I had an evening of sleuthing.

The PT-2628 has been widely and incorrectly attributed to Pine Technology, and I picked up on this because I have a PT-2628 and there is no record that Pine Technology ever released an Aureal Vortex: No drivers. No mention in catalogues. No marketing. For me, that reflects misattribution that snowballed through eBay listings without any primary source evidence.

I started my search from scratch and I uncovered the PT-2628 Trust Sound Expert 128 PCI, and I am using this post to re-connect that PT-2628 with its drivers, marketing materials, and catalogue references. Trust Sound Expert 128 PCI drivers show manufacturer is "Aashima" or Aashima Technology B.V., and Aashima was the majority shareholder in Trust with influence in many companies - but not Pine Technology.

Aashima started in 1983 as a distributor of Commodore 64 software. I attach also evidence that Aashima took corporate control of Trust in 1990, which I assume is when these companies began to merge. Catalogues in 1997 that split entries by brands included a category "Aashima (Trust)". There are catalogue references showing PT-2628 distributed by Trust, and catalogue references showing Trust products distributed by Aashima. However, I found no evidence so far that PT-2628 was distributed through any of Aashima's other partners.

But there are nuances.

In 1998 Trust very clearly marked their retail card with a big sticky label that repeats the name Aashima Technologies B.V., and all examples clearly attributable Aashima/Trust have their PT-2628 identifier near the PCI fingers. Various unbranded versions of the same PT-2628 Aashima silkscreen bear uncannily similar factory QC stickers. But, there is another set of currently unbranded cards that have a different silkscreen with remarkably similar PT2628 identifier without hyphen on the top edge near the backplate plus a different set of factory QC stickers.

It appears Trust absorbed Aashima by 2003, and Trust is the more recognisable trade name today. Unless anyone has contradicting evidence, I tentatively suggest a cleaner attribution for PT-2628 is that it is a PCB identifier that appears on the Aashima (Trust) Sound Expert 128 PCI. Further investigation is needed, using various PT-2628, to clarify if they all return the same subsystem identifiers or if they identify as different products.

See 19 March 1998 driver release for Windows 95 under TRUST/128pci00:
https://ia801503.us.archive.org/view_archive. … 446325_R1_3.iso

1[Strings]
2;Non-localized strings - standard Microsoft values
3KEY_IOC="SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\MediaResources\InstallOptionalComponents"
4
5;Localized strings - standard Microsoft values
6MediaClassName="Sound, video and game controllers"
7
8;Non-localized strings - device-specific
9ProductVersion="0.01.00.0001"
10
11;Localized strings - device-specific
12DiskName="Sound Expert 128 PCI Installation & Driver Disk"
13Mfg="Aashima"
14MF\PCI_VEN_12EB&DEV_0001_AUDIO.DeviceDesc= "Sound Expert 128 PCI Audio"
15PCI_VEN_12EB&DEV_0001_WAVE.DeviceDesc= "Sound Expert 128 PCI Wave Audio"
16PCI_VEN_12EB&DEV_0001_AUX.DeviceDesc= "Sound Expert 128 PCI Auxilary Audio"
17PCI_VEN_12EB&DEV_0001_MIX.DeviceDesc= "Sound Expert 128 PCI Audio Mixer"
18PCI_VEN_12EB&DEV_0001_WT.DeviceDesc= "Sound Expert 128 PCI Wavetable MIDI"
19VIRTUAL\PCI_VEN_12EB&DEV_0001_JOYSTICK.DeviceDesc = "Sound Expert 128 PCI Gameport Interface"
20VIRTUAL\PCI_VEN_12EB&DEV_0001_MPU401.DeviceDesc = "Sound Expert 128 PCI MPU-401 Interface"
21VIRTUAL\PCI_VEN_12EB&DEV_0001_SBFMAUDIO.DeviceDesc = "Sound Expert 128 PCI Sound Blaster Emulation"