The AdLib Gold Experience: Is it really worth $3000?

[@LGR]

For those asking for a video of all the Juke Box songs, well, that's already a thing: kzbin.info/www/bejne/d4XFaa2ema6Bpsk Video quality is a bit warbly but you're not missing much. It's all about the sound and the sound is superb 👍

[@angeleocorrodead]

When you said oh yeah after taking card my laptop went for 4k. oO'

[@MaverickBlue42]

Highway2 needs more cowbell.....

[@MidnightMechanic]

I'm curious to know why there'd be a *BOOT SECTOR VIRUS* on original driver diskettes for 3.1!

[@angeleocorrodead]

@@MidnightMechanic Probably pc with wich the diskette was compiled was infected, and then it went further to copying in factory.

[@hmst5420]

You trolled creative labs. But I'm happy that they are still alive and make some good products these days.

[@Dream0Asylum]

You can't fool me, Clint. This is really a Tech Tales episode, isn't it? Well played, sir. Well played.

[@LGR]

Heh, yeah pretty much.

[@Harey0407]

And I'll take it, I enjoy the Tech Tales series!

[@Dream0Asylum]

@@Harey0407 We all did, Ben. We all did.

[@RetroHellspawn]

@Dream0Asylum You beat me to the punch 5 hours ago. 😂 This is 100% a Tech Tales episode, mixed with an Oddware episode.

[@tpike1296]

@@Dream0Asylum LGR OddTales when

[@TriggerThat]

There are later models of the Adlib card, I have a gold edition from 1995 (bought it in 96) and I'm still using it in a W95 PC. Back then I had trouble installing the card and I called Adlib since I live in Quebec City. One of the engineers, his name was Mike, told me to bring the computer over at Adlib and he would look at it... 3 days later he called me, he found a tiny ball of solder shorting 2 pins of the CPU of a Miro video capture card I had in there. I was so glad he was the only person who was able to fix my 10K$ PC. That card had a Crystal chip, the sound samples are really good and thats why I'm still using it for playing MIDI files today. Great video!

[@zzoinks]

Wow, neat story! How was it like being at Adlib? I wonder if their place had any weird quirks.

[@TriggerThat]

@@zzoinks Well, I went there on a Saturday, there was nobody in the office and the lab. I remember seeing some specialized tools, like the microscope, some other stuff... to tell you the truth I didn't pay much attention I was concerned with my $10K PC that still wouldn't work 5 weeks after I bought it.

[@WooShell]

That sounds vaguely farmiliar.. I recall having an Adlib-branded card with a Crystal Semiconductor chipset on it, but I couldn't find it just now.

[@ChrisWhalen00]

I had no idea Adlib was Canadian until 4:21 when he flipped over the card and showed the sticker!

[@Prizm44]

Holy shit. Now that’s service.

[@KingBobXVI]

This seems to have been a theme with Creative Labs. See also: Aureal Semiconductor, a very early leader in binaural audio, breaking ground on the technology in _the mid 90's,_ and not really expanded on until very recently. The tl;dr is it allowed for simulating how audio would react in a defined 3d space, giving significantly more realistic qualities in echo, attenuation, etc. The company was frivolously sued by Creative Labs, and despite winning the suit, Aureal had taken on too much in legal fees and had to file for bankruptcy, resulting in sale of all their assets and patents to Creative, who proceeded to not use any of them, putting the development of binaural audio in general back some 20 or so years. Creative Labs can suck it indeed.

[@KayX291]

Interesting enough, some of the Aureal employees worked on Steam Audio for Valve.

[@mick977]

Scummy doesn't begin to describe Creative. They're not the only company that acted in this way though as I'm sure you're no doubt aware. I find it all a bit unnerving.

[@L1m3r]

A3D ? I think of Creative as the Nvidia of sound cards...

[@DrezKill]

I had a Vortex 2. The A3D API was fucking siiiiiiiiiiiiiick! One of my most favorite sound cards of all time (that I have personally owned). I'm still pissed off to this day about what Creative Labs did to Aureal.

[@DOSdaze]

Truly a story of "what goes around comes around". Creative got their footing by being Adlib compatible, then got replaced by everyone else because all sound cards ending up being Sound Blaster compatible.

[@agy234]

Not exactly. They were killed off by cheap AC97 built in audio

[@Robert08010]

They got replaced when MOBO manufacturers began building basic sound features into the moboards.

[@Gizmetti]

Every mobo I've owned has a creative sound chip baked in

[@willpreston6881]

I love that your eBay user tag is literally "LGR (yes, really)"

[@SergeantExtreme]

After watching this video, I'd say that Creative Technology deserves what Realtek did to them.

[@maxtrix1]

What realtek did to them?

[@andeen]

Showed them real tech instead of creative...

