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121-460: The Audigy family is available for PCs with a PCI or PCI Express slot, or a USB port. The Audigy cards equipped with EMU10K2 (CA0100 chip) could process up to 4 EAX environments simultaneously with its on-chip DSP and native EAX 3.0 ADVANCED HD support, and supported from stereo up to 5.1-channel output. The audio processor could mix up to 64 DirectSound3D sound channels in hardware, up from Live!'s 32 channels. Creative Labs advertised

242-506: A webcam , as standard webcam interfaces use DirectShow . Creative has made the free VidCap application available on their website. It allows quick and easy capture and output to devices. Captured files can be imported into a video editor application or DVD authoring program. The Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Value (SB0400) was a somewhat stripped-down version of the Audigy 2 ZS - It uses EMU10K2.5 chip CA0108 which integrate CA0102 and CA0151 on

363-464: A "'next generation' true 16-bit CPU", and with "More speed. More disk storage. More expansion" than the IBM PC or "other MS-DOS computers". While admitting in 1984 that many PC DOS programs did not work on the computer, the company stated that "the most popular, sophisticated software on the market" was available, either immediately or "over the next six months". Like IBM, Microsoft's apparent intention

484-535: A 32-bit operating system released during the 2000s can still operate many of the simpler programs written for the OS of the early 1980s without needing an emulator , though an emulator like DOSBox now has near-native functionality at full speed (and is necessary for certain games which may run too fast on modern processors). Additionally, many modern PCs can still run DOS directly, although special options such as USB legacy mode and SATA-to-PATA emulation may need to be set in

605-759: A commercial venture. Experience had shown that even if an operating system was technically superior to Windows, it would be a failure in the market ( BeOS and OS/2 for example). In 1989, Steve Jobs said of his new NeXT system, "It will either be the last new hardware platform to succeed, or the first to fail." Four years later in 1993, NeXT announced it was ending production of the NeXTcube and porting NeXTSTEP to Intel processors. Very early on in PC history, some companies introduced their own XT-compatible chipsets . For example, Chips and Technologies introduced their 82C100 XT Controller which integrated and replaced six of

726-491: A computer capable of running programs that are managed by MS-DOS". The main reason why an IBM standard is not worrying is that it can help competition to flourish. IBM will soon be as much a prisoner of its standards as its competitors are. Once enough IBM machines have been bought, IBM cannot make sudden changes in their basic design; what might be useful for shedding competitors would shake off even more customers. In February 1984 Byte wrote that "IBM's burgeoning influence in

847-558: A consumer PC manufacturer during April 2005, when it sold its laptop and desktop PC divisions ( ThinkPad / ThinkCentre ) to Lenovo for US$ 1.75 billion . As of October 2007, Hewlett-Packard and Dell had the largest shares of the PC market in North America. They were also successful overseas, with Acer , Lenovo , and Toshiba also notable. Worldwide, a huge number of PCs are " white box " systems assembled by myriad local systems builders. Despite advances of computer technology,

968-473: A dedicated 600-ohm headphone amplifier, one TOSLINK optical output, and a PCI Express ×1 interface supported via a PLX Technology bridge controller. The Sound Blaster Audigy Fx (SB1570), released in September 2013, is a HDA card, it uses an ALC898 chip from Realtek, includes a 600-ohm amplifier, Sound Blaster Audigy Fx Control Panel, EAX Studio Software, and independent line-in and microphone inputs. It

1089-531: A few percentage points of market share was Apple Inc. 's Macintosh . The Mac started out billed as "the computer for the rest of us", but high prices and closed architecture drove the Macintosh into an education and desktop publishing niche, from which it only emerged in the mid-2000s. By the mid-1990s the Mac's market share had dwindled to around 5% and introducing a new rival operating system had become too risky

1210-540: A given channel, which depends on its bandwidth and SNR. This relationship is described by the Shannon–Hartley theorem , which is a fundamental law of information theory. SNR can be calculated using different formulas depending on how the signal and noise are measured and defined. The most common way to express SNR is in decibels, which is a logarithmic scale that makes it easier to compare large or small values. Other definitions of SNR may use different factors or bases for

