Creative probably would have made an OPL2 card to make a cost-reduced version that may have also had digital sound. This would have sounded not quite as good as the Adlib, but would have been a lot less expensive, much like the Adlib did to the IBM Music Feature Card. Creative makes a bunch of money, is ruthless when Yamaha is rolling out the YM2610B for the Adlib Platinum (this alt-universe version of the Adlib Gold), and history is largely the same but with one minor difference.

Your talking a Tandy compatible + 3 voice FM 4 operator instead of “9 voice” 2 operator FM

OPN music on an ISA sound card?

Unless it was a lot cheaper and offered a lot earlier it would have been outclassed. (Either on cost or utility)

OPM was better but cost more
OPL had more FM Voices but tinny

Tandy/PCJR was earliest with straight psg .

Not sure how this would change much.

General MIDI was an independent event adlib was nifty for the keyboard guys who were stuck on Atari or Amiga but general MIDI wouldn’t have gone anywhere, it was around and easy to use which would result in folks just porting general midi to whatever else existed.

Now if every IBM PC 5150 had that in place of the beeper, but IBM would have never.

In my experience, most western devs didn't have much time or money to focus on synth development. OPL2 was not only cheap, but also has built in pcm drum samples. This alone saved a lot of time on music dev.

I feel all these chips sound great when used effectively though. Personally, I wish Creative would have embraced the OPL4. It can do amazing things when all of it's parts are utilized correctly. But alas, Creative was far more interested in max profits.

There are no PCM drums in OPL2/3, it is just some poor sounding presets that utilize a LFSR which should have been exposed directly instead...

OPN would have been great, I listened through a ton of soundtracks on one of the Japanese NEC PC lines and most stuff sounded much superior to OPL offecings even despite the limited sound channels, and OPNA is even better, and much better if the ADPCM channel got used too not just the preset ADPCM drums (8KB ROM in the chip 🤣). History went different unfortunately, and I'm sure Creative would have still offered a rock bottom solution that ends up being the standard anyway 🤣

Tiido wrote on 2026-05-12, 14:07:

There are no PCM drums in OPL2/3, it is just some poor sounding presets that utilize a LFSR which should have been exposed directly instead...

OPN would have been great, I listened through a ton of soundtracks on one of the Japanese NEC PC lines and most stuff sounded much superior to OPL offecings even despite the limited sound channels, and OPNA is even better, and much better if the ADPCM channel got used too not just the preset ADPCM drums (8KB ROM in the chip 🤣). History went different unfortunately, and I'm sure Creative would have still offered a rock bottom solution that ends up being the standard anyway 🤣

Hey, I happen to like the OPL2 drums! 🤣 But anyway, in the end the music depends on the devs, and most western devs just didn't utilize these chips well for multiple reasons. There are tons of great sounding tunes on the OPL2, especially arcade stuff like Vimana. Also lots of classics on the OPLL, which was even more limited. Crazy things have even been done on the Konami VRC7. One of my personal favorites of all time is the arcade game Victory Road by SNK and it uses the original YM3526 core for it's music (the pcb actually has the Y8950, but the ADPCM part is only used for the voice overs).

Atomic Skull wrote on 2026-05-12, 01:35:

We might never gotten sidetracked into General MIDI at all if OPNB based cards had become the standard for PC sound cards.

"Sidetracked into General MIDI"?

Why ever would you say we got *sidetracked* into GM?

I've got a PC9821 and I have to agree that the OPNA is simply fabulous sounding. Compared to things composed for the Adlib/OPL2 standard it's night and day difference.

I wonder what the actual price difference would have been at the time for a basic implementation of each one in terms of components?

While I love the 2608, the pessimist in me believes western games wouldn't have made good use of it. Just look at most western developed MegaDrive games compared to Japanese games.

How about games that support CMS/ Game Blaster? The SAA1099 is an amazing chip. Its has six channels and proper stereo. Plus the CMS/GB used 2 of them! That's 12 channels. If wired up correctly you could even have 4 outputs for surround sound on such a setup... But none of the games came even close to using these chips to their full potential.