[@KingBobXVI]

Look up Aureal Semiconductor. AdLib isn't the only company Creative Labs screwed over with shitty business practices.

[@SergeantExtreme]

@@maxtrix1 They made a partnership with Intel who bullied manufacturers (particularly HP, Dell, Toshiba, and Asus) into using Realtek audio cards instead of Creative Labs audio cards. Soundblaster went from 76% of the audio card marketshare to less than 20% by 2003.

[@destubae3271]

@@SergeantExtreme A fitting punishment

[@saxxonpike]

Worked with Yamaha to delay chips to Adlib, then sidestepped Yamaha with their own CQM synthesis just a year later. They were aggressive.

[@MikinessAnalog]

I do not see them ever changing. Why switch from what works for you?

[@mrdali67]

Still .. that 4 operator FM synth chip is propably the most sold complete synth on a chip in the world .. ever

[@MikinessAnalog]

@@mrdali67 Stereo & polyphonic, correct?

[@burntyper]

Chinese

[@amirpourghoureiyan1637]

The Nvidia of their day

[@AndreiNeacsu]

Well, people seem to forget that Creative was only "creative" in ways of theft, deceit, monopoly, anti-consumer, and corruption practices. Maybe a video on how Creative bankrupt Aureal with expensive lawsuits that they actually lost.

[@Whomobile]

Could make for a good Tech Tales

[@sergeleon1163]

Indeed also at marketing/branding they copied others, on later SoundBlaster products also had the gold branding.

[@twocatsinatrenchcoat2511]

@@Whomobile what are you doing here Mr source map man

[@Whomobile]

@@twocatsinatrenchcoat2511 I liek computer

[@Nobody-Nowhere]

sounds like good old capitalism to me, no other rules but profit.

[@SantaFishes101]

"Don't meet your heroes- -especially without the surround module installed." LGR, 2021

[@Colt45hatchback]

I shall install one if i ever meet Clint, hope he doesnt mind.. Haha

[@Niberspace]

Every second of this was beautiful. Imagine being sent back to the early 90ies and sitting up all night long playing these games on that setup, what a dream experience.

[@laserquant]

I was there. It was a nice time. However, this time is also great.

[@christopherwall2121]

"Ahh, smells like a pallet of electronics filled with broken dreams."

[@BagOfMagicFood]

Wonder why the caption is a little different...

[@KurtRichterCISSP]

🤣🤣🤣🤣...🙁...😥

[@MikinessAnalog]

@@BagOfMagicFood Probably automatic and not scripted.

[@DeLorean4]

I'm originally from Québec, and take pride in how the province is a hub for aerospace and software companies. It breaks my heart to hear that a local start-up specializing in computer hardware was basically destroyed by someone holding back the certification of a chip. Ad-lib could have been a true household name.

[@asamson23]

And also seeing that they were based in my hometown of Quebec City, that's the thing that breaks my heart even more.

[@jacnel]

Honestly the fate of AdLib sounds like most Canadian tech companies. Either they die before they could do anything after being smothered by a US based company or they get big then kill themselves through a mixture of arrogance and ineptitude (Nortel, Blackberry)

[@georgesiv2082]

I was an adept PC game in the 90s also from the Quebec province. but I only heard about Adlib's story from youtube.

[@aceshighdueceslow]

@@jacnel don't leave Bombardier out of that, ignore whatever puff pieces are written about how Boeing kept the C-series from going to market Bombardier has been the engineering equivalent of Bell and Rogers for decades at this point

[@nickwallette6201]

Gravis did OK for a while. But eventually they fell too. Not sure if this proves the point or refutes it.

[@geovani60624]

man these tecnology companies were so shady since the early 90's up until to this day, I wonder how many good products we never saw launch because a bigger company didn't have a better product to compete with it.

[@terribleauthority]

That's how companies have always been.

[@anonUK]

Since the early 1890's, at least. Edison screwed inventors over.

[@TheViolator91]

Yah we should be driving cars powered by water rn

[@geovani60624]

@@terribleauthority I know, It's just that when you actually see the stories in practice that you really think about it.

[@caav56]

@@smpmuzpid I mean, if you use chlorine trifluoride as oxidizer, you actually can burn water with it... not without a shitton of problems, though.

[@MikeRosoftUK]

Oh dear. I killed the Gold as it was not viable to build. I became technical director for Adlib Multimedia Inc. after Ad Lib went into liquidation. The 1000 was never put back into production as it had been stock piled along with a substantial parts holding.. The main problem was the Gold ISA control chip, we ended up scrapping the whole stock of it (some 100k parts) for not many dollars. Other parts were included in the new products we designed in house which were coded ASB for Advanced Sound Boards ASB16 32 and 64. The stock of gold SCSI board components held was used on the ASB to provide a universal port on the card along with the high quality audio grade components.... All the design and software development was done in house in Québec Canada. The card you have there was a late card, the address on grand allee shows it.. for a year Adlib multimedia operated out of the technology park in ste-foy... With v1 manuals, there were many nights spent rewriting them for V2...

