RIP
I'm old enough to remember the SB16 and it's integrated IDE controller, for connecting an optical drive. There was a time where soundblaster was pretty much an essential. I still recall old MSDOS games where you had select to the sound card type and IRQ from a menu.
Quote:
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The integration of sound boards into the motherboard ended Sound Blaster's popularity, but Bloomberg says the cards provided audio for more than 400 million PCs.
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I have to disagree with that somewhat. Quite a few factors killed Creative's market dominance, not just onboard sound. I would cite, among other things, failing to compete with "professional" sound solutions (Terratec, etc), buggy drivers, some of the worst, crashiest bloatware and overpricing and a lack of any real focus. I think most of the damage was done back in the "Audigy" era, with a lot of misleading marketing and re-badging of products.