Okay, this perhaps doesn't apply to most users here, but.. I'm still an abidingly user of MOD4WIN and love to listen music to with it.
So 16Bit Stereo and 44.1 KHz sampling rate means a lot to me!
That's why I like to have an advanced soundcard even in my retro rig, as I did back in the day.
Back then, I was a happy user of a PAS16 and never had to regret it. In fact, looking back, I'm grateful even more now.
I never had to worry about all the Sound Blaster problems (nor the EMM386 headache).
Me and my dad installed the card in my 286, ran the install software and done.
No conflicts, no noise. It just worked. In fact, I had no idea about what "Sound Blaster" really was.
To me, it was just another obscure, outdated standard my PAS16 had a legacy portion for (optional SB 2.0 "emulation").
Sounds contumelious, doesn't it ? 😉 Well, I can't help it. That's what I thought back then.
I had no idea about the SBPro/SB16 rivalry, either. For some reason, all my games supported my card.
Even natively in 16Bit mode (Descent comes to mind). Only the shareware/freewares games required ancient Sound Blaster.
But even then, no SBPro was required. Most of them were coded for SoundBlaster 1.0 and OPL2 anyway, something my PAS16 could do with ease.
It wasn't until the late 90s that I got myself a real SoundBlaster card (you know, that archaic piece of hardware).
It was an original SoundBlaster 16 (literally "original", it was a CT1740).
And again, I had no issues with soundcards. Despite the fact, that I had to set something called a "jumper". 😮
I really was surprised about that fact! I felt like an archeologist holding a bone of a dinosaur. ^^
Anway, this time I was lucky again. Thanks to the jumpers, I hadn't to fiddle with all those Creative TSRs.
Later, I played my favorite games with the SB16 and was impressed about how fat its sound was.
I then used that card for all my Windows 98 machines also. Later, I got interested in FM syntesis and read a lot about OPL2/OPL3.
That's when I became aware of the Sound Blaster 2.0. cards. They had a genuine OPL2 and a SB 2.x DAC (just like my PAS16 once had!).
And as time passed, I collected these old cards, repaired them and learned to hold them in honour.
But to this day, I haven't seen the need for a SB Pro. If I was a scener, then maybe. But even then,
a Gravis Ultrasound would have been be quite appealing. 😉
"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel
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