AdLib
Ad Lib, Inc. was a Canadian manufacturer of sound cards and other computer hardware. The name was derived from the Latin ad libitum (German: "at will"). AdLib was also the name of the range of products. The AdLib was one of the first popular sound cards for IBM-compatible PCs and thus for the first time also offered sound quality on PCs as one was used to from home computers - without a sound card, PCs only had the very limited system loudspeaker .
The sound card used the YM3812 sound chip from Yamaha . The Adlib was a pure synthesizer card without the direct possibility to play samples (digitized sounds) - which resourceful programmers managed anyway. It is a pure music playback card, there is no recording function.
From around 1990 the AdLib sound card was replaced relatively quickly by the Sound Blaster sound card from Creative Labs , which was compatible with the AdLib card , but expanded its capabilities to include sampling both in playback and recording.
After the failure of the successor "AdLib Gold" in the early 1990s, mainly due to a lack of compatibility and a lack of 16-bit capability compared to the Sound Blaster, the company went bankrupt and in 1992 filed for bankruptcy.
Chronological order
- 1987 - AdLib Card - The first large batch of computer sound cards using FM synthesis (Yamaha YM3812 chip) was released.
- 1988 - The first computer game with AdLib support was published.
- 1992 - AdLib Gold released.
- 1992 - AdLib filed for bankruptcy on May 1st.
