Ad Lib Sound Card Promotion

[@StuffOffYouStuff]

Wow! I never knew they did a proper video advert for it!

[@SarahCarrico]

Floppies! Uncomfortable close-ups of a mouth! Unicorns! What a delight.

[@ericdewitt5932]

"Woooow!"

[@GreatMewtwo]

"Awesome!"

[@01DOGG01]

This reminds me of the days when computer noobs would call a 5¼-inch a 'floppy disk' and a 3½-inch a 'hard disk'.

[@lilwyvern4]

Adlib sounds and music have a certain charm to them, to be sure, but boy were we eating scraps compared to the bangers that console kids had. Until Doom and Myst popularized PC gaming, it was dire straits for a bit.

[@AlphaControlBroadcasting]

The short song clip at 1:00 is by former AdLib employee Henri Chalifour - "Buildings Over Buildings" (There is a better quality version here on KZbin.)

[@GreatMewtwo]

Thank you very much. Apparently, this promo featured many more of his works than I knew.

[@GreatMewtwo]

+Hossinfeffa I also Identified "Mirrors of the Sea."

[@theSoundCarddatabase]

Strangely, "Buildings Over Buildings" is included in the AdLib Gold demos, so my original thought was that it had been composed much later than this. Had never realized before!

[@TheStolken]

Dos confirmed for phattest beats.

[@mrbigmouth502]

They chose some really poor examples to show off the Adlib's capabilities. But it's understandable, FM synthesis is notoriously hard to program. However, it can deliver some killer results, and Japanese composers back in the day tended to be the best at it.

[@SeñorDossierOficial]

mrbigmouth502 still better than pc speaker :v

[@Muldoonite]

Awesome. Happy 20th Birthday to Doom!

[@AdEshack]

Thanks for sharing this video! Brings back memories. Can remember seeing this advertisement on a VHS that Compute Magazine released in the early 90s.

[@TheCuratorIsHere]

Those were the days.

[@YarisTex]

The AdLib had no DOS drivers and no jumpers onboard. You certainly didn't need to change AUTOEXEC.BAT in any way. Programs that support AdLib will communicate with the card on ports 388h and 389h. So yeah it was easy to install!

[@RobBradshawG]

Same mate :D I never forget my amazement of playing Leasure Suit larry, police quest, space quest etc with Adlib sound . Then came the mind blowing Sound blaster 16 WOOOOAH mind , blown.

[@paddan1000ify]

You are thinking of the speech portion of the Soundblaster. The OPL-chip of the Adlib (and compatible) requires no system resources except the ports 388h-389h, which are hard coded out-of-the-box. No lines had to be added to the config files and no jumpers set on the card.

[@u263a3]

Wow! Awesome !

[@ValorousFogey]

Yeah! Ad Lib for the win! So nostalgic for me. Wolfenstein 3D and Prince of Persia, w00t w00t.

[@haken29a]

ValorousFogey exactly lol before that I soldered a headphone jack on the pc speaker to hook to the stereo 😂

[@YarisTex]

Certainly for Sound Blaster cards and clones. Even so some hardware was fixed. The first Sound Blasters were fixed on DMA 1, and even some games required SB at interrupt 7 and 220hex. Later games look at the SET BLASTER line on AUTOEXEC.BAT. Other games allow us to choose interrupts, DMA and port according to how our sound card is configured. General rule, as long as there are no resource conflicts everything is gonna work fine. In my opinion this wasn't a big problem.

[@benanderson89]

Well, for starters, this is one of Dell's much celbrated Ultrasharp professional line of monitors. My model specifically is the U2711 - at one point it was one the single best displays on the market. I don't doubt its contrast ratio for a moment - especially considering this is a premium level device that cost around £1000 upon release.

[@kentvandervelden]

"Wow, awesome!"

[@haken29a]

Nice reminder of when I hooked up my first sound card to play wolf 3D lol good times 😉

[@Caplax40]

I never had the sound card, but I DID have that joystick. Memories!