1331-454: A million times stronger. When the signal is constant or periodic and the noise is random, it is possible to enhance the SNR by averaging the measurements. In this case the noise goes down as the square root of the number of averaged samples. When a measurement is digitized, the number of bits used to represent the measurement determines the maximum possible signal-to-noise ratio. This is because

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1452-505: A minor player with its own technology". The Economist predicted in 1983 that "IBM will soon be as much a prisoner of its standards as its competitors are", because "Once enough IBM machines have been bought, IBM cannot make sudden changes in their basic design; what might be useful for shedding competitors would shake off even more customers". After the Compaq Deskpro 386 became the first 80386-based PC, PC wrote that owners of

1573-445: A perfect input signal. If the input signal is already noisy (as is usually the case), the signal's noise may be larger than the quantization noise. Real analog-to-digital converters also have other sources of noise that further decrease the SNR compared to the theoretical maximum from the idealized quantization noise, including the intentional addition of dither . Although noise levels in a digital system can be expressed using SNR, it

1694-524: A proprietary operating system : "Who cares? If IBM does it, they will most likely just isolate themselves from the largest marketplace, in which they really can't compete anymore anyway". He predicted that in 1987 the market "will complete its transition from an IBM standard to an Intel/MS-DOS/expansion bus standard ... Folks aren't so much concerned about IBM compatibility as they are about Lotus 1-2-3 compatibility". By 1992, Macworld stated that because of clones, "IBM lost control of its own market and became

1815-462: A quantity proportional to power, as shown below: The concepts of signal-to-noise ratio and dynamic range are closely related. Dynamic range measures the ratio between the strongest un- distorted signal on a channel and the minimum discernible signal, which for most purposes is the noise level. SNR measures the ratio between an arbitrary signal level (not necessarily the most powerful signal possible) and noise. Measuring signal-to-noise ratios requires

1936-650: A random variable ( S ) to random noise N is: S N R = E [ S 2 ] E [ N 2 ] , {\displaystyle \mathrm {SNR} ={\frac {\mathrm {E} [S^{2}]}{\mathrm {E} [N^{2}]}}\,,} where E refers to the expected value , which in this case is the mean square of N . If the signal is simply a constant value of s , this equation simplifies to: S N R = s 2 E [ N 2 ] . {\displaystyle \mathrm {SNR} ={\frac {s^{2}}{\mathrm {E} [N^{2}]}}\,.} If

2057-421: A range of machines from different vendors that had widely varying hardware. Those customers who needed other applications than the starter programs could reasonably expect publishers to offer their products for a variety of computers, on suitable media for each. Microsoft's competing OS was intended initially to operate on a similar varied spectrum of hardware, although all based on the 8086 processor. Thus, MS-DOS

2178-478: A single piece of silicon but is a value version, with an SNR of 106 dB, no IEEE 1394 FireWire connector, and no DTS-ES 6.1 playback. It is, however, fully hardware accelerated for DirectSound and EAX 4 and was sold as a cheaper companion for the more expensive ZS. The Sound Blaster Audigy 2 SE (SB0570) is similar to the Audigy SE and Live! 24-bit edition in that it does not have a hardware DSP as part of

2299-399: A very wide dynamic range , signals are often expressed using the logarithmic decibel scale. Based upon the definition of decibel, signal and noise may be expressed in decibels (dB) as and In a similar manner, SNR may be expressed in decibels as Using the definition of SNR Using the quotient rule for logarithms Substituting the definitions of SNR, signal, and noise in decibels into

2420-750: Is a CardBus version of the Audigy 2 ZS released in Fall 2004 for the notebook market. It had nearly all of the capabilities of the PCI edition, but in a far smaller form factor. Reductions in capability included somewhat limited MIDI capability (compared to the PCI version) and the loss of FireWire . It was the first gaming-oriented sound hardware add-on board for notebooks that offered full hardware acceleration of 3D audio along with high-fidelity audio output quality. The card struggled with compatibility due to quality issues with

