Sound Blaster is a registered trademark of Creative Labs appeared in 1989. It is a range of charts its which was during many years the standard in fact on PC.

Before Sound Blaster

The history of the charts Creative sounds begins with the exit of the chart Creative Music System (" C/MS") in August 1987. It contains two chips Philips SAEB ERAKAT 1099, which, together, make it possible to manage a signal on 12 ways.

This type of circuit had already been presented in various magazines of electronics. During many years, Creative rather used chips of manufacturers third-part for its first products. The various integrated circuits were covered with blank paper labels or black affixed on the top of the chip, thus hiding the identity of manufacturing. On the C/MS in particular, the chips Philips are masked by a blank paper with an inscription indicating it like CMS-301 . The component really coming from Creative generally had a reference of the type CT 12345 .

The chart included/understood an integrated circuit PGA of 40 pins (Creative Technology Programable Logic) carrying the screen printed inscription CT 1302A CTPL 8708 . This chip resembled exactly the “DSP” of future Sound Blaster. It could be used to automate certain operations on the sound, as the control of the envelope.

One year after, in 1988, Creative markets the C/MS via RadioShack under the name Game Blaster . This chart is identical in all points to precursor C/MS. Creative the labels on the chart nor the name of the programs delivered with the Game Blaster did not take the trouble to change.

1989: First Sound Blaster

The first chart bearing the name Sound Blaster appears in November 1989. To the functionalities of the original Blaster Range, a Synthétiseur FM to 11 votes using is added the chip Yamaha YM3812 also known under the name OPL2 . It allows a perfect compatibility with the concurrent chart, Adlib, already supported by the plays on PC. Creative uses acronym “DSP then” to indicate the digital part of Sound Blaster. That means DIGITAL SOUND Processor and not DIGITAL Signal Processor (see: DSP). It is about simple a Microcontrôleur of the family Intel MCS-51 (provided by Intel and Matra MHS inter alia). It makes it possible to play a sound mono samplé up to 23 Khz (quality of a radio operator AM) and to record to 12 Khz (a little better than the telephone with 8 Khz). The only functionality of digital processing of the signal of the circuit was compression and decompression ADPCM. Miss with the chart a filter Anti-aliasing, and the recordings return consequently a its characteristic of limps out of metal. Lastly, the chart has a port joystick and an interface owner MIDDAY. This interface not making it possible to carry out entries and exits into simultaneous, the software of music of the time was to use the synthetizer FM to play the note corresponding to the entry received since the keyboard MIDDAY.

It is difficult to know which microcontrolor was used like “DSP” on the first models of Sound Blaster. Creative had affixed a marked black label (C) COPYRIGHT 1989 CREATIVE LABS, Inc DSP-1321 and had removed two thirds of the plastic below. The analysis of the stitching suggests that it is about a microcontrolor Intel 8051 with a ROMANIAN Mémoire. The labels on the circuit of synthetisation FM and the digital-to-analog converter (Yamaha 3014B) carry respectively the references FM1312 and FM1314 . Fortunately the references of the manufacturer below remained intact. The models according to put an end to the hide-and-seek and the identity of the manufacturer is preserved on the “DSP”.

In spite of its limitations, in less than one year, the Sound Blaster becomes the most sold expander cards for PC.

The premature use of term “DSP” forced Creative to use another name when they incluèrent a real digital processing of the signal. For the future models, they choose denomination “ASP”, for Advanced Signal Processing .

Sound Blaster 1.5, left in 1990, gives up circuits C/MS. The chips could be bought separately then inserted in two sockets on the chart. The change is probably due to the stop of the production of this circuit by Philips. One could buy them by Creative correspondence until in 1993.

A little later Sound Blaster 2.0 adds the support for the car-initialization of the DMA, which makes it possible to produce a continuous loop of outgoing sound. A following revision, the 2.01, carries the sampling rate in reading to 45 Khz (the same frequency as on Sound Blaster Pro, exit about at the same time).

Sound Blaster MCV, as for it, is a version created for the IBM PS/2 model 50 and following which had a bus Micro Chanel instead of traditional ISA.