[@Gigator]

This is an Oddware and a Tech Tales episode together with a fantastic showcase all in one! Awesome video, Clint!

[@BrandenMcKinney]

can you please record the full list of adlib gold songs and upload them to a playlist? I need that in my life right now

[@theSoundCarddatabase]

I have them on my channel, but you're right that LGR should do as well, for greater exposure!

[@theSoundCarddatabase]

@@smpmuzpid Clint has my full approval to link to my video, and in fact he already did! (see LGR's pinned message)

[@GlobalOffense]

Same here.

[@theHerathrig]

The subtitle is hilarious. 4:05 "stressful yet exiting slicing."

[@kr4ftt]

Subtitle in Clint's videos are the *real* gold

[@Hirotechnics]

This is one of the most valuable expansion cards around . . . just behind a scalped GPU.

[@moviesinclusive]

The clean board design, the sparkling gold, this card is beautiful!

[@grumpyoldwizard]

If you weren’t around at the time this was new, its hard to imagine just how much of a difference a sound card could make to a PC. It went from beeps to full music synthesis and sometimes voice.

[@elmariachi5133]

"Full' synthesis? It was more like an accustic torture xD Like a bad radio in a tin can.

[@patty109109]

I remember quite clearly the first time I heard wolfenstein 3D through an adlib card. Blew my mind. Soon after I owned a sound blaster 16.

[@E5rael]

For me it was Commander Keen 4, where I heard Sound Blaster for the first time. It blew my mind.

[@patty109109]

@@E5rael I remember commander keen. And then every time I'd install a game there was that nagging doubt as to whether it would work properly with a sound card. So some games would have a test, like lords of the realm ii :)

[@a_yanki]

I swear Clint your videos keep getting more and more interesting, truly one of the most wholesome and entertaining channels on yt

[@mkelly0x20]

That "Multimedia PC" logo just oozes early 90s: * Rainbow gradient with heavy dithering * Black and white clip-art-y CD icon (Plus, I feel like it was on every box of software back then)

[@tjsynkral]

"35 year old PC hardware prices are hyper-inflated" You hurt me right in the 0-1 year old PC hardware.

[@yorgle]

In 1995-1997ish, I worked for eTek Labs (spun out of Forte Technologies who developed the original Ultrasound) on the then-new AMD Interwave/Gravis Ultrasound PNP cards... We had a ton of dos games for our regression testing, and bug squashing, as well as some sound cards. I remember seeing the original AdLib card but I've never seen the Gold. A lot of the "Creative being the behemoth" story rings true from our side of the story too. It was always frustrating knowing that the Ultrasound/Ultrasound Max and the increased capabilities and performance of the Ultrasound PNP didn't mean much when Creative held so much more of a market share over us... People didn't really care about wavetable support, or how technically impressive SBOS was... That's probably also the reason why the rev C Interwave chips were never finished (with full filtering and effects on each of the 32 channels... oh well...

[@Belgarion115]

I feel like there was a missed opportunity to play Descent with the AdLib Gold card but I loved this video. I had no idea Creative was so underhanded.

[@johnnyvvlog]

Imagine buying one for $19 and selling it for $3000 now. That's quite insane 😄

[@pmgodfrey]

@Hazard -- I've been kicking myself over that one for years. Would have bought over $100,000 back then if I knew what it'd be worth now.

[@KeavyGoesLive]

@Hazard True story: The funeral director who handled my dad's funeral told me he had the opportunity to buy $10,000 US of Bitcoin back when it first hit the scene and he passed, thinking it was a bad investment and I told him about my dad passing on an offer to be an early investor for DirecTV.

[@youtube-ventura]

@Hazard You could have bought bitcoin even 6 years after launch. If you had bought $5000 worth in 2015,, it would be worth around $800,000 today.

[@KeavyGoesLive]

@@wesleyswafford2462 Everyone I know talks about it so it’s common or I just know a lot of weird people.

[@thewiirocks]

Considering that we're talking about a 30 year gap, that's not a great investment. Now if you'd bought a pallet of the things....

[@jackmcslay]

The mention of a daughterboard reminds me of AVGN Jaguar episode " You have a game console not many people own and you create an addon that requires owning the game console. *What were they thinking?* "

[@MrArtex79]

Woo! My card made the video (with the Surround Module!) @5:43 Excellent review Clint! Such a nostalgic piece of retro tech!

[@mrbigmouth502]

That is a SICK utility knife at 4:03! I mean, I want an Adlib Gold too, but I bet one of those knives is more attainable haha.

