The 3DO Blaster is an add-on produced by

Creative Labs Creative Technology Ltd. is a Singaporean multinational technology company headquartered with overseas offices in Shanghai, Tokyo, Dublin, and Silicon Valley (where in the US it is known as Creative Labs). The principal activities of the compa ...

and designed to allow compatible

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

-based PCs to play games for the

3DO Interactive Multiplayer The 3DO Interactive Multiplayer, also referred to as simply 3DO, is a home video game console developed by The 3DO Company. Conceived by entrepreneur and Electronic Arts founder Trip Hawkins, the 3DO was not a console manufactured by the company ...

. It is a full-sized ISA

compatibility card A compatibility card is an expansion card for computers that allows it to have hardware emulation with another device. While compatibility cards date back at least to the Apple II family, the majority of them were made for 16-bit computers, often ...

, and unlike other such add-ons, it does not emulate a 3DO system, but rather the whole system's logic board is included, with the input (controllers) and output (video & audio) redirected to the PC. The product was marketed as a single board for

CD-ROM A CD-ROM (, compact disc read-only memory) is a type of read-only memory consisting of a pre-pressed optical compact disc that contains data. Computers can read—but not write or erase—CD-ROMs. Some CDs, called enhanced CDs, hold both comput ...

drive owners (but only drives with a Panasonic interface) or bundled with the necessary CD-ROM drive. The software drivers allowed for Windows (3.1) based gameplay, which featured real-time stretching of the game window and screenshot capturing. As graphics boards of the time (1994) were not up to par with the system's needs, a pass-through using a VGA

feature connector The feature connector was an internal connector found mostly in some older ISA, VESA Local Bus, and PCI graphics cards, but also on some early AGP ones. It was intended for use by devices which needed to exchange large amounts of data with th ...

link was used, thus reserving an area on screen to be used by the 3DO Blaster card's output. Thus, there was no impact on the CPU. As with the first 3DO system from Panasonic ( REAL FZ-1) an FMV daughter-card enabling

Video CD Video CD (abbreviated as VCD, and also known as Compact Disc Digital Video) is a home video format and the first format for distributing films on standard optical discs. The format was widely adopted in Southeast Asia, Central Asia and the ...

playback was planned, but since the 3DO Blaster failed to achieve momentum, it was never released. Saved games were stored in

NVRAM Non-volatile random-access memory (NVRAM) is random-access memory that retains data without applied power. This is in contrast to dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) and static random-access memory (SRAM), which both maintain data only for as lon ...

on the card.

Bundle contents

The card was sold with the cables needed, a 3DO controller by

Logitech Logitech International S.A. ( ; often shortened to Logi) is a Swiss multinational manufacturer of computer peripherals and software, with headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, and Newark, California. The company has offices throughout Europe, ...

, and two 3DO games on CD: ''Shock Wave'' from

Electronic Arts Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry and promoted the d ...

and ''Gridders'' from

Tetragon In geometry a quadrilateral is a four-sided polygon, having four edges (sides) and four corners (vertices). The word is derived from the Latin words ''quadri'', a variant of four, and ''latus'', meaning "side". It is also called a tetragon, ...

. Despite showing the 'long boxes' of the two games on the back of the packing box, they were included in jewel cases only. A third CD, containing demos of popular 3DO games was also included. Not included was software from Aldus; Aldus Photostyler SE and Aldus Gallery Effects Vol. 1, but pictures of both titles can be seen on the back of the 3DO Blaster packing box.

Hardware requirements

* Intel or compatible PC with

80386 The Intel 386, originally released as 80386 and later renamed i386, is a 32-bit microprocessor introduced in 1985. The first versions had 275,000 transistors 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 pl ...

cards: Sound Blaster Pro, Sound Blaster 16 or Sound Blaster AWE32 * A CD-ROM drive with a Panasonic interface * A free ISA slot * A VGA graphics card with VGA

References

{{reflist
CREATIVE LABS. 3DO BLASTER CARD
The Strange (and Rare) Videogame Pics Page, 1998-2001 of Fabrizio Pedrazzini

External links

Ausretrogamer Retrospective: The Creative 3DO Blaster
3DO Interactive Multiplayer Compatibility cards Creative Technology products IBM PC compatibles

Bundle contents

Hardware requirements

See also

References

External links