imi wrote on 2020-02-21, 21:45:
I think that most of those were probably from hobbyist musicians, professionals were mostly using the bigger rackmount units I guess, even back in the day I have never even seen a midi module in a PC store, like I said, I didn't even knew they existed until a few years ago, and I have been very much into PCs and hardware since I'm a kid ^^ though I have to admint that I was using onboard sound from 2001 onwards and only had one soundcard in between, an asus xonar because I needed "DTS connect" functionality, I've been using s/pdif since socket A.
sure, some gamers with deep pockets had them, and obviously game designers had them ^^
I think what was popular, sound hardware wise, is rather location-dependent. I got into discussions on these forums about the prices of sound cards back in the 1990s, with American people claiming sound cards were really cheap and MIDI modules available in computer shops. Obviously I don't live in the US...some people assume that because they do, and because prices there were "cheap" and MIDI modules readily available, that must be the case anywhere 😐 .
Where I lived the reality was that prices were much higher and we didn't know about MIDI modules (except that it was a very high end, expensive thing that was out of our reach).
Sure, we knew MIDI music was good, better than standard sound cards (i.e. 2 operator FM OPL), and if you had the money you would buy an AWE-32, or later on a Terratec sound card. However, they were expensive, heck, even a SB16 was quite expensive. IIRC, it was only with the advent of the Soundblaster Live! that MIDI music became accessible to a lot more people around here.
MIDI modules and other professional hardware was the stuff you would drool over staring at them in the "professional" corner of the local independent electronics (Radioshack-likes) or electrical appliance store, with prices that went together with their professional looks...