[@purplefuku]

What a great Tech Tales! 😉 So, I'm dying to know: why was there a BOOT SECTOR VIRUS on the 4th disk? 😅

[@LGR]

I can only speculate that in the last-minute effort to get things released after the bankruptcy, whoever was duplicating those disks had an infected system. Just adding insult to injury for the few customers that actually bought one, what an unfortunate end to AdLib.

[@wardrich]

I want to know more about this too! I was hoping he'd talk more about that, bit I'm halfway in I'm not expecting it to get discussed :(

[@countzero1136]

They probably had a deal with McAfee :D

[@TheJeremyHolloway]

@@countzero1136 Hey, the bath salts weren't gonna mix themselves! John McAfee had to eat.

[@countzero1136]

@@TheJeremyHolloway LOL - High Five!

[@PasiX2]

Damn, that stunts soundtrack. This was the first PC game I ever played and the soundtrack has been stuck somewhere in my head even after all these years.

[@CameronHuff]

I think I have that game on CD (copied the disks to a CD for backup purposes)

[@RickJohnson]

I remember this game both before and after I added a sound card to my PC. The PAS-16 in AdLib compatibility mode (OPL2) was WAY better than PC speaker. Hearing that fake guitar riff takes me right back to 1992.

[@rpavlik1]

I like the "LGR (yes, really)" on that $4000AUS bid history...

[@g-starthefirst]

I couldn’t see it

[@rpavlik1]

@@g-starthefirst 30:44

[@Akotski-ys9rr]

I literally just saw that randomly and then saw this comment right after

[@phR3d1969]

Quebec's greatest contributions to humanity: 1- Adlib 2- Matrox 3- Poutine

[@farhanyousaf5616]

Once again, Canadian companies just aren't that experienced nor have the lobbying or VenCap structure to stay afloat for too long... :(

[@kittyyuki1537]

Sadly, though another Canadian Tech Company still lives on. ATI as part of AMD as RTG (Radeon Technologies Group)

[@OjStudios]

On the audio scene we have Classé from Canada.

[@TheJeremyHolloway]

You must be deliberately overlooking the Matrox Mistake, err, Mystique, in order to grant that company the #2 spot there...

[@ZeroDrawn]

I keep hearing about this "poutine", but I've yet to try it. Think I'd like to, sometime.

[@gulferamus4999]

this is the first time in my life i've even heard of this thing, and i'm *excited* about him hopening it. this is the sign of a great and passionate content creator right there!

[@HeyImGaminOverHere]

Not sad about Creative's fate after they did this to adlib.

[@PeTTs0n88]

Kinda ironic how the small-time competitor from the mid '90s (Avance Logic -> purchased by Realtek in '95) turned into the beast that beat Creative at their own game. That's the reason Realtek call their sound chips ALCxxxx to this day 25 years later. The Avance Logic heritage lives on through those letters.

[@Yootzkore]

Wait, Creative Labs ended up getting a wallop? Good. They were always (in)famous for playing dirty.

[@SianaGearz]

@Pith Helmet Yeah they did many times but they cannot compete. They don't have analogue semiconductor expertise and never did. Most they can do is offer MB/laptop vendors software EAX emulation, but those aren't super interested, because they failed to keep it relevant. Vibra was integrated but it just wasn't good. Live used generic AC97 codecs (generally SigmaTel) like on mainboards plus some extra Cirrus DAC, and similar topologies with dedicated third party DAC/ADC have prevailed for a time. But their 'fate'? They are a prosperous company. Scraps on the periphery right between the PC enthusiast gamer and HiFi markets are still more money than they could have made in the 90s, because the market is SO much larger. I mean when everyone needed a soundcard, back then, did you really have a Creative? Or was a generic Pine ESS about what you could afford.

[@PeTTs0n88]

@Pith Helmet Back when, before HDA or even AC97 became the de facto standard, there were some motherboards with integrated Creative audio solutions - those were generally PCI in practice, though. Since then, there have been a few boards with on-board Creative audio hardware, but they're not very common. I've had a couple (I'm not a huge fan of Realtek drivers and software), such as the Gigabyte GA-Z170X-Gaming 7 for my previous rig. It has an integrated Creative CA0132 connected to the Intel HDA bus. Was thinking of the general PC audio market share, I dare say with some certainty that Creative had a bit more % 20 years ago than they do today. :) And I'd also bet quite a bit that Realtek has taken most of that.

[@JK-dv3qe]

@Pith Helmet at least its not AOC 👍

[@djGLCKR]

"A golden unicorn that poops diamonds"? That almost sounds like Butt Stallion.

[@peyotecowboy3199]

Best character ever.

[@travr1131]

Butt Stallion says hi.