2541-456: Is a half-height expansion card with a PCI Express ×1 interface. An alternate, independent WDM driver for Windows was developed to provide user-control of the EMU10K1 and EMU10K2 chips found in many Audigy-branded cards. The kX Project driver supports mixing numerous different effects in real time and on the hardware of EMU10K1 and EMU10K2 chips. It was developed by Eugene Gavrilov. The driver

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2662-405: Is a separate chip. Collectively CA0102 and CA0151 was sometimes referred to as EMU10K2.5 (The CA0102 chip alone is just a version of Emu10k2 ). To address the biggest shortcoming of the original Audigy, a revised DMA engine allowed end-to-end high-resolution (24-bit) audio playback: 96 kHz 6.1 channel recording, and 192 kHz stereo. However, the high-resolution audio was achieved by bypassing

2783-416: Is a similar description that is more commonly used for modern computers. The designation "PC", as used in much of personal computer history , has not meant "personal computer" generally, but rather an x86 computer capable of running the same software that a contemporary IBM or Lenovo PC could. The term was initially in contrast to the variety of home computer systems available in the early 1980s, such as

2904-403: Is a uniformly distributed random signal with a peak-to-peak amplitude of one quantization level, making the amplitude ratio 2 /1. The formula is then: This relationship is the origin of statements like " 16-bit audio has a dynamic range of 96 dB". Each extra quantization bit increases the dynamic range by roughly 6 dB. Assuming a full-scale sine wave signal (that is, the quantizer

3025-505: Is adaptable to various DACs. The Sound Blaster Audigy 4 (SB0610) uses CA10300 (CA0108's unleaded counterpart) DSP instead of the more advanced CA10200 (CA0102's unleaded counterpart) and does not have external hub, FireWire port or gold connectors. The board layout is similar to the Audigy 2 Value. The SNR is rated 106 dB. The Sound Blaster Audigy 4 Pro (SB0380) improves on the Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS by improving

3146-422: Is based on Creative's Audigy Rx driver. For the older Audigy cards, there are both benefits and drawbacks compared to the latest official drivers: while they bring back CMSS2, which was deprecated by Creative on Vista/7, OpenAL quality is reported to differ significantly and these drivers do not support EAX in combination with OpenAL. After Windows 10 1903 update, the drivers stopped working, they install, but there

3267-466: Is becoming a misnomer, as Intel has lost absolute control over the direction of x86 hardware development with AMD 's AMD64 . Additionally, non-Windows operating systems like macOS and Linux have established a presence on the x86 architecture. Although the IBM PC was designed for expandability, the designers could not anticipate the hardware developments of the 1980s, nor the size of the industry they would engender. To make things worse, IBM's choice of

3388-433: Is employed to characterize sensitivity of imaging systems; see Signal-to-noise ratio (imaging) . Related measures are the " contrast ratio " and the " contrast-to-noise ratio ". Channel signal-to-noise ratio is given by where W is the bandwidth and k a {\displaystyle k_{a}} is modulation index Output signal-to-noise ratio (of AM receiver) is given by Channel signal-to-noise ratio

3509-399: Is given by Output signal-to-noise ratio is given by All real measurements are disturbed by noise. This includes electronic noise , but can also include external events that affect the measured phenomenon — wind, vibrations, the gravitational attraction of the moon, variations of temperature, variations of humidity, etc., depending on what is measured and of the sensitivity of the device. It

3630-407: Is more common to use E b /N o , the energy per bit per noise power spectral density. The modulation error ratio (MER) is a measure of the SNR in a digitally modulated signal. For n -bit integers with equal distance between quantization levels ( uniform quantization ) the dynamic range (DR) is also determined. Assuming a uniform distribution of input signal values, the quantization noise

3751-487: Is no longer maintained on a regular basis by its original authors, but the source code was freed under the GPLv2 license and continues to get contributions from time to time. User daniel_k (Daniel Kawakami) from Creative's forums does maintenance updates to keep compatibility with the latest version of Windows and implements several non public fixes. They are available on both Creative's forums and his blog. The latest version

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3872-517: Is no sound from soundcard, neither the Creative Audio Console cannot see the card. A solution is to install latest driver from Audigy RX (manually via *inf). Rest of the package (Creative programs) can be left from daniel_k package. IBM PC compatible " IBM PC–compatible " refers to a class of computers that are technically compatible with the 1981 IBM PC and subsequent XT and AT models from computer giant IBM . Like