[@SeñorDossierOficial]

Andrew Tate what joystick is it? :v

[@KRAFTWERK2K6]

Adlib and FM synthesis in general are soo underrated. Back then your sound & music hardware was a real synthesizer. Just like the C64 SID chip. Today it's just digital audio streaming and all the sound creating technology has to be simulated/emulated which is so boring.

[@tomacco3k]

Thanks for the video! How I miss the time when I had a card with ad lib sound...

[@benanderson89]

On IBM Compatible Machines it wouldn't appear until Windows 95. The Amiga and the Mac in the 80s, however, already had plug and play systems. Was called "Auto Config" on the Amiga, I forget what it was called on the Mac.

[@NicolasRoberge]

Un produit de la Ville de Québec.

[@NightSprinter]

1:09 the title theme to Operation Wolf.

[@IntersperseAges]

Nostalgia overload.

[@benanderson89]

By M-Audio I mean the proper professional sound cards used for Audio Production. Those are some damn fine cards/external interfaces for sure. Sound quality is superb. Who cares if they don't have synthesis capabilities? Just get the CPU to synthesis digital audio instead. All the sound card does is convert the signal to analogue. I was comparing my Dell to CRTs, why did you feel the need to bring up the T221?

[@DrForrester2001]

Sounds like the same guy that recorded "Live From The Sierra Lounge" Live From The Sierra Lounge - Side 1 - Pc Music Card Demonstration

[@benanderson89]

That's a very niche use case that needed specially designed monitors anyway.

[@benanderson89]

I've used OPL only cards and I had to change jumpers so they wouldn't conflict with other hardware. Its not as easy as just slapping it in there - at least for the cards I've used.

[@mgabrysSF]

First 2 minutes of watching someone grind a joystick ... uh ... should I be seeing this?

[@alpzepta]

Adlib sound like 16bit that is the future

[@benanderson89]

Then the FM only cards I've used (EG: Crystal FM) must've been a bit more advanced (or less dumb, depending) that the Adlib - all of those required either drivers or AUTOEXE configuration and (for ISA cards) jumper settings.

[@anthonysicurella398]

This is a sound card that works with wolfenstein 3d (Old School style)

[@naxoelfurro]

Does anyone know which song is the one at the beginning?, or is it only made for the commercial?

[@MrFaceHead]

Joysticks have become more powerful

[@adenowirus]

By which they mean analog.

[@kargaroc386]

how come there's no comments on this video? This is very interesting. A little bit cheezy (1980s... what do you expect?) though

[@gerfall]

Look at that sophisticated floppy disc! YEAHHHHH!

[@marcocalado78]

If you think this is bad? You should accidentaly test a PC speaker music at 4:00 am, when you supposed to be in bed. Now that was a real thrill. I must confess that stupid Westwood music from dune 2 got me some times.

[@GreatMewtwo]

@hitachi088 They have become much more powerful, especially in the twenty years since the video was originally produced. You have HD sound cards, HD graphics, and motion controllers with force feedback to play Call of Duty. Other than that, yeah.

[@benanderson89]

Yeah! Adlib is so easy to install! Just plug in the card, install the DOS drivers, make sure they don't crash. Make a note of the IRQ, Base Port and DMA settings. Make sure there isn't a conflict (probably is). Got pull the card back out the machine, change the jumpers with a set of tweezers. Reinstall it. Now you're gonna have to change AUTOEXEC.BAT to use the new IRQ and DMA settings! Yup! So easy to install! :D

[@kinmanyuen]

lol for a minute i thought they mention mention minecraft.,, but its mindcraft ^^

[@benanderson89]

Did you not look into 1220i? Line level Analogue mixing desk. Like all modern professional mixers, the digital interface is to allow individual track recording in a DAW. I also use a Mac Pro, I also mentioned I have 8 h/w synths connected via MIDI. Nice try at a strawman though. You said "discreet synthesis over sample playback" - I corrected you by mentioning modern computer synthesis is done by the CPU, not samples. Nice attempt at a back pedal though. A for effort F for implementation. :)

[@DiodeMilliampere]

i approve of this

[@Joepopa12]

Is that Rich Fulcher???