The SAM Coupe featured just one of these chips, and chiptuners have made some incredible music with it! The Adlib and OPL2 beat the GB due to price and ease of use.

A nice side effect of having OPN would be real ports for digital gamepads, instead of the rube goldberg machine that is the PC gameport.

BTW if Adlib had OPN, then even better would be running two Adlibs and having two OPNs...

If I went back in time, I'd kick it off early with a $50 board with an AY-3-8910 in 1983 ... which would probably have evolved into OPN for backward compatibility.

MadMac_5 wrote on 2026-05-12, 02:00:

Creative probably would have made an OPL2 card to make a cost-reduced version that may have also had digital sound. This would have sounded not quite as good as the Adlib, but would have been a lot less expensive, much like the Adlib did to the IBM Music Feature Card. Creative makes a bunch of money, is ruthless when Yamaha is rolling out the YM2610B for the Adlib Platinum (this alt-universe version of the Adlib Gold), and history is largely the same but with one minor difference.

So in this alternate timeline Creatives decides to go it alone a second time after the market failure of the Game Blaster?

In our timeline Creative Labs failed with the Game Blaster then followed it up with an OPL2 based card that piggybacked off the market leader (Adlib) to ensure widespread support for games.

How do they succeed in this new timeline and convince game companies to support the Sound Blaster? The OPN and OPL are not compatible with each other, it's not just a matter of a driver to emulate the OPN on the OPL, the FM block of the OPN is more advanced, albeit with fewer channels, more and different waveforms and different algorithms, you can't just translate the FM parameter data because it's fundamentally different architecture. So Creative's card will be on an island if they pick the OPL2 over the OPN in this alternate timeline.

Tiido wrote on 2026-05-12, 14:07:

and I'm sure Creative would have still offered a rock bottom solution that ends up being the standard anyway 🤣

That was the Game Blaster it used a pair of cheap Philips SAA1099 sound generators, each had 6 square wave channels and 2 noise channels. It was a failure in the market. Cheap wasn't enough it also needed support and Adlib was the market leader there so after the Game Blaster failed they came back with an OPL2 based card that could piggyback off the Adlib mode in DOS games.

AlaricD wrote on 2026-05-12, 18:58:

Atomic Skull wrote on 2026-05-12, 01:35:

We might never gotten sidetracked into General MIDI at all if OPNB based cards had become the standard for PC sound cards.

"Sidetracked into General MIDI"?

Why ever would you say we got *sidetracked* into GM?

GM was arguably a step backwards from the MT32 in regards to editability of sounds.

A YM2610B based board would have 7 ADPCM channels and six 4 operator FM channels. If that were the standard for DOS games then wavetable cards would be a much harder sell.

bakemono wrote on 2026-05-13, 00:17:

A nice side effect of having OPN would be real ports for digital gamepads, instead of the rube goldberg machine that is the PC gameport.

BTW if Adlib had OPN, then even better would be running two Adlibs and having two OPNs...

The Neo Geo uses an YM2610, not the "B" variant so only 4 FM channels but otherwise identical:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgq2D-kuISk

Atomic Skull wrote on 2026-05-13, 06:16:

That was the Game Blaster it used a pair of cheap Philips SAA1099 sound generators, each had 6 square wave channels and 2 noise […]
Show full quote

Tiido wrote on 2026-05-12, 14:07:

and I'm sure Creative would have still offered a rock bottom solution that ends up being the standard anyway 🤣

That was the Game Blaster it used a pair of cheap Philips SAA1099 sound generators, each had 6 square wave channels and 2 noise channels. It was a failure in the market. Cheap wasn't enough it also needed support and Adlib was the market leader there so after the Game Blaster failed they came back with an OPL2 based card that could piggyback off the Adlib mode in DOS games.

AlaricD wrote on 2026-05-12, 18:58:

Atomic Skull wrote on 2026-05-12, 01:35:

We might never gotten sidetracked into General MIDI at all if OPNB based cards had become the standard for PC sound cards.

"Sidetracked into General MIDI"?

Why ever would you say we got *sidetracked* into GM?

GM was arguably a step backwards from the MT32 in regards to editability of sounds.

