Sim Wong Hoo has died

Already posted and discussed heavily here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34254766

> There was a time when you have to install a dedicated sound card in order to have audio coming out from your PC. You have a number of options but there was one particular name that dominated the scene for so many years and that name is Sound Blaster, for which you have Sim Wong Hoo to thank.

Not only that, but doing so put you on an upgrade path. There were so many models released over the years. Just a tad like graphics cards today.

And it was an ordeal to get Linux working with them. Every. Single. Time. Hearing that test sound: "Hello, this is Linus Torvalds and I pronounce Linux as Linux" was grounds for a major celebration.

Kind of shocking to recall that there was a time when you had to plunk one of these cards into a computer before you could hear much of anything useful.

One of his products stars in this immortal demo video.

RIP.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h73kd6wsBq0

Dr. Sbaitso was the original ChatGPT. Does anyone know whether Sim Wong Hoo was directly involved with that particular software?

I remember the early days of having a PC when something like a Sound Blaster card was such a massive upgrade. I want to say it was Civilization that I played after getting a proper sound card and it was such an exciting and entirely different experience. Though, to be honest – that may have actually been an Altec card. Sound Blaster was the gold standard at the time.

Previous thread here from earlier today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34254766

Unfortunately the company helped kill Aureal 3D tech and hence their 3d sound positioning competitor.

Ah, I fondly remember the days where you could have your games run with SoundBlaster if you were one of the chosen ones, or the meek PC speaker.

I had a PS/2 Model 80 and I was desperate to have a sound card. Somehow, through a work bulletin board, my father scored me a very rare Sound Blaster Microchannel Architecture (MCA) card. If I recall, I paid $150 for it. My friends and I would gather around to play with the text to speech utility that came with it. I can still imagine, "Dr. Sbaitso by Creative Labs" in the robo voice.

They dominated until the DSP based combined sound card / soft modems took over, and then of course sound cards were eventually integrated in motherboard chipsets.

After Sim established Creative Technology as a computer repair shop back in 1981, the company has then developed a series of PCs called Cubic between 1984 to 1986. However, things only picked up a few years later with the introduction of the Sound Blaster sound card in 1989.

Godspeed. I remember putting a $50 8 bit Sound Blaster in my 386 when I was 12. Suddenly games had music and I could even play and record wav files. It connected to my CD-ROM so I could pipe CDs to the speakers. Easily my favorite computer upgrade of all time.

SET BLASTER=RIP SIM WONG 1955 2023

Sound Blaster, such a legendary group of products that he created.

I had the Sound Blaster 1.0 that included the Game Blaster sound chips aswell. Such a great first card even with the hiss and crackle from buggy digital audio channel.

I had a Sound Blaster in my 386/40. No issues whatsoever, it worked great. Too many good people passing these days at what I perceive to be too young.

I hope his eulogy is read by Dr Sbaitso

67 is very young. That older I get the more I am aware of what constitutes a young age to die versus an old age. Anything below 75 I wonder what the cause of death is, if they were a smoker, did they have cancer or take their own life.