VOGONS


Reply 20 of 25, by Scali

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firage wrote:

No, that name is written on the PCB. Not that hard to miss.

I know, I'm saying it's not mentioned elsewhere.

firage wrote:

I believe the only new name it had in branding and marketing was "Sound Blaster Pro Deluxe".

Nope, not even that.

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Reply 21 of 25, by CkRtech

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Just to add to the confusion, isn't that box from the original SB Pro and therefore wouldn't have a name change anyway?

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Reply 22 of 25, by Scali

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CkRtech wrote:

Just to add to the confusion, isn't that box from the original SB Pro and therefore wouldn't have a name change anyway?

What box?
I took pictures of my user manual and the floppies included. I no longer have the box, I think, but it had the same picture on there as the manual does.
If you look closely at the picture of the manual, you see that this is indeed an OPL3 card, not the older dual OPL2 card (I think the older SB Pro didn't have the red backdrop behind the card on the box and manual).

I bought this card new back in early 1992. I didn't even *know* there were two types of cards when I bought it. I had only heard about a "Sound Blaster Pro" some months earlier, and decided I want the stereo model, so I bought it (including the MIDI kit and Voyetra).
I only found out much later that there actually was a dual OPL2 model that was also sold as "Sound Blaster Pro".
The manual and software make no mention of this anywhere. They do talk about OPL3 and 4-operator capabilities though (as you can see from the screenshot... I actually took it from DOSBox because I'm lazy, but it is the SB Pro software from my actual card. My card reports DSP 3.01 though).
So Creative basically seemed to pretend as if the first Sound Blaster Pro never happened (it was only on the market for a few months anyway, and probably not many had been sold).

Once I found out, I went back to earlier magazines to check the ads for Sound Blaster Pro, and indeed I discovered that the earliest ads showed the dual OPL2 card, which looked different from mine. If you read the specs carefully, you'd also see the differences between dual OPL2 and OPL3. But it was never advertised clearly.

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Reply 23 of 25, by CkRtech

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I didn't blow up the thumbnail - just assumed it was the box as I scrolled past since the art is basically the same.

The packaging for the SBPro box changed a few more times after this. The later designs did have a "basic" and a "deluxe" label. It may have referred to the software that was included.

Apologies for continuing the OT nature to the OP - I am just interested in it, that's all.

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Reply 24 of 25, by Scali

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CkRtech wrote:

The packaging for the SBPro box changed a few more times after this.

Yea, mine is probably the very first iteration of the SB Pro 2.
I've also seen later ones in the blue/yellow style boxes, which were introduced with the SB16 I believe.

CkRtech wrote:

The later designs did have a "basic" and a "deluxe" label. It may have referred to the software that was included.

Yes, I think so. As far as I know, there are only two cards, the CT1330 and CT1600. And mine is clearly a CT1600, not marked as anything more than a 'Sound Blaster Pro' in the software and manual, using the same style box and manual as the first Pro, but they did bother to change the photo to the correct card.

Edit: this post shows a few different SB Pro boxes:
Bought these (retro) hardware today
The 'value' and 'deluxe' versions are shown there, and it seems to be a difference in software, since both list the OPL3.

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Reply 25 of 25, by TheMobRules

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Scali wrote:

Edit: this post shows a few different SB Pro boxes:
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=17341&start=4120&hilit=3do+blaster#p362510
The 'value' and 'deluxe' versions are shown there, and it seems to be a difference in software, since both list the OPL3.

Looking at those boxes, I can confirm that I had the "Value" version, which I bought around 1993 and kept everything in mint condition for more than 10 years, until I stupidly threw it into the trash 😒 .

Anyway, from what I can remember, there were 4 driver/utility disks + Lemming and Indy500. The disks and manuals were more similar to the ones that came with the SB16 in the sense that the labels/covers were black & white instead of the orange/blue of the other SBPro versions.

Not only that, the installation software was pretty much identical to the one from the SB16 Value, even the test music and sounds (without the 16-bit test for obvious reasons). I haven't been able to find that version of the software in the web, every version I have downloaded always has the same software that is shown in the screenshot you posted.

Other stuff I remember playing around at the time was the text-to-speech stuff, and that FM virtual keyboard application.

For a while I thought that I had another revision, such as the CT2600, but that SBPro Value box photo indicates that it was in fact a 1600...