[@musa4539]

feed it eridium you might get a legendary weapon

[@JK-dv3qe]

sounds like biden in msm world

[@The_Keeper]

Well, Butt Stallion is a *diamond* unicorn (at least in the Tiny Tina DLC) that poops weapons. Soooo, better..?

[@fourthhorseman4531]

That's rough about Creative freezing them out of those chips. I never knew about that. Jack Tramiel was right, business really is war.

[@BaghaShams]

Wow, I never knew Creative was such an dirty company. I've lusted after so many of their products over the years but I don't think I ever bought one; glad I didn't.

[@rogerwilco6302]

Then I sure hope you never used any Nvidia, Microsoft or Apple (to name a few) products for that matter because they are more or less, just as dirty. It's a dog eat dog world whether we like it or not. Personally I've used a lot of Creative products from SoundBlaster Pro to Audigy cards, Nomad MP3 players and even a CD ROM Drive with remote for PC back in the 90's and I am more than happy with the quality of their products, excluding the CD ROM Drive which was crap.

[@MirekFe]

@@rogerwilco6302 _It's a dog eat dog world_ Only if we allow it to be that way. If sleazy companies were held accountable for their actions (aka worldwide boycott), because that's not how actual capitalism works, we wouldn't have to live in such a corrupt world.

[@shponglefan]

Having owned and tested a lot of ISA soundcards, in my opinion Creative Labs Sound Blasters are vastly overrated (and overpriced). Creative Labs cards tend to have noisier outputs, lack intelligent mode MPU401 support, and/or have other issues (e.g. MIDI hanging note bug, mediocre FM emulation on later cards, etc) that make them less ideal. I much prefer cards by Gravis, Roland, Terratec, and/or Media Vision.

[@shponglefan]

@@JohnZombi88 It's not about being a "super audiophile". It's about basic things like reasonably clean audio output. There are many cases where older Creative Labs ISA cards are more expensive and worse sounding. This is especially the case given prices for retro hardware where older Sound Blasters tend to command prices disproportionate to their qualities. In contrast you can get cards that have Sound Blaster compatibility (like ESS based cards) and simultaneously better, cleaner output. Even something like a Thunderboard is superior to an original Sound Blaster based on my own testing, the former will cost a lot less than an original Sound Blaster. The bottom line is that nobody should feel like they're missing out on anything just because they don't have a Creative Labs sound card. As for Creative Labs being successful, a lot of that is due to heavy handed business tactics and marketing, not due to quality.

[@5000go2]

You know what really gets me about this. I saw one at a goodwill in box 4 months ago. Plastic was open but man now do I wish I bought it

[@erik365365365]

The noise difference between the two is one of my memories of early 90s PCs. I was always told to turn off the speakers AND the pc when I was done

[@snuq]

As others have requested as well, I would LOVE to have a nice recording of those songs from the Juke Box Gold! Huge fan of a good fm synth track, and those short samples you played at 19:21 are pretty epic sounding!

[@Frizzle1981]

That moment the card was taken out of it's anti static sealbag.... history was written.

[@soulsilver351]

So glad to see the masterpiece Dune from Cryo! The music from Stephane Picq are for me one of the best memories from my childhood, I will never be bored to hear them ! I always love to play Dune on my original 486 Packard Bell! Cheers from France !

[@undivided_unified]

I just watched with the closed captions enabled and your descriptions of the casual sounds just made a great video, better. So, now that we've all learned about this amazing and rare piece of history, who here cant wait for that 2nd stimulus check!

[@hotlavatube]

(cuts open the bag) Me: He's definitely going to sniff it. (Clint sniffs it)

[@JK-dv3qe]

who else sniffs things? :O

[@josugambee3701]

@@JK-dv3qe Nothing quite compares to the smell of an old book. Or a new book, for that matter. I guess books just smell good.

[@nickestes1839]

This is that supreme LGR content.

[@christofferniemonen8872]

"Owning the Adlibs" -Creative

[@nojuanatall3281]

Your channel is such a gem. Not only do you do your homework but the presentation is fantastic. Thank you for all you do!

[@bwtrickster]

0:48 No problem man!

[@dj68k]

The older I get the more I love FM Synth. One thing I noticed is how many solid state capacitors the Gold 1000 card had compared to the SoundBlasters. Creative used a lot of electrolytic caps, but the AdLib had very few electrolytic caps. Part of me wonders if your collection of cards would sound better with brand new electrolytic capacitors. I imagine more than a few of them have aged to the point where they're partially out of spec. I just recapped my original non-TMSS "Hi-Def Graphics" Genesis and it sounds quite a bit warmer and fuller now.

[@volvofreak86]

Imagine if AdLib had survived into the new millenium? Maybe we would have built in AdLib chips on our motherboards?

[@PeterGerrish]

“A pallet of electronics filled with broken dreams” - love it!

