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Ensoniq Soundscape S-2000
Soundscape S-2000 was Ensoniq's first direct foray into the PC sound card market. The card arrived on the market in 1994. It is a full-length Industry Standard Architecture, ISA digital audio and sample-based synthesis device, equipped with a 2 MiB Ensoniq-built Read-only memory, ROM-based patch set. Some OEM versions of the card feature a smaller 1 MiB patch set. It was praised for its then-high quality music synthesis and sound output, high compatibility and good software support. Hardware overview Ensoniq advertisements for the Soundscape stated "Finally, A Sound Card from a company that knows sound!", claiming that "the same wavetable technology that drives our $3,000 keyboards is available for your PC". The card uses an 'Ensoniq ES-5506 OTTO, OTTO' synthesizer chip with a companion 'Sequoia' chip for MIDI duties, along with a Motorola 68EC000 8 MHz controller (a low-cost variant of the ubiquitous Motorola 68000, 68000 with selectable bus width) and a small amount of random ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
ATA Packet Interface
ATA Packet Interface (ATAPI) is a protocol that has been added to Parallel ATA and Serial ATA so that a greater variety of devices can be connected to a computer than with the ATA command set alone. It carries SCSI commands and responses through the ATA interface. ATAPI devices include CD-ROM and DVD-ROM drives, tape drives, magneto-optical drives, and large-capacity floppy drives such as the Zip drive and SuperDisk drive. Background ATA was originally designed for, and worked only with hard disks and devices that could emulate them. A group called the Small Form Factor committee (SFF) introduced ATAPI (ATA Packet Interface) ATA to be used for a variety of other devices that require functions beyond those necessary for hard disks. For example, any removable media device needs a "media eject" command, and a way for the host to determine whether the media is present, and these were not provided in the ATA protocol. The Small Form Factor committee approached this problem by defi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washington, United States. Its best-known software products are the Windows line of operating systems, the Microsoft Office suite, and the Internet Explorer and Edge web browsers. Its flagship hardware products are the Xbox video game consoles and the Microsoft Surface lineup of touchscreen personal computers. Microsoft ranked No. 21 in the 2020 Fortune 500 rankings of the largest United States corporations by total revenue; it was the world's largest software maker by revenue as of 2019. It is one of the Big Five American information technology companies, alongside Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, and Meta. Microsoft was founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen on April 4, 1975, to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800. It rose to do ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sound Blaster
Sound Blaster is a family of sound cards designed by Singaporean technology company Creative Technology (known in the US as Creative Labs). Sound Blaster sound cards were the de facto standard for consumer audio on the IBM PC compatible system platform, until the widespread transition to ''Microsoft'' Windows 95, which standardized the programming interface at application level (eliminating the importance of backward compatibility with Sound Blaster), and the evolution in PC design led to onboard audio electronics, which commoditized PC audio functionality. By 1995, Sound Blaster cards had sold over 15 million units worldwide and accounted for seven out of ten sound card sales. Creative Music System and Game Blaster Creative Music System The history of Creative sound cards started with the release of the Creative Music System ("C/MS") CT-1300 board in August 1987. It contained two Philips SAA1099 integrated circuits, which, together, provided 12 channels of square-wave "bee-i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ad Lib, Inc
Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a product or service. Advertising aims to put a product or service in the spotlight in hopes of drawing it attention from consumers. It is typically used to promote a specific good or service, but there are wide range of uses, the most common being the commercial advertisement. Commercial advertisements often seek to generate increased consumption of their products or services through "branding", which associates a product name or image with certain qualities in the minds of consumers. On the other hand, ads that intend to elicit an immediate sale are known as direct-response advertising. Non-commercial entities that advertise more than consumer products or services include political parties, interest groups, religious organizations and governmental agencies. Non-profit organizations may use free modes of persuasion, such as a public service announcement. Advertising may also help to reassure employees ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ensoniq AudioPCI
The Ensoniq AudioPCI is a PCI-based sound card released in 1997. It was Ensoniq's last sound card product before they were acquired by Creative Technology. The card represented a shift in Ensoniq's market positioning. Whereas the Soundscape line had been made up primarily of low-volume high-end products full of features, the AudioPCI was designed to be a very simple, low-cost product to appeal to system OEMs and thus hopefully sell in mass quantities. Low cost Towards the end of the 1990s, Ensoniq was struggling financially. Their cards were very popular with PC OEMs, but their costs were too high and their musical instrument division was fading in revenue. Pressure from intense competition, especially with the dominant Creative Labs, was forcing audio card makers to try to keep their prices low. The AudioPCI, released in July 1997, was designed primarily to be cheap. In comparison to the wide variety of chips on and sheer size of the older Soundscape boards, the highly integ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ensoniq Soundscape VIVO90
