30 Year old Sound Blaster Sound Cards from Creative Labs

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[mattscomp]

30 years wow. I remember getting the 1.5 version for my 286 and trying out all my DOS games. It was mind blowing going from PC Speaker to SB sound.. Incredible upgrade.

[PiraNov]

I used to work at a PC shop back then, and we sold these cards like hot cakes. Also, just the name "Sound Blaster" is one of those nostalgic words from those exicting times. Good times!

[nickwallette]

My family’s first PC was a 386 - no audio card. Kind of a gift, really, since I had an opportunity to see what was missing without a Sound Blaster. We upgraded to the SB Pro 2.0. It was magical. I got so much mileage out of the CMF demos, Dr. Sbaitso, the demo MIDI files (ballad, minuet, reggae..), and the Voyetra MIDI kit.

That lit a passion for PC audio that I’ve never gotten over. I have a small collection of MIDI synths, a DAW and plugins, I’ve written a bit of C code to learn how various sound file formats work, and started a bare-bones media player project just for the exercise. I’ve gotten into hardware hacking.. some reverse engineering and building my own analog and digital circuits.

I think it’s fair to say, I owe a lot of this to the simple experience of running a pirated Sierra game and wondering what all those sound options were in install.exe. Around that time, all roads led to Sound Blaster, so here I am.

I will always have fond memories of walking down the isle of a 90s computer megastore and seeing those beautiful orange and blue boxes. (And the black and gold ones before, of course!)

[TrueThanny]

_The Secret of Monkey Island_ was my absolute favorite game music at the time. It even sounded good on a PC speaker.

For anyone who hasn't played the game, I highly recommend the special edition on Steam. It has updated graphics and voice acting, and - the best part - you can switch between the updated version and the original VGA version by pressing F10 at any point during the game.

[WRND]

I think for this era I just had the PC speaker. LOL These have the classic sound I've heard elsewhere though. Today I have a decent SB16 CT2230 for a 486 build. I never had a 486 PC back then, just older used PCs until I built a new Pentium II PC later. Cheers.

[CoolDudeClem]

I feel so OLD. I remember hearing about theese in the early 90's and wishing I had a PC with one in it!

[bcal]

This video is so awesome. I remember my first PC from 2001 with a pentium III and a sound blaster card but for the life of me I cant recall which model. It was the mid range card around 2000 - 2001

[lemontangs]

Love these old true vintage sounds cards. Got a few of the old sound blaster cards sitting around still. Even have an old Mwave MC2780. Great card back in it's day.

[andyjibb]

I own a Sound Blaster 2 and a Sound Blaster 16. Definatley two cherished pieces of hardware in my vintage collection. The 2 was the first sound card I owned when I was a young teen.

[drivingmemad]

Port 220, IRQ 5/7, DMA 1 burnt into my brain

[NumptyMcNumptyface]

I used to have a SoundBlaster 2.0 many moons ago, but sold it to a friend when I upgraded to the SoundBlaster 16 Value Edition. Loved the 2.0, and still have the 16VE in my retro Pentium MMX system.

[AaronHendu]

I love learning about this era of computers...I am old enough to have used these computers as a child, but too young to have pulled them apart. I really didn't start building and modifying PC until socket 370 when I was about 13.

[Reziac]

If you actually need an AT power supply. TOPower still makes them (or at least has good NOS). I've had two of theirs, 300W and 400W, both excellent. They also repair them.

I have a whole boxful of these ISA SoundBlasters. Quite a range of sound quality among 'em, but they all work. :) I still have one in daily use that I bought in 1994, in my P4 with the ISA slots.

[ThBeowulf]

Phil, I am so happy you took a trip down Retro Lane again. I had the great fortune of receiving computer lessons as a kid and the computers in that shop were all 386/486 era machines with these sound cards in them.

Your passion for retro things inspired me to get my old 486 PC back up and running and many of the things you've talked about in your videos helped guide direction and set expectations for this passion project.

If you get the opportunity to explore the new Orpheus sound card at some point in the future, I'd really curious to see how it stacks up given your extensive ISA Sound Card collection.

[angieandretti]

Yeah, I LOVE the retro videos, Phil. You and your videos were insturmental in piquing my interest into this hobby! Today I've built three retro PC's from scratch and I LOVE every one of them so much!! Ahh, the nostalgia - back to the days when computers were still magical!

[tiemanowo]

9:50 I like GOTEK drives a lot, but I prefer those with an oled display, where I can see image name etc.

[SuperSPaquet]

My favorite card is the SB PRO 2.0 CT1600, only because it's what I had way back then. Playing my old games on the actual hardware I used to play it on really gives me a warm feeling. It's such a great hobby!

[GiSWiG]

When I was in my early teens, I had a Soundblaster in a Tandy 1000 RLX with a 286. I'm just realizing how good I had everything back then. Ad-lib compatible, CMS, OPL, Tandy 3-voice, etc. If I had only knew what MIDI really was back then.

[GuybrushThriftweed]

No retro soundcardtest without the Monkey Island theme!
My first soundcard was the SB (don't know which CT though). My main 386 build has the SB Pro 2 but last week I got my hands on a loose CT1350B and that will go in one of my 286.

[JE-wdlu]

The first sound card we bought back in the day was a Sound Blaster 2.0 clone (Sound Galaxy BXII) and these earlier cards definitely have a place in sound card history. Over the years I've now managed to obtain a boxed Sound Blaster 1.5 and a Sound Blaster 2.0, both in mint condition. I don't think my Sound Blaster 1.5 has ever been used.

Interesting to note is that the Sound Blaster 1.5's did not come standard with CMS chips installed and also still had the original DSP v1.0x. My card actually came with two CMS chips, separately packaged, in the box and with instructions on how to install the two chips on the sound card. I imagine this is how Creative would have shipped it to people who wanted to upgrade their Sound Blaster 1.5 sound cards. My card also has the version 2.0 DSP onboard and not the older DSP version.