[@chuckles5689]

I was going on a binge of your videos from several years ago about the Sims 3 rewatching them all, made me super nostalgic. Love your channel dude

[@tomas100lar]

Simply a superb video. Well done sir. (Thumbs up)

[@sirspate]

My first reaction to seeing that board is 'wow, look at all the surface mount capacitors'. I assume that's what's eliminating the noise so effectively compared to the Sound Blaster. Has the audio profile of the Adlib Gold been properly emulated in dosbox? That spacial separation and phat sound is verra noice.

[@wallsofa]

Oh man, Tyrian. I still get that music playing through my head 20 years later.

[@scbtripwire]

Ad Lib was Quebec-based?! I had no idea, and that's where I'm from!

[@tiamat_023]

2:17 man, I had those exact speakers and that game on a relatively similar monitor and of course a SoundBlaster something or other. I feel like I stepped into a time vortex or something equally balls

[@MrJest2]

Brings me back. I remember well the "Soundblaster / AdLib" conflict. And seeing those home-town addresses on the docs... *sigh* Where did all the time go?? Even your Altec Lansing speakers neatly tucked in next to the monitor makes me want to cry... seems like just yesterday, in a house full of roommates, in our mid-20s or early 30s, all working in the Valley... all the old names, ghosts of companies long gone.

[@RockGeek00]

Why the heck is there a Boot Sector Virus on (what I assume to be) the official included installation disks?

[@mr.bobcyndaquil4214]

Sabotage by Creative, probably.

[@kcmichaelm]

@@LordSenile It’s mentioned on the note from the owner of the card, @3:57

[@JPAK_92]

I'm mainly here for the retro games but I still always watch these videos. Even though the subject isn't that fascinating to me, the production quality and Clints presentation is top notch.

[@ChairmanMeow1]

Physically, its a really pretty card too

[@Catastropheshe]

2:13 duude that's smooooth how come that old games had such catchy tunes

[@FlyboyHelosim]

It's crazy to think that these huge cards used to come in boxes and be sold as a standalone item, with 100+ page manuals and separate software disks... when today the soundcard is just a chip on the motherboard, not so much as given a mention by manufacturers, and treated almost like it's just an afterthought.

[@hoot-hoot-birb9438]

Wow, so soundbaster screwed over AdLib, I know that’s business but dam does that make me hate sound-baster just a little

[@wewd]

They did the same thing to Aureal, a company that developed hardware-accelerated 3D soundcards, which were absolutely amazing. They were supported by a lot of game engines at the time, most notably Quake and Half-Life engine games, and you could literally tell where other players were in the map based on sound alone if you were wearing headphones. It was more 3-dimensional than any 5.1 surround sound system I've ever used.

[@LeinaDZiur]

more like sound bastard amirite

[@ELSTERLING]

@@wewd See also Nvidia's brilliant onboard sound chips.

[@KiraSlith]

Creative, Intel, Microsoft, Nintendo, Palm, in the 90s it's always the same story different day. The big guy uses highly illegal anticompetitive tactics to squash competition while the FTC looks the other way, and the entire market pays the price. Which leads to today's monopolies and duopolies in every major sector of the market. Intel and AMD, Samsung and Apple, Nvida and Radeon, Creative and Realtek, Intel and LSI, etcetera. Microsoft standing alone atop the home OS segment through the same early anticompetitive plays. Linux only continuing to survive by being free. Having brutally slain Palm in the pocket computing market, only to secede their second throne to Google out of sheer disinterest.

[@crookycumbles]

Yep, benefiting only the company and not the public. Look at what happened just last year with Intel getting Nvidia to not put their high end laptop graphics cards on the new amd laptop cpu line.

[@sinephase]

I remember that background noise from the soundblaster being affected by moving the mouse pointer LOL

[@JK-dv3qe]

YOU ARE MOVING THE MOUSE WRONG

[@thear1s]

I still have PCs that emit a very obnoxious digital noise sound when the cpu is working in the background

[@sinephase]

@@thear1s makes me think it's the hard drive causing it in that case

[@thear1s]

@@sinephase It's nvme ssds in both laptops, but in most cases it's due to bad quality capacitors.

[@sinephase]

@@thear1s oh LMAO I thought you meant a retro computer XD

[@thejackal007]

What was on that 4th disc? The letter makes it sound like there is a boot sector virus on it? 3:58

[@Killacaleb2]

Clint, your videos are top notch.

[@devikwolf]

Especially love that classic Tyrian 2000 at the end. I'm known to randomly hum that tune in my day to day life.

[@reeffeeder]

According to my KZbin ads, yes we should invest in gold. Stocking up on these now.

[@zaphodbeeblebrox2981]

Buying these soundcards might be more reliable than regular gold 😅

[@Inexpressable]

Fuckin eToro haha

[@Diggnuts]

KZbin has ads?

