Retrocomputing has never been as popular as in this decade, with folks old and young reliving the simplicity and straightforwardness of games and hardware of bygone eras. Retro hardware is ever scarcer to come by, and might need a little love and care. That's what Adrian's Digital Basement YouTube channel (Adrian) did by fixing up a Sound Blaster 2.0 card, one of home computing's groundbreaking pieces of gear.
The quick history (more below) is that the Sound Blaster 2.0 was the second iteration of the eponymous card, combining AdLib-compatible FM synth music capability with real, sampled sound output, for arguably the first coherent aural experience in games and multimedia in the era, seeing as it was effectively two cards in one — or three, even with the optional Creative Music System compatibility expansion chips.
After sourcing a reverse-engineered schematic of the card, Adrian proceeded to install the chip, fixing up a broken trace and a missing solder pad in the process; mere annoyances for an electronics professional. The process is detailed in the video and serves as a wonderful electronics repair ASMR. One 3D-printed slot I/O bracket later, and the card was complete, playing back both AdLib FM tracks and digital tracker music in glorious eight-bit audio.
The Sound Blaster 2.0 improved on its namesake by offering 44.1 KHz mono playback (at a modest 8 bits, with a high noise floor), but most importantly, DMA (Direct Memory Access) capability. Before that was commonplace, the PC's processor would have to shuffle sound from memory to the soundcard to play "by hand", making for a serious performance hit, namely, but not only in games.
Not all games supported it, but in those that did, you'd enjoy both crisp, realistic audio and smooth frame rates. As time moved on and DMA became standardized, games would switch to digital-only audio, shocking most of the PC world with a simple "I didn't know computers could do that."
Seeing as the Sound Blaster series was compatible with the FM-only AdLib and provided its digital sound simultaneously, it became the standard for PC audio, as most games would use the FM portion for music playback while keeping the DSP for realistic sound effects.
The MIDI-based Roland MT-32 offered incredibly realistic music, but it had no digital playback support, and it was basically unobtainium unless you had bags of cash.
The Sound Blaster 2.0 holds a special place in my heart as it was my first PC sound card, and I spent many a day and night playing Doom (at potato quality on a meagre 386SX), Pinball Dreams, and starting an impromptu career in techno music thanks to Fast Tracker, Scream Tracker, and Impulse Tracker DAW-like software (called "trackers"). That particular interest eventually faded, and the world of music breathed a sigh of relief.
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