A YM2610B based board would have 7 ADPCM channels and six 4 operator FM channels. If that were the standard for DOS games then wavetable cards would be a much harder sell.

YM2610 had 4 FM channels (mostly used in the NeoGeo). The YM2610B had 6 FM channels, but it was only used by a dozen or so Taito arcade games.

And the SAA1099 is a very nice PSG chip. It's far more advanced than the AY3 and SN7. It was just never used properly outside of the UK only SAM Coupe computer.

SuperDeadite wrote on 2026-05-13, 06:32:

YM2610 had 4 FM channels (mostly used in the NeoGeo). The YM2610B had 6 FM channels, but it was only used by a dozen or so Taito arcade games.

And the SAA1099 is a very nice PSG chip. It's far more advanced than the AY3 and SN7. It was just never used properly outside of the UK only SAM Coupe computer.

For some reason I was thinking that the Taito F3 system used the 2610B but nope it was The Ninja Warriors and a few others. F3 used an Ensoniq ES5505

The YM2610B was specifically made for Taito so who knows what might have been created if OPN had gained traction in DOS sound cards.

Fun fact, the "FM" in Yamaha sound chips is actually implemented as phase modulation not frequency modulation. Yamaha learned early on that FM modulation generates unpleasant harmonics with certain frequency combinations and this can be avoided while creating a waveform that is nearly identical to what FM would produce, sans the bad harmonics. This is not mentioned in the original patents and they kept it secret. It was only figured out later when software FM emulation became a thing and the emulators sounded wrong for some reason.

Atomic Skull wrote on 2026-05-13, 06:43:

For some reason I was thinking that the Taito F3 system used the 2610B but nope it was The Ninja Warriors and a few others. F3 u […]
Show full quote

SuperDeadite wrote on 2026-05-13, 06:32:

YM2610 had 4 FM channels (mostly used in the NeoGeo). The YM2610B had 6 FM channels, but it was only used by a dozen or so Taito arcade games.

And the SAA1099 is a very nice PSG chip. It's far more advanced than the AY3 and SN7. It was just never used properly outside of the UK only SAM Coupe computer.

For some reason I was thinking that the Taito F3 system used the 2610B but nope it was The Ninja Warriors and a few others. F3 used an Ensoniq ES5505

The YM2610B was specifically made for Taito so who knows what might have been created if OPN had gained traction in DOS sound cards.

Fun fact, the "FM" in Yamaha sound chips is actually implemented as phase modulation not frequency modulation. Yamaha learned early on that FM modulation generates unpleasant harmonics with certain frequency combinations and this can be avoided while creating a waveform that is nearly identical to what FM would produce, sans the bad harmonics. This is not mentioned in the original patents and they kept it secret. It was only figured out later when software FM emulation became a thing and the emulators sounded wrong for some reason.

Ironically enough, most Taito games such as Ninja Warriors and Night Striker that used the 2610B on their pcbs don't actually use the extra 2 FM channels meaning a standard 2610 is sufficient. There's only about 10 or so known games that actually use all 6 FM channels on that chip.

I was lucky enough to get a couple of NOS chips for my VGM rig some years ago. Very difficult to source now though sadly.

Atomic Skull wrote on 2026-05-13, 06:16:

AlaricD wrote on 2026-05-12, 18:58:

Why ever would you say we got *sidetracked* into GM?

GM was arguably a step backwards from the MT32 in regards to editability of sounds.

The Roland MT-32 is a synthesizer. Editing of sounds is a function of a synthesizer. MIDI is ultimately a set of instructions and a specification for interfacing MIDI devices with a computer or with each other. It's like a digital piano roll, in a sense. A piano roll doesn't sound like much until you either put it in a player piano (and then the quality of the sound is based on the player piano itself), or drop it on the floor (in which case it makes a "thunk" and maybe a fluttering sound if it comes unrolled).

Did you know...? MIDI can be used to control lighting and pyrotechnics. (Let's see the MT-32 do that (well, *easily*, anyway).)

You can also go to the The MIDI Association's site (TMA, midi.org) to see things like MPE (MIDI Polyphonic Expression) and such. MIDI is not nearly as limited/limiting as you seem to think.