3993-411: Is often possible to reduce the noise by controlling the environment. Internal electronic noise of measurement systems can be reduced through the use of low-noise amplifiers . When the characteristics of the noise are known and are different from the signal, it is possible to use a filter to reduce the noise. For example, a lock-in amplifier can extract a narrow bandwidth signal from broadband noise

4114-407: Is only an approximation since E ⁡ [ X 2 ] = σ 2 + μ 2 {\displaystyle \operatorname {E} \left[X^{2}\right]=\sigma ^{2}+\mu ^{2}} . It is commonly used in image processing , where the SNR of an image is usually calculated as the ratio of the mean pixel value to the standard deviation of

4235-516: Is only supported under Windows XP, as well as 6.1 speaker mode is not supported by Windows 7 and Windows Vista. The Sound Blaster Audigy 4 SE (SB0610VP) is a Sound Blaster Audigy 4 Pro without the remote control. However, it uses the same audio DSP and is functionally as capable as the Audigy 2 and 4 series (other than Audigy 2 SE). It features full hardware acceleration of DirectSound and EAX. The Sound Blaster Audigy Rx (SB1550), released in September 2013, uses E-MU CA10300 from Audigy 4, but with

4356-637: Is similar to the Audigy SE in that it supports neither hardware acceleration nor FireWire . The Sound Blaster Audigy Platinum EX (SB0090) is similar to the Audigy ES, but supported an external break out box instead of the standard internal version. It came with a Firewire port and was introduced before the AS models. The VX (SB0060) is a low-profile PCI card in the Audigy family. The Sound Blaster Audigy 2 (SB0240) (September 2002) featured an updated EMU10K2 processor called CA0102 to gain access to CA0151 which

4477-412: Is usually not included while measuring power or energy of a signal. This may cause some confusion among readers, but the resistance factor is not significant for typical operations performed in signal processing, or for computing power ratios. For most cases, the power of a signal would be considered to be simply An alternative definition of SNR is as the reciprocal of the coefficient of variation , i.e.,

4598-567: The Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP). Descendants of the x86 IBM PC compatibles, namely 64-bit computers based on " x86-64 /AMD64" chips comprise the majority of desktop computers on the market as of 2021, with the dominant operating system being Microsoft Windows . Interoperability with the bus structure and peripherals of the original PC architecture may be limited or non-existent. Many modern computers are unable to use old software or hardware that depends on portions of

4719-585: The Amiga , have been relegated to niche, enthusiast markets. In the past, the most successful exception was Apple 's Macintosh platform, which used non-Intel processors from its inception. Although Macintosh was initially based on the Motorola 68000 series , then transitioned to the PowerPC architecture, Macintosh computers transitioned to Intel processors beginning in 2006. Until 2020 Macintosh computers shared

4840-461: The Apple II , TRS-80 , and Commodore 64 . Later, the term was primarily used in contrast to Commodore 's Amiga and Apple 's Macintosh computers. These "clones" duplicated almost all the significant features of the original IBM PC architectures. This was facilitated by IBM's choice of commodity hardware components , which were cheap, and by various manufacturers' ability to reverse-engineer

4961-634: The BIOS firmware using a " clean room design " technique. Columbia Data Products built the first clone of the IBM personal computer , the MPC 1600 by a clean-room reverse-engineered implementation of its BIOS. Other rival companies, Corona Data Systems , Eagle Computer , and the Handwell Corporation were threatened with legal action by IBM, who settled with them. Soon after in 1982, Compaq released

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5082-665: The Compaq Portable . The Compaq was the first sewing machine-sized portable computer that was essentially 100% PC-compatible. The court decision in Apple v. Franklin , was that BIOS code was protected by copyright law, but it could reverse-engineer the IBM BIOS and then write its own BIOS using clean room design . Note this was over a year after Compaq released the Portable. The money and research put into reverse-engineering

