The Sound Blaster 16....

Being a computer and technology enthusiast as far as I can remember, and realizing that I had tons of old PC components, gadgets and what not lying around the place, I decided to start a new series here in my blog about outmoded technology. I call this series Obsoletus Instrumentum - my virtual museum of obsolete technology. So, if you're a geek and miss the old days, this series is for you. My first post in this series is a about the sound card which broke the PC sound barrier - the Sound Blaster 16.

Obsoletus Instrumentum - The Sound Blaster 16

More often than not, unless we're hardcore gamers or audiophiles, we don't really pay much attention to our PC's sound systems. Nowadays, virtually all new PCs have sound capabilities, and most systems installed from the last five years or so have them as well, a fact that we sometimes take for granted.

This was a far cry from the time before the first desktop multimedia revolution took place in the early 90's. Then, during the heyday of the Intel 486, MS-DOS and Windows 3.1, sound was always an add-in option, never standard. The sound card of choice at the time was Creative Labs' Sound Blaster line. Yes, there were other sound card makers, but the Sound Blaster was the de facto standard. Other cards had to be Sound Blaster compatible, and that was all there is to it.

Image hosted by Photobucket.comShown in the picture on the left is a Sound Blaster 16 sound card, circa 1995. It's actually still fully functional and was part of a multimedia kit which included speakers and a 4x CD-ROM drive. The sound card connects to the host PC via a full length 16-bit ISA slot, and features a built-in IDE port for the CD-ROM drive. This model was originally introduced in 1992 and was an update of its predecessor, the Sound Blaster Pro, released a year earlier. Compared to the Sound Blaster Pro, the Sound Blaster 16 had 16-bit sampling (hence the name) and support for daughterboards with wavetable synthesis complying with the General MIDI standard.

Image hosted by Photobucket.comAlready 13 years old, the Sound Blaster 16 is totally obsolete by today's standards, even though a number of them are probably still in use up to now. While it produces sound with very little frills, it was one of the most popular sound cards during it's time for its balance of reliability and compatibility. It was so popular, that it has been credited for breaking the sound barrier for PCs and starting the PC multimedia revolution. The Sound Blaster 16 was a huge success, and for a lot of us, it was our first encounter with PC sound.

Today, its legacy as sound card of choice lives on in Creative Labs' latest offering, the state-of-the art Creative X-Fi.

Comments

rain said…
hay, wala akong naintindihan ni katiting!lol
September 06, 2005 10:28 AM
silentmode_v2 said…
ISA/VESA version!! hehehe.

my brother used to buy that one also just for playing DOS games.
September 06, 2005 1:23 PM
Ronald Allan said…
Those were the days...:-)
September 06, 2005 2:47 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Commonwealth Ave. lot for Lease

Image
For lease, 261 sqm commercial lot near east-bound lane (going to Fairview) of Commonwealth Ave. Quezon City, between Tandang Sora and Ever Gotesco, directly opposite PNB . Accessible via 50m access road. No improvements on said property. For inquiries call 09228692272 or email ronallandottk@yahoo.com
Read more

Is aspartame safe?

Image
Do you know what aspartame is? Well, even if you don't, given its ubiquitous nature, its a virtual certainty that you have already crossed paths with it in your life at one time or another. For the uninitiated, aspartame is a low-calorie sugar substitute most often used in carbonated beverages, you know, the diet or lite variety. Here in the Philippines, it is commonly known by the brand names NutraSweet and Equal . The reason why it has significantly fewer calories is because its not carbohydrate based. Its a methyl (methane derivative) ester (organic compound) dipeptide (two amino acids joined by a single peptide bond) consisting of aspartic acid as the first amino acid, and phenylalanine as the second. Its about 180 times sweeter than typical table sugar, and as such, a little goes a long way. A single pellet of Equal (18 mg of aspartame) has about the same sweetening strength as a teaspoon of ordinary white sugar (about 5 ml). Do the math. It was first discovered in 19
Read more

Peddling Snake Oil - The Khaos Super Turbo Charger

Image
Photos courtesy of Ghosthunter If you drive or are at least into cars, no doubt you've probably heard at one time or another about the Khaos Super Turbo Charger . It's a device that is claimed to drastically reduce the fuel consumption of your gasoline driven vehicle by as much as 50%. It created such a hype when it was introduced in November 2003 after glowing reviews and endorsements from, among others, the Department of Energy (DOE), the Makati Land Transportation Office (LTO) and Taiwan’s Automotive Research and Testing Center. Even Malacañang got into the picture, and presented the inventor, Pablo Planas, with a Presidential Award Medal for Outstanding Invention. All in all, various government agencies and government officials got into the picture, singing the praises of a device that miraculously reduces fuel consumption by a significant margin. As a result, in less than a year, more than 3,500 units were sold and installed to customers who swear by the product's effe
Read more