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From: ong@d.cs.okstate.edu (ONG ENG TENG)
Newsgroups: rec.games.misc,comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Subject: Re: New sound board (Soundblaster/Adlib compatible)
Message-ID: <1991Feb2.171548.24500@d.cs.okstate.edu>
Date: 2 Feb 91 17:15:48 GMT
Organization: Oklahoma State University
Lines: 41

From article <10614@jarthur.Claremont.EDU>, by cad@ptvxs1.claremont.edu (Cad DeVaughn):
> Yo Netters!
> 
> Just when you thought the choioce between sound boards would become easier,
> Walt Disney Computer Software is throwing a new punch at you.  According to
> the Feb issue of PC Mag,  the Sound Source is an 8-bit digital voice module
> that connects to the parallel port on your computer.  It retails for about
> (get this) $30.  The first software to support this will be Disney's 
> educational games, but John Dvorak is convinced that the Sound Source will
> become the new pc sound standard and will be supported by all games.
> 
> So, what do you think?

Let's look at the facts. 

There are many many sound cards like Sound Source that did not make it (like 
Covox, Innovation, etc, under and over $100, I own many of them, and 
they are currently collecting dust).  

Sound Blaster already has close to 100,000 installed in the US.  
Microsoft has accepted it as part of its Multimedia Window extension (that
means big potential in commercial installation).  Almost all the game makers 
have decided on Sound Blaster/Adlib standard.  (Note that some major
game companies has yet to support Roland even after they have decided
to support Sound Blaster/Adlib standard, like Spectrum Holobyte with 
their Flight of the Intruder and Stunt Driver). 

Seeing that games today needs 25MHz 386 to run, you certainly don't want
to be stucked with a technically inferior card.  If Sound Source uses 
the parallel port, that means the computer has to STOP everything to do sound, 
whereas Sound Blaster uses DMA to do sound so that the CPU can continue to do
other things like graphics concurrently.  Sound Source can use interrupt to
do sound but that will take a lot of CPU power away.  On Sound Blaster,
CPU performance only slow by 5% with the DMA doing sound.  Also, 
SB has 11-voice FM music, a joystick port (important to PS/2 users 
as the cheapest PS/2 joystick port (only) cost $50), microphone 
voice input (potential for voice-command), optional 
12-voice stereo music, MIDI, etc, and comes with a voice synthesizer. 

Lastly, I bet Sound Blaster for PC retail will drop to under $100 in a few
months.