5203-626: The IBM PS/2 computer that overcame many of the technical limits of the XT/AT bus, but this was rarely used as the basis for IBM-compatible computers since it required license payments to IBM both for the PS/2 bus and any prior AT-bus designs produced by the company seeking a license. This was unpopular with hardware manufacturers and several competing bus standards were developed by consortiums, with more agreeable license terms. Various attempts to standardize

5324-533: The Intel 8088 for the CPU introduced several limitations for developing software for the PC compatible platform. For example, the 8088 processor only had a 20-bit memory addressing space . To expand PC s beyond one megabyte, Lotus, Intel, and Microsoft jointly created expanded memory (EMS), a bank-switching scheme to allow more memory provided by add-in hardware, and accessed by a set of four 16- kilobyte "windows" inside

5445-631: The Macintosh computers offered by Apple Inc. and used mainly for desktop publishing at the time, the aging 8-bit Commodore 64 which was selling for $ 150 by this time and became the world's bestselling computer, the 32-bit Commodore Amiga line used for television and video production and the 32-bit Atari ST used by the music industry. However, IBM itself lost the main role in the market for IBM PC compatibles by 1990. A few events in retrospect are important: Despite popularity of its ThinkPad set of laptop PC's, IBM finally relinquished its role as

5566-507: The Macintosh had kept significant market share without having compatibility with the IBM PC, although that changed during the Intel Macs era running Mac OS X , often dual-booting Windows with Boot Camp . IBM decided in 1980 to market a low-cost single-user computer as quickly as possible. On August 12, 1981, the first IBM PC went on sale. There were three operating systems (OS) available for it. The least expensive and most popular

5687-558: The Multimedia PC (MPC) standard was set during 1990. A PC that met the minimum MPC standard could be marketed with the MPC logo, giving consumers an easy-to-understand specification to look for. Software that could operate on the most minimally MPC-compliant PC would be guaranteed to operate on any MPC. The MPC level 2 and MPC level 3 standards were set later, but the term "MPC compliant" never became popular. After MPC level 3 during 1996, no further MPC standards were established. By

5808-574: The free and open source OpenAL audio API. The Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS (SB0350) was a revision of the Audigy 2 with a slightly improved signal-to-noise ratio (108 vs. 106 dB) and DTS -ES (Extended Surround) for DVD playback. The Audigy 2 ZS supports up to 7.1 speakers via 4-pole mini-jacks, although it used a non-conventional pin out: Side R/L are on Line Out 2/3, respectively. Most widespread card of Audigy series. Unofficial drivers for 32 and 64-bit editions of Windows 10 / 8.x / 7 / Vista SP2 / XP SP3 are available. IRIX has drivers for

5929-528: The 20-bit addressing. Later, Intel CPUs had larger address spaces and could directly address 16 MB (80286) or more, causing Microsoft to develop extended memory (XMS) which did not require additional hardware. "Expanded" and "extended" memory have incompatible interfaces, so anyone writing software that used more than one megabyte had to provide for both systems for the greatest compatibility until MS-DOS began including EMM386, which simulated EMS memory using XMS memory. A protected mode OS can also be written for

6050-432: The 80286, but DOS application compatibility was more difficult than expected, not only because most DOS applications accessed the hardware directly, bypassing BIOS routines intended to ensure compatibility, but also that most BIOS requests were made by the first 32 interrupt vectors, which were marked as "reserved" for protected mode processor exceptions by Intel. Video cards suffered from their own incompatibilities. There

6171-445: The Audigy as a 24-bit sound card, a controversial marketing claim for a product that did not support end-to-end playback of 24-bit/96 kHz audio streams. The Audigy and Live shared a similar architectural limitation: the audio transport (DMA engine) was fixed to 16-bit sample precision at 48 kHz. So despite its 24-bit/96 kHz high-resolution DACs, the Audigy's DSP could only process 16-bit/48 kHz audio sources. This fact

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6292-583: The BIOS setup utility. Computers using the UEFI might need to be set at legacy BIOS mode to be able to boot DOS. However, the BIOS/UEFI options in most mass-produced consumer-grade computers are very limited and cannot be configured to truly handle OSes such as the original variants of DOS. The spread of the x86-64 architecture has further distanced current computers' and operating systems' internal similarity with

