Repairing Classic Sound Cards - Sound hardware has been built into PC motherboards for so long now it’s difficult ... - https://hackaday.com/2025/04/12/repairing-classic-sound-cards/ #retrocomputing #soundblaster #repairhacks #soundcard #isacard
.. and suddenly I find myself back in the #90s where we saw the future of home computing unfold before our eyes. The #PC - a bulky expensive machine for boring tunaheads running WordPerfect suddenly got graphics and sound that didn't suck.
Young aspiring programmers (that would be coders for you young people) wrote code in assembler and made the PC do thing it was never meant to. Awesome things. Things that blew your mind. Some wrote trackers for composing sample based music, and suddenly everyone could compose music on their PC.
The level of optimism and creativity was mind blowing, and I feel so incredibly lucky for having been a part of it. Sure, our demos were too horrible to be shown on the big screen, but we did submit at least one for #TheParty back in '92 or '94.
I miss the 90s.
This, by the way, is a sweet #Pentium 200MMX system with #PicoGUS, #SoundBlaster Vibra16 and an #TsengLabs #ET6000 graphics card (that's GPU for you young'uns).
If I remember correctly, #ElectroMan was shipped on the CDROM of a book about #MsDos #SoundBlaster programming ...
Regarding sound design, it was more impressive than Commander Keen, but I never really managed to think about it as an "interesting game".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJTSbWkKB7Y
A fascinating new look at what is basically an Apple II Mockingboard soundcard...for the PC...sold by Mindscape.
"Do you own the rarest PC sound card in the world?" -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eeo4INoGyRY
Alien Intruder
A really cool & challenging MSDOS game released for Christmas 2024 by Juan J. Martinez.
Get it here: https://www.usebox.net/jjm/alien-intruder
Works fine on Real DOS with #Soundblaster
I'm dead on level 7. 50 levels to beat the game! Try again! :0))
You will also find more games for #MSDOS #MSX #Amstrad #CPC6128 #ZXSpectrum #C64
It's fun playing Creative SoundBlaster EAX games on Windows XP and the SoundBlaster X-Fi SB0460, which adds reverb and environmental effects.
Windows Vista sadly pretty much killed EAX and although Alchemy was meant to keep compatibility, it was never quite the same.
Fixed my capacitors on the Windows XP build, so I've been able to setup my SoundBlaster X-Fi.
Here is the splash video that comes with it for your viewing pleasure... At just 22 seconds, it's certainly a SPLASH!
Ok ok ok... Second to last addition to the Windows 98 retro PC I'm building...
Replaced the SoundBlaster Live! Value with a SoundBlaster Live! Platinum 5.1, with the excellent looking and very functional Live! Drive IR.
Previous owner kept everything from what I can see! Fab!
Recently built "Snark Barker" Sound Blaster clone board. It worked first try which was a relief as some chips were bought from eBay (NE558, TEA2025B, YM3812, YM3014B, SAA1099). Finished it off with a 3D printed steel bracket from
#JLCPCB . #retrocomputing #soundblaster #snarkbarker
@polpo Nice. I have, and daily listen to my beloved GUS "Classic" in my 5x86 160, but the CPU doesn't have the stuff to do 30 channel tracks in software as would be needed for SB16 output, really.
What's the CPU you're working with?
I still want to pick up a PicoGUS, perhaps for other card emulation, though.
The #SoundBlaster #AWE32 comes with the #EMU8000 chip which is technology used in expensive and sought after ROMplers (sample ROM based #synth) like the E-Mu #Proteus. You can do a lot more than just load a #SoundFont and trigger the notes via #MIDI. The AWE32 actually gives you direct access to program the chip directly, so you can control all the parameters like filter cutoff, etc, per note. It's a very powerful chip with 32 voice polyphony, LFOs, filter, and chorus/reverb effects.
1/n
#dos4gw was a tool that allowed games to use more than 640kBytes (up to 64MB!). Before that, I remember tweaking autoexec.bat to free as much RAM as possible.
Another "magic number" from those days was picking an IRQ number for your #SoundBlaster card. IRQ 5 or 7? I didn't know what that meant. But every game needed to know it before you could play it.
And lastly, "buffering..." refers to: https://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/realplayer_buffering.jpg
something for all who have modern sound card inside a computer but still would like to install #msdos natively and enjoy #SoundBlaster games and applications:
https://github.com/crazii/SBEMU
@danielsnor Používal jsem FXsound https://www.fxsound.com/ , s tím, že kvalitativní zisk byl velmi patrný.
Pak jsem ovšem koupil externí zvukovku #soundblaster XFi a s equalizováním nekvalitní interní zvukovky byl konec. A to to není kdovíjaký audiofilský dělo.
Kender jeg mon nogen der har nogle gamle 8/16 bit #ISA kort liggende? Jeg leder efter #SoundBlaster eller kompatibelt og et netkort til et retroprojekt :-)
This is my second Creative Sound Blaster 16 Value IDE complete-in-box. Older box design and the non-PnP variant.
ps: can we make #Soundtember a thing? 
This is a great, short video explaining "whatever happened to soundcards?"
(Spoiler: it was Windows Vista that ended them, but it's an interesting story.)
What we have here is my favorite #htpc loaded with a Pentium III, #gravisultrasound PnP, #soundblaster and #Yamaha DB50XG hardware MIDI daughterboard. It's a retro audio monster, and long #cubicplayer sessions are the norm! #sbc #retrocomputing #trackermusic #demoscene #msdos #freedos
