I might be able to find more info with an FCC ID.

Maybe an Addonics Sound Vision Gold (something) because they did use the Sound Vision trademark and they called some cards Gold and I can see "Gold 16k" near the back/inner portion of the card near the cd interfaces. I tried to look up some of the other identifiers like 9831 or 983 or 94v-0 but couldn't find an exact match, nor did I find this exact card's image on Google Images, but not all old hardware has an easily available photo.

This could set you on the right path or it could be a red herring... no guarantees.

If it's an Addonics, it's probably a low-end card, but could have an actual Yamaha (edit: or ESS as mentioned below) chip under that label, and that ST chip is probably a 2w x 2ch amplifier. I can "sort of" read the part number on it but am too lazy to verify.

Anyway this card is highly unlikely to be anything special in my opinion but if it's cheap and you could use a possible Yamaha card, eh, go for it? I dunno. I could be wrong.

Usually the more "special" cards will have more chips than this one does. Few components means that most of the magic is happening in that main single chip, which means that any company building a sound card around that same chip will automatically have nearly the exact same product. Whereas you take a product like the Gravis Ultrasound which is complex and has custom chips, it would not be easy to duplicate at all.

I would guess that it's an ESS 1869 based SB clone so it depends what you're after. If you don't own any ISA sound cards and you need one, this is probably okay if it's free or very cheap. But without knowing the chipset you can't guarantee finding drivers for it or what it will sound like.

This may be misguided on my part, but I tend to steer clear of any non Sound Blaster sound card that has colour-coded jacks, as it usually means they are generic and the sound quality / compatibility will be mixed at best. If you don't want to fork out for an original SB16, Pro or AWE32/64, there are many cheapo actual Sound Blasters such as the Vibra or, even better, a Yamaha OPL4 card such as the Audician 32 (or another YMF-718 card) which will have very good compatibility and are usually < $20

If it is an 1869, compatibility should be fine unless you need perfect reproduction of OPL3 FM.

Never heard of that model. I'm curious, does it also require +386 drivers like other PnP cards ?
Just asking, the card is small enough to fit in one of those cool 286 laptops with ISA slots (Toshiba T3200, etc.).. 😊
http://oldcomputer.info/portables/t3200/index.htm

What's the connection method for the game port on that card? I'm disturbed by the lack of ribbon cable.

Wondered the same myself. It sure looks like a right angle PCB mount connector... the board can't be very strong there with ~1cm of width and no "gusset"... never remove that bracket, heh

So should I get this for 5 bucks? The only other ISA sound card I have is an ESS SB16 clone.

appiah4 wrote:

So should I get this for 5 bucks? The only other ISA sound card I have is an ESS SB16 clone.

You mean an ESS Audiodrive SB-Pro compatible. Which isn't a bad chipset really: very compatible.

Wait, the card in picture says 'ES1868', so it is also an ESS Audiodrive. You decide if you want another one.

gerwin wrote:

Wait, the card in picture says 'ES1868', so it is also an ESS Audiodrive. You decide if you want another one.

🤣 are you the first person in this thread to notice that?

I noticed several things in the board, but not that

I think some of us (including myself) need to practice our "Where's Waldo" skills.

Most of you guessed ESS already by the general layout of the card. So not all credibility is lost 😉 Just kidding.
I missed that marking too initially, but edited my post when it 'appeared'.

Ok, so it turns out I already own two ESS ISA sound cards already, I guess I'll pass up on this flimsy clone 😀 Thanks a lot for the help!