6413-459: The BIOS was a calculated risk. At the same time, many manufacturers such as Tandy / RadioShack , Xerox , Hewlett-Packard , Digital Equipment Corporation , Sanyo , Texas Instruments , Tulip , Wang and Olivetti introduced personal computers that supported MS-DOS, but were not completely software- or hardware-compatible with the IBM PC. Tandy described the Tandy 2000 , for example, as having

6534-608: The CardBus host chipsets in many notebooks of the time, a problem also suffered with other companies' products, such as Echo Digital Audio Corporation's Indigo. The Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Video Editor (SB0480) was an external USB soundcard, which combined audio playback, accelerated video editing and a 4-port USB 2.0 hub in one solution. It featured accelerated video encoding with DoMiNoFX video processing technologies. The audio system provided THX certified sound and 24-bit EAX ADVANCED HD in 5.1 or 7.1 surround. The video capture of

6655-481: The DSP, being decoded directly by CA0151 chip also known as "p16v" to take advantage of which Creative substituted CA0102 for the old CA0100 used in Audigy 1. Using the DSP with high-resolution audiostreams resulted in the Audigy's characteristic downsampling (to the DSP's native-rate of 48 kHz), for mixing with other audio sources. Use of Windows Vista or 7 should mitigate the DSP sample rate conversion issue as setting

6776-419: The IBM PC compatible architecture which are missing or do not have equivalents in modern computers. For example, computers which boot using Unified Extensible Firmware Interface -based firmware that lack a Compatibility Support Module, or CSM, required to emulate the old BIOS-based firmware interface, or have their CSMs disabled, cannot natively run MS-DOS since MS-DOS depends on a BIOS interface to boot. Only

6897-454: The IBM PC compatibles remained very much compatible with the original IBM PC computers, although most of the components implement the compatibility in special backward compatibility modes used only during a system boot . It was often more practical to run old software on a modern system using an emulator rather than relying on these features. In 2014 Lenovo acquired IBM's x86-based server ( System x ) business for US$ 2.1 billion . One of

7018-651: The IBM PC compatibles: try the package you want to use before you buy the computer." Companies modified their computers' BIOS to work with newly discovered incompatible applications, and reviewers and users developed stress tests to measure compatibility; by 1984 the ability to operate Lotus 1-2-3 and Flight Simulator became the standard, with compatibles specifically designed to run them. IBM believed that some companies such as Eagle, Corona, and Handwell infringed on its copyright, and after Apple Computer, Inc. v. Franklin Computer Corp. successfully forced

7139-489: The IBM PC's release. InfoWorld wrote on the first anniversary of the IBM PC that The dark side of an open system is its imitators. If the specs are clear enough for you to design peripherals, they are clear enough for you to design imitations. Apple ... has patents on two important components of its systems ... IBM, which reportedly has no special patents on the PC, is even more vulnerable. Numerous PC-compatible machines—the grapevine says 60 or more—have begun to appear in

7260-1268: The IBM PC. At first, few clones other than Compaq's offered truly full compatibility. Jerry Pournelle purchased an IBM PC in mid-1983, " rotten keyboard and all", because he had "four cubic feet of unevaluated software, much of which won't run on anything but an IBM PC. Although a lot of machines claim to be 100 percent IBM PC compatible, I've yet to have one arrive ... Alas, a lot of stuff doesn't run with Eagle, Z-100, Compupro , or anything else we have around here". Columbia Data Products's November 1983 sales brochure stated that during tests with retail-purchased computers in October 1983, its own and Compaq's products were compatible with all tested PC software, while Corona and Eagle's were less compatible. Columbia University reported in January 1984 that Kermit ran without modification on Compaq and Columbia Data Products clones, but not on those from Eagle or Seequa. Other MS-DOS computers also required custom code. By December 1983 Future Computing stated that companies like Compaq, Columbia Data Products, and Corona that emphasized IBM PC compatibility had been successful, while non-compatible computers had hurt

