PC sound cards: a definitive, sourced history #Sound #VintageComputing @brassicGamer
BrassicGamer has compiled the (almost) definitive PC sound card article (Pre-1990).
There were many devices in the early-to-mid ’80s that expanded the sound capabilities of the PC. Sound for games, however, is what most people are talking about when they refer to ‘sound cards’.
In this context, you can’t have a sound card without a game that supports it. The first commercially released game on the PC to support something other than the PC speaker was Sierra’s King’s Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella, released on 16th August 1988. This game supported the Roland MT-32 synthesiser (via the MPU-401 & MIF-IPC) or LAPC-I, the AdLib, and the IBM Music Feature Card. (Support for Creative Game Blaster was added via patch, so it doesn’t make the cut, much as it would like to.) That makes these the first sound cards in the context that most people talk about sound cards.
The subject of sound cards on the PC has been written about many times, for many years and by many people. Most of this information, though excellent, is scattered. Such is the Web. This article looks to collate the information into one reference.
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