This is gonna be great. Huge.
Any intention of opening a kickstarter or patreon or ko-fi?

Thanks for your hard work!

I know this is way too late now, since the interviews were done years ago, and the documentary has already been made, but one thing that I've been wondering is why they never got the idea to launch a gaming-oriented variant of the Adlib card with an integrated joystick controller, earlier on. From what I heard in an interview in another documentary, the integrated game port was at the time the major selling point of the Sound Blaster over the Adlib card, before games even started to commonly make use of digitized sound.

Even if gamers weren't initially Adlib's intended target audience, as soon as they saw that market take off, for instance through their collaboration with Sierra, they should have jumped on it.

Heck, Adlib could have cheaply integrated Disney Sound Source compatibility on such a game card as well. Basically an integrated Centronics-compatible parallel port, a simple 16-byte FIFO buffer and an 8-bit DAC. With jumpers to set the DSS-compatible part of the card to any of the standard LPT port addresses (0x378h, 0x278h or 0x3bch), so it could coexist with an existing parallel port.

This could have been done cheaply, without the need for a microcontroller or DMA logic. That would have totally undercut Creative Labs. Alas, this would probably fit into the "could have been" category.

Anyway, it would have been nice to ask the former Adlib people if they ever had such plans in the earlier days, before they realized that Creative Labs was eating their lunch. Did Sierra never ask them for an improved version of the Adlib card with such functionality?

digger wrote on 2024-12-29, 16:52:

Even if gamers weren't initially Adlib's intended target audience, as soon as they saw that market take off, for instance through their collaboration with Sierra, they should have jumped on it.

Not sure exactly why. Roland LAPC-I and IBM Music Feature card had no game port, either, though.

digger wrote on 2024-12-29, 16:52:

Heck, Adlib could have cheaply integrated Disney Sound Source compatibility on such a game card as well.

The Rainbow Arts PC-Soundman had something similar like this (1991, AdLib compatible, had Covox-ish resistor ladder DAC).
https://www.vgmpf.com/Wiki/index.php?title=PC-Soundman

It's a well-known fact that Adlib wanted to add the PCM functionality - but they aimed too high: 12-bit when everyone else was doing 8-bit, which resulted in delays...

Also, non-DMA DAC isn't a good idea - there are hardly any games with *good* support for "Covox".

I don’t think people at Adlib ever thought like businessman, that’s why they didn’t come up with the Sound Blaster. Even if you look at what they did later at MediaTriX, you will realize, they haven’t changed their attitude. I still like what they did, even if it didn’t end up commercially successful.

Grzyb wrote on 2024-12-29, 17:51:

It's a well-known fact that Adlib wanted to add the PCM functionality - but they aimed too high: 12-bit when everyone else was doing 8-bit, which resulted in delays...

Also, non-DMA DAC isn't a good idea - there are hardly any games with *good* support for "Covox".

As per Rich Heimlich, it's a well known fact that Martin Prével dismissed the Killer Card's new features as not needed. Despite Rich telling Martin to take notice, Martin thought the revolution was to change the then current AdLib from the 5 and a quarter jack to a 3.5mm jack.

Also the 12bit DAC was not aiming too high. Sim Wong Hoo (Creative), got Yamaha to delay the MMA chip just enough to buy them time to release the Sound Blaster 16 first.

GL1zdA wrote on 2024-12-29, 20:30:

I don’t think people at Adlib ever thought like businessman, that’s why they didn’t come up with the Sound Blaster. Even if you look at what they did later at MediaTriX, you will realize, they haven’t changed their attitude. I still like what they did, even if it didn’t end up commercially successful.

I like this attitude. Sometimes it's better to stay true to yourself, even if it means your business may not last.
However, the legacy will remain the more so. AdLib may be gone, but it lives on in our memories.
Other, more successful companies are now just a footnote.

carlostex wrote on 2024-12-29, 20:47:

As per Rich Heimlich, it's a well known fact that Martin Prével dismissed the Killer Card's new features as not needed. Despite Rich telling Martin to take notice, Martin thought the revolution was to change the then current AdLib from the 5 and a quarter jack to a 3.5mm jack.

Well, it depends what exactly moment we're talking about...
I guess that at the end of 1989/beginning of 1990 they indeed dismissed the PCM.
But when there came games with digitized SFX, it convinced them to add that feature.