[@Inexpressable]

@@Diggnuts yes. some people don't use adblock because they want to support the creators they watch without directly paying.

[@Diggnuts]

@@Inexpressable Do you really think that ads are good for creators?

[@DannyBeans]

Cue a pallet of the things being unearthed at Computer Reset.

[@sinephase]

Clint calling a 200KB driver "bloated" is hilarious thinking of the bloat we have to download now LOL

[@SianaGearz]

This bloat is not preventing you from running the drivers alongside the software that they're intended to enable. The driver may be a 500mb download, but you have 16gb ram and there's only maybe 100mb of the driver code resident, a drop in the bucket, running one of the most complex subsystems in your PC. In contrast if you can't trim down your basemem consumption to about 40kb, you aren't getting any games to run, so a 200kb driver pretty much breaks your system.

[@sinephase]

@@SianaGearz no shit achtuallay boy

[@sugaryhull9688]

60-100+ MB downloads for NVIDIA drivers because they're bundled with "GeForce Experience"

[@sinephase]

@@sugaryhull9688 aren't they like a gig now? LOL

[@MJ-uk6lu]

@@sugaryhull9688 That's because what you think is driver is actually a driver package, so it contains drivers for many different cards in one package. AMD does the same. I once swapped RX 560 with RX 580 and it was working without reinstalling drivers, that's kinda cool. And that driver package also packs software, which you may or may not install. Sometimes they even have recently depreciated software like 3D Vision drivers. The actual drivers aren't really that big. Also up to 100 MB is conservative, AMD drivers can get as big as half gigabyte or more than gigabyte once extracted. Also AMD leaves all previous driver version files (with the rest of software) on your PC and never cleans it up, so you can find over 10GB used in C:\AMD directory. That makes nVidia look like saints.

[@marksmithcollins]

14:33 1994 Jan AdLib Gold 1000 - $19.95 1:45 2020 Dec AdLib Gold 1000 - $3581.19

[@aerynmusick4548]

Bless the fine folks who loan you all this awesome stuff to document its condition and use. Seriously very cool and generous.

[@RavenWitchShade]

Can't say I've been THIS early to an LGR video before, but after seeing the $3000 pricetag in the title, I HAD to check it out right damn now.

[@DoomGuy9001-MK4]

Up to $4,000 for one of these, how much was this still sealed. I love old-new stock, brings you back to the past of someone who would have bought top line components in the 90's and seeing it first hand, all new and shiny not used and dusty. Amazing.

[@notjacknicholson2225]

I live 5 minutes away (by car) from where the Ad Lib offices were on Grande Allée East. The rent prices on Grande Allée are, and always have been among the most expensive in the province if we exclude Montreal. The area is full of luxury hotels (including the Château Frontenac), the Quebec Parliament and touristic places. Maybe around 80% of the buildings in this area are historic and are at least 250 years old. Why didn't they put their offices in the industrial park or in a more "urban" area of the city, I don't know! Now they are gone, that's shameful.

[@AntonsHardware]

Dear LGR, Loved your video, even watched it two times! When I saw the intro to Masters of Orion, that was a lot of memories! I create video's about soundcards myself over here on KZbin , but I've always steered away from the old ISA cards. Altough I own a Soundblaster Pro (sorry AdLib!) and a 486DX2! It was always such a hassle to get it working! Hope to see more on soundcards in the future!

[@rexbk09]

The Oldskool PC - You are awesome! (and old skool)

[@rfrayo_]

I've always loved these types of multi waveform FM synth sounds. I have a DX-5 and SY-77. The SY-77 I got just for the multi waveform FM synthesis.

[@Carstuff111]

The AdLib Gold does have amazing stereo separation, and it is surprising to notice that through KZbin.

[@HR-wd6cw]

I find it a bit amazing when you look at video cards and sound cards of the era (ie. early to mid 90's) compared to today, how large some of these cards had to be, whereas today (some 25-30 years later) they can fit the same type of stuff into one or two chips that are the size of a dime and put that into a smartphone that you can carry in your pocket.

[@valley_robot]

It’s all done in software now , old FM synths still have custom chips and it’s not that hard to emulate in software but it’s really not the same at all from a musicians point of view , VSTs are cool but nothing beats hands on controls on a specific machine to do a specific thing , it’s like playing old game boy games on your phone , it’s not the same as putting a cart into the slot and connecting chips to make the game play on your screen, don’t get me wrong I love software but I love hardware more

[@FWDSUXARSE]

@@valley_robot Those old Yamaha FM synths are iconic. That guitar in Danger Zone by Kenny Loggins? Yamaha FM synth.

[@FWDSUXARSE]

I think the bass line in that song is a DX7, but I could be wrong.

