Unintentional Soundblaster museum

Anything to do with New Zealand Classic or Vintage Computing not covered in the other forums

Unintentional Soundblaster museum

Postby xjas on Mon Dec 30, 2013 6:49 pm

Fun times! Today I picked up the last, best ISA Soundblaster board for my music rig - an AWE64 Gold - which came along with a couple friends (an SB Pro 2 and another SB 2.0 with some curious badging.) I suddenly have an example of every Soundblaster revision up until when they stopped being interesting. Here they are:

(Sorry for the terrible photo quality - and composition! - my camera wasn't cooperating in the low light. Right-click and open the wider pics if you're not seeing the whole thing!)

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From left to right - earliest to latest, more or less:
SB 2.0 CT1350b
SB 2.0 - rebadged as a Quickshot "Sound Machine"?? No CTxxxx number. Seems identical to the other one though.
SB Pro 2 CT1600 including some interesting manuals
SB16 CT2830 - everyone had one of these back in the day!
SB AWE32 CT3660 (EMU8000 sampler onboard - "rare" (and useless) value edition with 512 kB RAM and no upgrade capacity at all)
SB Vibra 16 CT4170
SB AWE64 CT4520 (EMU8000, also 512 kB but has upgrade headers - requires unobtainable Creative memory card or a SIMMConn, which I have)
SB AWE64 Gold CT4390 w/SPDIF header (EMU8000, 4 MB onboard, also upgradable with SIMMConn)
SB Live 5.1 Digital SB0220 (EMU10k1, uses system RAM instead of onboard.)

(I have another AWE64 Value CT4380 in my working machine, will be swapped out for the Gold soon enough though.)

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The Voyetra Sequencer Plus Pro manual is pretty interesting - didn't think the SB Pro would have shipped with a professional MIDI studio sequencer but I guess one version or another of it did. Unfortunately, the guy didn't have the disks, but the final (non-Creative OEM, works with many soundcards) revision of the program is freely downloadable.

Comparison of the SB 2.0 and the "Sound Machine":
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I don't know what the story is here - OEM marketing of some kind.

SO... Fun as it was to "collect them all", some of these cards need to find good homes! Everything that's not an AWE64 is up for grabs. I'd hang on to the SB 2.0s and the Pro 2, but honestly I doubt I'll ever get around to trying them in a system for the few things they run that other SBs don't. I think they should go to someone with more interesting use for them. I'd really rather see these installed in something cool than sit on a shelf.

Some of the cards are tested and work fine (SB 2.0, SB16), some have problems (SB Live rear DAC does not work), others are big question marks. The Pro 2 and the AWE32 are pretty gritty looking but seem intact, so no guarantees. Don't want any cash for them but interesting trades are always accepted! PM me if you're keen.
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Re: Unintentional Soundblaster museum

Postby acsi on Mon Dec 30, 2013 6:59 pm

Nice collection.

Re the Sound Machine there is some info here http://queststudios.com/smf/index.php?topic=3537.0
'acsi' on trademe
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Re: Unintentional Soundblaster museum

Postby Carcenomy on Tue May 06, 2014 8:17 pm

Them's some lovely old SBs you have there brother.

I've got a couple of nice old ones myself, a fully functional full length AWE32, a nice late SB16 PnP and the most recent acquisition, an SB Live SB0200 circa 1999. I did have the Goldfinch EMU8000 standalone card but it appears to be 0xDEADDEAD.
Just the local Commodore hobo and middle-aged PC hoarder.
eisa on Trademe. A lasting reminder of a Compaq fetish when I was younger.
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