdLib's own Yamaha chip, yet it cost more in the shops, and it still won.

How a Singapore engineer's copy of the AdLib, one that could also talk, beat the card it copied, and why AdLib's better card came too late.

Subject
The Creative Sound Blaster, 1989
Chapters
9
Sources
8
Credits
57
Corrections
0

Sources

8
  • Article5
  • Book2
  • Interview1

The sources the story leans on most, primary sources first. Read dates are when the page was consulted; the live page may have changed since.

  1. [1]
  2. [2]
  3. [3]
  4. [4]
  5. [5]
  6. [6]
  7. [7]
  8. [8]

Image & music credits

57
  • License unknown44
  • CC BY-SA 3.08
  • CC BY-SA 2.52
  • CC BY 2.51
  • CC BY-SA 4.01
  • CC BY 2.01

57 photos, from the hosts linked below. Each file name links to the file's page, which carries the full license terms.

#UseFileAuthorLicense
1 Photo https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:FilePath/Soundblaster-1.0-ct1320.jpg Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0) License unknown
2 Photo Yamaha YM3812.jpg Stonda~commonswiki CC BY 2.5
3 Photo https://archive.org/details/soundblasterusermanual/page/n0 archive.org License unknown
4 Photo https://archive.org/details/sound-blaster-the-official-book-second-edition-ridge-golden-luk-sindorf/page/n29 archive.org License unknown
5 Photo https://archive.org/details/RetroGrade-TheUltimateGuideToPreMillennialPCHardware/page/n46 archive.org License unknown
6 Photo https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:FilePath/Creative Music System.jpg Wikimedia Commons License unknown
7 Photo Adlib sound card version 1.5.jpg Bratgoul CC BY-SA 3.0
8 Photo https://archive.org/details/music-synthesizer-card-and-juke-box-playback-program-user-guide-ad-lib-1987/page/n0 archive.org License unknown
9 Photo Ad Lib Gold with surround module.jpg Bratgoul CC BY-SA 3.0
10 Photo https://archive.org/details/Computer Gaming World Issue 111/page/n0 archive.org License unknown
11 Photo https://archive.org/details/Sierra News Magazine Volume 3 Number 1 Spring 1990/page/n42 archive.org License unknown
12 Photo https://archive.org/download/sound-blaster-software/Sound Blaster Software (2).jpg archive.org License unknown
13 Photo Creative Music System.jpg Bratgoul CC BY-SA 3.0
14 Photo YM3812-F.jpg Zim 256 CC BY-SA 3.0
15 Photo https://archive.org/details/Computer Gaming World Issue 53/page/n14 archive.org License unknown
16 Photo IBM PC 5150.jpg unknown author CC BY-SA 3.0
17 Photo Adlib.jpg No machine-readable author provided. Atarian~commonswiki assumed (based on copyright claims). CC BY-SA 2.5
18 Photo https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:FilePath/Roland MT-32.jpg Leo-setä, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0) License unknown
19 Photo https://archive.org/details/Computer Gaming World Issue 77/page/n62 archive.org License unknown
20 Photo https://archive.org/details/sound-blaster-the-official-book-second-edition-ridge-golden-luk-sindorf/page/n27 archive.org License unknown
21 Photo San Francisco,California,USA. - panoramio (8).jpg Roman Eugeniusz CC BY-SA 3.0
22 Photo https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:FilePath/Creative Music System.jpg Wikimedia Commons License unknown
23 Photo https://archive.org/details/Sierra News Magazine Volume 2 Number 2 Autumn 1989/page/n26 archive.org License unknown
24 Photo https://archive.org/details/Computer Gaming World Issue 63/page/n18 archive.org License unknown
25 Photo https://archive.org/details/Pro Audio 16 The Official Book Ivan Luk David Golden/page/n37 archive.org License unknown
26 Photo https://archive.org/details/Sierra News Magazine Volume 2 Number 2 Autumn 1989/page/n0 archive.org License unknown
27 Photo https://archive.org/details/1989-10-compute-magazine/page/n11 archive.org License unknown
28 Photo https://archive.org/details/1989-12-compute-magazine/page/n89 archive.org License unknown
29 Photo https://archive.org/details/1990-03-compute-magazine/page/n13 archive.org License unknown
30 Photo https://archive.org/details/Computer Gaming World Issue 77/page/n59 archive.org License unknown
31 Photo https://archive.org/details/1990-04-compute-magazine/page/n22 archive.org License unknown
32 Photo https://archive.org/details/soundblasterusermanual/page/n32 archive.org License unknown
33 Photo https://archive.org/details/1990-04-compute-magazine/page/n25 archive.org License unknown
34 Photo https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:FilePath/Three-isa-audio-cards (cropped) Media Vision Pro Audio.jpg Wikimedia Commons License unknown
35 Photo https://archive.org/details/Computer Gaming World Issue 77/page/n108 archive.org License unknown
36 Photo https://archive.org/details/Computer Gaming World Issue 77/page/n60 archive.org License unknown
37 Photo https://archive.org/details/Computer Gaming World Issue 77/page/n108 archive.org License unknown
38 Photo https://archive.org/details/Computer Gaming World Issue 85/page/n79 archive.org License unknown
39 Photo https://archive.org/details/sound-blaster-the-official-book-second-edition-ridge-golden-luk-sindorf/page/n30 archive.org License unknown
40 Photo https://archive.org/details/1992-06-compute-magazine/page/n83 archive.org License unknown
41 Photo https://archive.org/details/Pro Audio 16 The Official Book Ivan Luk David Golden/page/n44 archive.org License unknown
42 Photo https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:FilePath/Sound Blaster Pro.jpg Wikimedia Commons (public domain) License unknown
43 Photo https://archive.org/details/computer-games-strategy-plus-1992-09/page/n5 archive.org License unknown
44 Photo https://archive.org/details/Pro Audio 16 The Official Book Ivan Luk David Golden/page/n39 archive.org License unknown
45 Photo https://archive.org/details/GPPCEVol6No1/page/n78 archive.org License unknown
46 Photo https://archive.org/details/PCGames 1993.01 U/page/n35 archive.org License unknown
47 Photo https://archive.org/details/Computer Gaming World Issue 111/page/n75 archive.org License unknown
48 Photo https://archive.org/details/sound-blaster-devkit/page/n0 archive.org License unknown
49 Photo https://archive.org/details/Pro Audio 16 The Official Book Ivan Luk David Golden/page/n51 archive.org License unknown
50 Photo Mv thunder.jpg Alecv CC BY-SA 3.0
51 Photo https://archive.org/details/Pro Audio 16 The Official Book Ivan Luk David Golden/page/n52 archive.org License unknown
52 Photo Creative Labs Sound Blaster 16 CT2230 Scan.jpg Nynexman4464 CC BY-SA 2.5
53 Photo https://archive.org/details/sound-blaster-devkit/page/n12 archive.org License unknown
54 Photo https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:FilePath/SB20 CT1350B.JPG Wikimedia Commons (public domain) License unknown
55 Photo Radio Shack Tandy TRS-80 Model I System.JPG Dave Jones CC BY-SA 4.0
56 Photo TRS-80 Model I - Rechnermuseum Cropped.jpg Modified version of image by Flominator (talk) (Minor changes by Ubcule) CC BY-SA 3.0
57 Photo Singapore 1987 1.jpg Nathan Hughes Hamilton CC BY 2.0

Corrections

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