[@devjock]

I ended up having to use "an external amp" to adjust the volume.. Mate, showing that tube amp is just straight-up flexing on us.. (lowkey loving it)

[@TimmyXaero]

4:18 it's literally gorgeous. I'd buy a deep frame and put it on the wall. :)

[@MaximilienNoal]

OMG, DUNE on LGR, finally !

[@Mr.Morden]

Oh man, I remember this Dune audio so well. I played that game to death. A must play if you like strategy games and Wing Commander 2 style graphic story progression and character interaction.

[@hellasmarcos1]

This video should produce the opposite of the "Techmoan effect" on the price of this card.

[@LIN9273135]

Great Video!!!! i love chip's challenge back in the day

[@edovis]

Hi, Clint! Great video as always! Just a quick note about the date code on those chips. The first two digits are the year (as you got it right). However, the last two are the week of the year, not the month. So in the case of the main chip which reads "9209", that is the ninth week of 1992 (which in turn would be around the last days of February and the first days of March 1992). Keep up with the excellent work! Greetings from Argentina!

[@Matticus289]

I always remember seeing that "AdLib Gold" in the options lists of dos games and wondered just how "golden" it was compared to my run-of-the-mill soundblaster clone

[@swoll1980]

When we die, the nostalgia dies with us. All this shit will be worthless. Ask the Elvis collectors.

[@sethoz22]

crazy how value is relative

[@JohnSmith-xq1pz]

Makes me wonder about writing a will to safe guard my retro game collection...

[@TheyreStillOutThere]

Elvis junk is a completely different market and has no historical significance. Elvis collectors stock up on gas station coffee mugs and mail order t-shirts-some do collect the records, which can go for huge money for certain variants in this kind of NOS condition, but usually the record collectors are who spends the money on Elvis music. The vintage computer market is really coming into its own, and it’s very robust and varied in terms of what is being collected (software, peripherals, hardware, etc). And this stuff is hard to find in the wild these days-the relative rarity of old computer equipment and peripherals is worth noting. Elvis will always sell mugs and T shirts in every gas station-they will always be there. The computer collector market is very niche but will strengthen as time goes on and our relationship to past technologies continues to become more sentimental. I’d argue our relationship to Elvis is not becoming more sentimental as time goes on, but he probably still does hundreds of millions in revenue a year.

[@TheyreStillOutThere]

@@joshuagibson2520 the classic car bubble busted a while back and some are up (station wagons) while others are down. Million dollar Mopar convertibles that are completely restored are absolutely not a thing anymore (dead original rust-free survivors with strong ownership history are another story) and there are still plenty of old farts driving that market. All markets will ebb and flow. The 60s muscle car market and 90s sports car market are two totally different demographics and tough to compare even though they’re both buying cars.

[@koghs]

It was a mistake to come here

[@theshadowknows6969]

This story proves to me *again* that every huge company does terrible things to the little guy.

[@FNLNFNLN]

Welcome to the free market. It sucks.

[@destubae3271]

You think this is bad? Wait until you hear about the things Amazon does to other companies, as well as the psychological CIA tier research that goes into maintaining their power. I'm sure the list goes on for miles

[@kevinmajorca]

@@FNLNFNLN Where is this "free" market. Never seen that practiced in any nation. Are you talking about the USA-EU-CCP lead FIAT-money laundering scheme? Stuff like this is not the free market. It's fixed crony capitalism.

[@CakePrincessCelestia]

In a nutshell: Economy is war.

[@mr.mcfife4131]

One or few occurences)=proof? Wow

[@slyfly187]

Do you have any clue of the quality of video this is? It's so comprehensive. Well done. The filmmaking is also top-notch ... please don't stop making videos.

[@necessaryevilparanormal7280]

I really enjoyed the video, ahhh the old days, history. Well done. 1 question though, the video is 720P at 60FPS? How about 1080P at 30fps? Your format is good, well done and thought out . I like the history. Reminds me of my younger days.Keep it up

[@Ganiscol]

Remember the golden rule: The man with the golden card rules!

[@JK-dv3qe]

Soros?

[@adam1984pl]

Man with golden gun.James bond movie

[@RobotsEverywhereVideos]

Awesome video! I remember hearing an adlib gold once in the mid 90s and finding that... well, my Amiga sounded better. (It was on Cryo's Dune too coincidentially)

[@CaveyMoth]

18: 34 "Unreasonable 398 kb of FREAKIN ventional memory." Oh, my gosh, Dune sounds so great! My favorite rendition is on the SEGA CD. And this is very similar.

[@hackett152332]

Why isn’t stupid KZbin showing me your new videos even though I’m subbed?! Ffs I only just found these cause I look directly for your channel

[@trelard]

OK, whoever wrote your closed captions made me chuckle at the description of the Dune music. Thanks, I needed a chuckle right now.