7381-432: The IBM PC. Many companies were reluctant to have their products' PC compatibility tested. When PC Magazine requested samples from computer manufacturers that claimed to produce compatibles for an April 1984 review, 14 of 31 declined. Corona specified that "Our systems run all software that conforms to IBM PC programming standards. And the most popular software does." When a BYTE journalist asked to test Peachtext at

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7502-592: The OEM versions of MS-DOS were virtually identical, except perhaps for the provision of a few utility programs. MS-DOS provided adequate functionality for character-oriented applications such as those that could have been implemented on a text-only terminal . Had the bulk of commercially important software been of this nature, low-level hardware compatibility might not have mattered. However, in order to provide maximum performance and leverage hardware features (or work around hardware bugs), PC applications quickly developed beyond

7623-455: The PC community is stifling innovation because so many other companies are mimicking Big Blue", but The Economist stated in November 1983, "The main reason why an IBM standard is not worrying is that it can help competition to flourish". By 1983, IBM had about 25% of sales of personal computers between $ 1,000 and $ 10,000 , and computers with some PC compatibility were another 25%. As

7744-554: The SNR to 113 dB. It features much of the same core technology as the Audigy 2 ZS which uses the CA0102. The newer model uses a CA10200 which is unleaded instead, and a new external I/O hub which has superior DACs offering higher digital-to-analog audio conversion quality. It also allows for simultaneous recording of up to six audio channels in 96 kHz/24-bit. It still supports a maximum of 7.1 audio channels up to 96 kHz/24bit, and stereo output at 192 kHz/24bit. The 7.1 mode

7865-540: The Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS and it can be installed into the SGI Fuel series of workstations. There was also a cardbus version of the ZS for use with notebook computers. The PC cards earned the distinction of being the first computer sound cards to be THX-certified. The Platinum model includes an audio front panel, called Platinum Drive, which provides various multimedia connections in addition to an Audigy 2 ZS card with

7986-548: The Spring 1983 COMDEX , Corona representatives "hemmed and hawed a bit, but they finally led me ... off in the corner where no one would see it should it fail". The magazine reported that "Their hesitancy was unnecessary. The disk booted up without a problem". Zenith Data Systems was bolder, bragging that its Z-150 ran all applications people brought to test with at the 1984 West Coast Computer Faire . Creative Computing in 1985 stated, "we reiterate our standard line regarding

8107-446: The above equation results in an important formula for calculating the signal to noise ratio in decibels, when the signal and noise are also in decibels: In the above formula, P is measured in units of power, such as watts (W) or milliwatts (mW), and the signal-to-noise ratio is a pure number. However, when the signal and noise are measured in volts (V) or amperes (A), which are measures of amplitude, they must first be squared to obtain

8228-415: The audio chip. As such, it puts far more load on the host system's CPU. The card is physically smaller than other Audigy 2 cards. It is designed as an entry-level budget sound card. The Sound Blaster Audigy 2 NX (SB0300) was an external USB soundcard, supporting 24 bit playback, but with no DSP chip. (CA0186-EAT) Also known as Sound Blaster Audigy ADVANCED MB (SB060), it is similar to Audigy 2 SE, but

8349-467: The card to 16-bit/48 kHz resamples audio using the much superior 32-bit float Windows audio stack before sending it to the card. It is unclear whether this works for all use cases (e.g. OpenAL). The Audigy 2 supported up to 6.1 speakers and had improved signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) over the Audigy (106 vs. 100 decibels ( A )). Audio output was supplied by the AC'97 codec on the front outputs and I²S on

8470-472: The clone makers to stop using the BIOS. The Phoenix BIOS in 1984, however, and similar products such as AMI BIOS , permitted computer makers to legally build essentially 100%-compatible clones without having to reverse-engineer the PC BIOS themselves. A September 1985 InfoWorld chart listed seven compatibles with 256 KB RAM, two disk drives, and monochrome monitors for $ 1,495 to $ 2,320 , while

8591-423: The computer marketplace of the time. Until then Microsoft's business was based primarily on computer languages such as BASIC . The established small system operating software was CP/M from Digital Research which was in use both at the hobbyist level and by the more professional of those using microcomputers. To achieve such widespread use, and thus make the product viable economically, the OS had to operate across