[@dosnostalgic]

B E A UTIFUL!

[@speedyblupi]

If only they still made games compatible with it :|

[@SeñorDossierOficial]

Awesome!

[@andresbravo2003]

hmm, Ad Lib Sound card really is great before Creative released Sound Blaster to be more competitive.

[@demosteam]

So 80's o-o

[@ThePixelPolygon]

What's with the 1 in the top-left corner? Is there more?

[@GreatMewtwo]

The video is the first segment of 24 in a collection called the Compute Magazine Electronic Video Showcase.

[@adenowirus]

+GreatMewtwo Any chance of you uploading the rest?

[@konatadesuka]

What's the song @ 01:00??? Is there a full version?

[@GreatMewtwo]

Right. True PnP wouldn't come along for a while.

[@GreatMewtwo]

@wolfmap So do I. My first sound card of this nature was a Sound Blaster 16.

[@ChrisNova777]

anyone selling an adlib card? or soundblaster pro 1991 with the two opl2 chips? pm me?

[@spark20]

So this is how porno music in the circa 90s sounded like, lol. :-)

[@benanderson89]

Well, this isn't PnP. Its all manual configuration.

[@bernatk]

OPL2 > everything else.

[@benanderson89]

You need to use a better soundcard then with higher quality components if you think all modern soundcards are rubbish. Try a card from M-Audio, or a FireWire mixer from Mackie and then get back to me. K? :) With monitors, again, try a high quality monitor before spitting rubbish through your rose tinted glasses. Modern, Professional IPS displays completely flatten CRTs in every possible way. My 27" WQHD Dell Ultrasharp is an absolutely magnificent display.

[@Renchii]

FUCK YEAH!

[@benanderson89]

Professional do use USB/FW mixers, hence why they exist. I myself use an ONYX 1220i FW mixer with 8 synths connected via USB MIDI to Logic Pro 9. What features does the T221 present? I've even looked at the manual and it has less features than my Dell. By modern standards its pretty crappy overall. Bar TN, modern S-ISP, OLED, LED etc. displays > CRT. Sound synthesis on a modern computer isn't sample playback. WTH gave you that idea? All done on the CPU. Soundcard just acts as a DAC and Buffer.

[@Cr4z3d]

If it's soundpack samples or Soundfont synthesis, then yes it is technically still sample playback.

[@benanderson89]

Its quite clear you've got a major case of the rose tinted glasses if you think tech from the 80s and 90s is better than professional level systems now. Go pick up a £500 Lexicon USB mixer and get back to me, k? Oh, and YOU should do their research. Its not 2001, the T221 is pretty crappy now. 400:1 contrast ratio, my dell has 1000:1. 250 cd/m2 brightness, my dell has 350. 16.7m colours, my dell has 1.07billion. New 4k monitors completely obliterate the T221 as well. Modern tech >> Old Tech

[@speedyblupi]

And then soundblaster was a bit shit because their card was just an adlib with rubbish CMS chips, so they decided to shove on a game port and sold thousands. Then they got better sound chips (OPL3) and began to completely pwn AdLib, then for some reason they made the AWE 32 (shit). Then AdLib brought out its gold card with stereo sound and OPL3s and were awesome for a bit longer, then creative decided to stop trying to be just as good as AdLib and made the AWE64 and pwned everything else.

[@sindobrandnew]

Hi eddie.

[@NAB622]

3:35 Oh look...ponies.

[@MichelleGianni]

No wonder they went bankrupt...

[@kinmanyuen]

rofl unicorn...

[@illuminatioracle]

sega genesis FM music kicks SNES ass

[@TANMAN9095]

+illuminatioracle adlib and opl3 kicks both of their asses.

[@TANMAN9095]

Doddo MultiGamer straight up dude i still like adlib though.

[@SuperShadow]

"game players" why couldn't that have caught on?

[@halflifemusicofficial]

lol