Ensoniq Corp. was an American electronics manufacturer, best known throughout the mid-1980s and 1990s for its musical instruments, principally samplers and synthesizers. Company history In spring 1983, former MOS Technology engineers Robert "Bob" Yannes, Bruce Crockett, Charles Winterble, David Ziembicki, and Al Charpentier formed Peripheral Visions. The team had designed the Commodore 64, and hoped to build another computer. To raise funds, Peripheral Visions agreed to build a computer keyboard for the Atari 2600, but the video game crash of 1983 canceled the project and Commodore sued the new company, claiming that it owned the keyboard project. Renaming itself as Ensoniq, the new company instead designed a music synthesizer. Ensoniq grew rapidly over the next few years with the success of the Mirage and the ESQ-1. The plant in Great Valley, Pennsylvania employed nearly 200 people and housed the manufacturing facility. A number of successful products followed which ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ensoniq Soundscape OPUS
The Ensoniq Soundscape OPUS (SS-3016-NCD) is a Gateway 2000 OEM sound card, and possibly was used by other OEMs, but was never sold to Ensoniq's customers directly. It was a Soundscape-like board, using the Ensoniq "OPUS" multimedia sound chip that only was used on these OEM boards. It had a 1MB patch set ROM chip, resulting in a lesser MIDI quality compared to the Soundscape and Soundscape ELITE. The "OPUS" cards again carry the Motorola 68EC000 CPU. The variety of CD-ROM interfaces have been removed. Otherwise, however, the card is simply a cost-reduced Soundscape-compatible board with similar capabilities. While Ensoniq always stated on their site that they did not support the card, the regular Soundscape's driver package functions on it. Ensoniq's support page referred to the boards as Soundscape OPUS. In a bit of humor, the board holds a chip labeled "COW". No doubt this is related to the card being a Gateway OEM board, a company known for their cow-related image. ENSONI ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ensoniq Soundscape Elite
The Soundscape Elite was Ensoniq's high-end Industry Standard Architecture, ISA PC sound card offering. It offers the highest MIDI quality of any PC sound card Ensoniq produced. The board is an evolution of the company's previous Ensoniq Soundscape S-2000, Soundscape S-2000. The Soundscape ELITE was launched in March 1995. Google Groups, April 2, 1995. Overview 
The card's layout is quite similar to the Soundscape S-2000, and uses the same synthesizer chips and codecs. Cha ...
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Ensoniq SoundscapeDB
The SoundscapeDB is an Ensoniq-designed and produced MIDI daughtercard designed to interface with the "Waveblaster" pin header available on many older sound cards. It was released in 1994. During the early 1990s, Creative Labs created the Waveblaster connector for their Sound Blaster 16 sound cards. This connector would be for their sample-based synthesis upgrade daughtercard, which they also called the Waveblaster. Other sound card manufacturers took advantage of this and put the connector on their cards as well, and many manufacturers also began developing their own upgrade daughtercards. Ensoniq's daughterboard (DB), the SoundscapeDB, is basically a Soundscape S-2000 with the digital sound reproduction section removed. It was simply the MIDI synthesizer (sample-based synthesizer) of the full Soundscape. The DB contained an Ensoniq OTTOR2 synthesizer chip, a Motorola 68EC000 controller, and a 2 MB patch set ROM. Ensoniq switched to a "revised and improved" 1 MB ROM ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Protected Mode
In computing, protected mode, also called protected virtual address mode, is an operational mode of x86-compatible central processing units (CPUs). It allows system software to use features such as virtual memory, paging and safe multi-tasking designed to increase an operating system's control over application software. When a processor that supports x86 protected mode is powered on, it begins executing instructions in real mode, in order to maintain backward compatibility with earlier x86 processors. Protected mode may only be entered after the system software sets up one descriptor table and enables the Protection Enable (PE) bit in the control register 0 (CR0). Protected mode was first added to the x86 architecture in 1982, with the release of Intel's 80286 (286) processor, and later extended with the release of the 80386 (386) in 1985. Due to the enhancements added by protected mode, it has become widely adopted and has become the foundation for all subsequent enhancements ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
MPU-401
The MPU-401, where ''MPU'' stands for MIDI Processing Unit, is an important but now obsolete interface for connecting MIDI-equipped electronic music hardware to personal computers. It was designed by Roland Corporation, which also co-authored the MIDI standard. Design Released around 1984, the original MPU-401 was an external breakout box providing MIDI IN/MIDI OUT/MIDI THRU/TAPE IN/TAPE OUT/MIDI SYNC connectors, for use with a separately-sold interface card/cartridge ("MPU-401 interface kit") inserted into a computer system. For this setup, the following "interface kits" were made: * MIF-APL: For the Apple II. * MIF-C64: For the Commodore 64. * MIF-FM7: For the Fujitsu FM7. * MIF-IPC: For the IBM PC/IBM XT. It turned out not to work reliably with 286 and faster processors. Early versions of the actual PCB had IF-MIDI/IBM as a silk screen. * MIF-IPC-A: For the IBM AT, works with PC and XT as well. * Xanadu MUSICOM IFM-PC: For the IBM PC / IBM XT / IBM AT. This was a third party ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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