userbinator 4 days ago | next |

Where the article stops is AC'97 in 1997, which was replaced 7 years later by Intel HD Audio in 2004, still in active use and new production today, two decades later. There was a lot of changes in the early years but it seems that PC audio has (hopefully) stabilised now.

atmanactive 3 days ago | root | parent |

Also, the article is missing any mention of ASIO which propelled PC into the pro-audio world and is still a must today.

pantulis 14 hours ago | root | parent |

I guess the article is focusing on gaming and regular multimedia usage.

The pro-audio story of the PC is also a fascinating one with some legendary names like Ensoniq, Terratec, Yamaha, Guillemot, Creamware, E-MU, Korg... but all that stuff is relatively new compared to the days of bleeps and bloops.

atmanactive 13 hours ago | root | parent |

If I remember correctly, my first encounter with ASIO was back in 1998 on Creative SoundBlaster AWE32. ASIO to record and playback high-quality multi-track audio in near-real-time and EMU8000 to play samples via MIDI packed as SoundFonts.

Brian_K_White 13 hours ago | prev | next |

Where is my PAS-16 which was neither SB nor GUS? Actually I guess it must have had some blaster compat mode since while I remember some games having special pas16 support, I don't remember many not working wothout it.

fekkn wierdball cd interface... glad I replaced the system before the drive died or before I wanted a simple upgrade for speed and new disc types.

barrkel 14 hours ago | prev | next |

Another milestone was audio mixing / virtual devices, allowing multiple apps to play sound at the same time. This gradually came in around the Windows 98 / XP transition with WDM rather than VxD drivers.

Honorable mention should go to Creative's EAX, a cool diversion that probably reached its apex in Thief and Thief 2, with environmental and 3D located sounds.

lynx23 14 hours ago | prev | next |

I still remember foldly my first sound card, roughly around '93. It was a LPT connected chip that did 22kHz (I believe mono) audio to 3.5mm. Was directly supported by ModEdit. I remember downloading the schematics as an ASCII file. Went to a local electronics shop and bought all the listed items. and handed it over to my cousin who was good with electronics at the time. He soldered the thing together, without a case... And I used it for about 2 years, without it ever breaking. Those were the days!

snvzz 15 hours ago | prev | next |

I feel fortunate I grabbed a bunch of PCs a school discarded... which included multiple "Sound Blaster Pro 2" cards.

They are very useful now, some 20 years later, for retro fun.