[Dalewyn]

Practically every computer geek/nerd of the 80s and 90s has come across and used a Sound Blaster at some point. Part of our childhoods, as the saying goes.

RIP, not many get to affect quite as many people as Creative did across entire generations.

[virgulino]

It wasn't just sound. The second generation SoundBlasters had a proprietary CD-ROM controller integrated, this was not yet standardized, it was before the IDE CD-ROM. It was the birth of the CD-ROM, and of Multimedia itself, as a product. In the early 90's we used to buy a boxed "Multimedia Kit" from Creative, with SoundBlaster, CD-ROM drive and speakers. Very popular and the best way to "add multimedia" to your computer, and enter the new world of multimedia and massive data, like encyclopedias, and CD-ROM games like Myst. I remember the excitement. https://64.media.tumblr.com/57f25b53fd58e3bad9cf1959f49a82f8...

[vanderZwan]

Oh man that's a nostalgia trip. I remember us getting an AWE32, a CD-ROM player and Encarta 95.

And then after installing everything you open to this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxNsIBJOAA8

Absolutely magical to eleven-year old me. Too bad I couldn't read English very well yet, since in the Netherlands they only started teaching that around the same age at the time.

[npteljes]

I was gifted with a paper notebook that has a 3d effect PCB printed on it as its cover. From the chips' inscriptions, I found the source, and it's a Sound Blaster sound card :) Best gift ever.

Not my image, but I have the same one: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/pcb-notebook--5410653427112781...

[Manjuuu]

When soundcards were cool like GPUs are now, great times.