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[dave_d]

Not sure if this counts as a "celebrity death" and should go in there but the founder of Creative labs, Sim Wong Hoo, has died. (IE the company that made the soundblaster, something a lot of us from the early days of PC gaming remember. Of course the Ultrasound was better, can't forget to mention that.)

 

[Rest]

Who? And what?

 

[Patrick S.]

Who? And what?

Sum Ting Wong’s cousin, man.

 

[Forsete]

RIP

I had a Soundblaster and a TNT2 Ultra which was a Creative product.

 

[Patrick S.]

I had an SB 16, later on an AWE 32, 3D Blaster GPU, and I had the Creative Theater 5.1 sound system. Totally awesome with my brand new DVD player and a copy of Matrix. So many nice memories, man.

 

[Laptop1991]

RIP, I've had loads of Creative products since the 90's, sound mostly and 2 Voodoo 2's at the time, still got my ZXR in now, and i still miss EAX, sad news.

 

[Kadve]

While i will never forgive how he (allegedly) screwed over Adlib (se below). There is no denying that he revolutionised the PC sound market. RIP.

https://www.pcgamer.com/author-of-s...-book-talks-about-the-early-days-of-pc-audio/

outu.be/t3SPe7hv-DA?t=665

Rich Heimlich, author of "Sound Blaster: The Official Book", has alleged it was Creative Labs who pressured Yamaha into delaying the (required) chips. And it only had to be long enough to finish the Sound Blaster 16 and beat the AdLib Gold to the market.
What poor AdLib doesn’t understand, not being a technology company. They’re buying, as I mentioned, off the shelf parts from Yamaha.
They had this chip known as the MMA chip, it was a critical chip for the production of this card.
Yamaha continued to have problems bringing it to market, to get it to pass testing. And I thought this was all just good luck for Creative. Then I had a call one day with Sim and he made it clear that
“this chip will pass when I say it passes.” And I had to sit back for a moment and go “whoa, that’s heavy.

This guy is controlling AdLib’s fate.” So month after month, Yamaha reportedly told AdLib that the chips were flawed and delayed.
Launch dates went from fall of ‘91 to winter, then to March of 1992, then April.
Understandably frustrating potential customers, who wondered if the Gold would end up being vaporware

(Edit). And then there was the whole Aureal Semiconductor situation. "Our only rival is suffering some money issues? Lets put a false lawsuit against them. There is no way they have enough money to challenge it so its guaranteed to make them go bankrupt and we can buy them out!

No im not exaggerating that's really what happened.

On March 5, 1998 Creative Labs sued Aureal for patent infringement. Aureal countersued because they believed Creative was guilty of patent infringement. After numerous lawsuits Aureal won a favorable ruling in December 1999, which vindicated Aureal from these patent infringement claims, but the legal costs were too high and Aureal filed for bankruptcy. On September 21, 2000, Creative acquired Aureal's assets from its bankruptcy trustee for US$32 million through the bankruptcy court, with the specific provision that Creative Labs would be released from all claims of past infringement by Creative Labs upon Aureal's A3D technology. The purchase included patents, trademarks, other property, as well as a release to Creative from any infringement by Creative of Aureal's intellectual property including A3D. The purchase effectively eliminated Creative's only competition in the gaming audio market. It also eliminated any requirements for Creative to pay past or future royalties as well as damages for products which incorporated Aureal's technology.

 

[Futaleufu]

RIP, Sound Blasters popularized PC sound cards

 

[squeakywheel]

While i will never forgive how he (allegedly) screwed over Adlib (se below). There is no denying that he revolutionised the PC sound market. RIP.

https://www.pcgamer.com/author-of-s...-book-talks-about-the-early-days-of-pc-audio/

outu.be/t3SPe7hv-DA?t=665



(Edit). And then there was the whole Aureal Semiconductor situation. "Our only rival is suffering some money issues? Lets put a false lawsuit against them. There is no way they have enough money to challenge it so its guaranteed to make them go bankrupt and we can buy them out!

No im not exaggerating that's really what happened.

Wow what an asshole. Rest in Piss

 

[AJUMP23]

Sound Blaster was an icon.

 

[AlteredForms]

Everybody who played games in the 90s remembers SoundBlaster though graphics cards always had more popularity. Voodoo, nGlide, 3DFX were names many a PC enthusiast was accustomed to.

 

[ResilientBanana]

Sum Ting Wong’s cousin, man.

Poor taste, and racist to boot.

 

[dottme]

I was so happy when I’ve got my Soundblaster. But the younger audience probably never heard of creative.

 

[phaedrus]

 

[Durien]

I still have a Fatal1ty Pro card in my desktop downstairs lol.

 

[GeekyDad]

Not sure if this counts as a "celebrity death" and should go in there but the founder of Creative labs, Sim Wong Hoo, has died. (IE the company that made the soundblaster, something a lot of us from the early days of PC gaming remember. Of course the Ultrasound was better, can't forget to mention that.)

Seems like a long time since I've heard those names. Guy didn't seem to be that old.

 

[Stitch]

I really liked the creative zen stone plus mp3 player



from a time where my phone was a brick

 

[Fermbiz]

R.I.P.

I was an owner of a sound blaster card and the Zen MP3 player. I loved the mp3 player, but sadly, the hdd gave up and thats all she wrote.

 

[Kacho]

Poor taste, and racist to boot.

 

[SirKicksalot]

Never forget

John Carmack: "This sucks."

Creative and id Software struck a deal to incorporate EAX ADVANCED HD into the …

arstechnica.com

To be fair, the EAX implementation is astonishing and it seems they designed the audiologs with it in mind. The lack of audiolog background noise was even noted by Ken Levine during the making of Bioshock. However, EAX makes an incredible difference. You can experience it today with a source port like Dhewm3. I had no idea it can sound so good.

 

[demigod]

RIP. Im pretty sure i still have a 2.1 from the late 90s or early 2000. That’s how good of a quality it is that it still fucking works.

 

[diffusionx]

Scummy company, did a lot of shady shit, but were also enormously influential in PC gaming with a lot of great tech. I am surprised they’re still around imo.

 

[ResilientBanana]

oh ok, it’s less racist now. /s