8712-416: The device is hardware-accelerated; encoding it to a complex format in real-time rather than using the CPU. While this results in good quality video even on basic systems, the device cannot be used by software that uses the standard DirectShow or VfW interface. Because of this limitation, the supplied software to capture video must be used. This prevents use of the device in conjunction with a video camera as

8833-549: The dominant market player only to be virtually wiped out by Intel a year later. Intel has been the uncontested leader ever since. As the "Wintel" platform gained dominance Intel gradually abandoned the practice of licensing its technologies to other chipset makers; in 2010 Intel was involved in litigation related to their refusal to license their processor bus and related technologies to other companies like Nvidia . Companies such as AMD and Cyrix developed alternative x86 CPUs that were functionally compatible with Intel's. Towards

8954-584: The end of the 1990s, AMD was taking an increasing share of the CPU market for PCs. AMD even ended up playing a significant role in directing the development of the x86 platform when its Athlon line of processors continued to develop the classic x86 architecture as Intel deviated with its NetBurst architecture for the Pentium 4 CPUs and the IA-64 architecture for the Itanium set of server CPUs. AMD developed AMD64,

9075-472: The equivalent IBM PC cost $ 2,820 . The inexpensive Leading Edge Model D is even compatible with IBM proprietary diagnostic software, unlike the Compaq Portable. By 1986 Compute! stated that "clones are generally reliable and about 99 percent compatible", and a 1987 survey in the magazine of the clone industry did not mention software compatibility, stating that "PC by now has come to stand for

9196-649: The establishment of the Extended Industry Standard Architecture bus open standard by a consortium of IBM PC compatible vendors, redefining the 16-bit IBM AT bus as the Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) bus. Additional bus standards were subsequently adopted to improve compatibility between IBM PC compatibles, including the VESA Local Bus (VLB), Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI), and

9317-620: The exception rather than the rule. Instead of placing importance on compatibility with the IBM PC, vendors began to emphasize compatibility with Windows . In 1993, a version of Windows NT was released that could operate on processors other than the x86 set. While it required that applications be recompiled, which most developers did not do, its hardware independence was used for Silicon Graphics (SGI) x86 workstations–thanks to NT's Hardware abstraction layer (HAL), they could operate NT (and its vast application library) . No mass-market personal computer hardware vendor dared to be incompatible with

9438-424: The first major extension not created by Intel, which Intel later adopted as x86-64 . During 2006 Intel began abandoning NetBurst with the release of their set of "Core" processors that represented a development of the earlier Pentium III. A major alternative to Wintel domination is the rise of alternative operating systems since the early 2000s, which marked as the start of the post-PC era . This would include both

9559-559: The following specs: Testing chain: External loopback (line-out1 - line-in3) Sampling mode: 24-bit, 96 kHz Measured values: The Platinum Pro model includes an external I/O Hub with various multimedia connections, sometimes erroneously called the Platinum Ex , in addition to an Audigy 2 ZS card with the following specs: Testing chain: External loopback (line-out1 - line-in3) Sampling mode: 24-bit, 96 kHz Measured values: The Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Notebook (SB0530)

9680-702: The full EMU10K2 chip (CA0100 chip ) and is, as a result, quite similar in feature set. It is only missing its FireWire port. The Audigy SE (SB0570) and Audigy Value (SB0570) are stripped down models, with a less expensive CA0106 audio-controller in place of the EMU10k2. With the CA0106, the SE/Value are limited to software-based EAX 3.0 (upgraded to software-based EAX 4.0 with a driver update), no advanced resolution DVD-Audio Playback, and no Dolby Digital 5.1 or Dolby Digital EX 6.1 playback. With these cards only one of

9801-458: The hardware instead of making standard calls was faster, however; this was particularly relevant to games. Software addressing IBM PC hardware in this way would not run on MS-DOS machines with different hardware (for example, the PC-98 ). The IBM PC was sold in high enough volumes to justify writing software specifically for it, and this encouraged other manufacturers to produce machines that could use

9922-462: The hardware, for a variety of reasons: The first thing to think about when considering an IBM-compatible computer is, "How compatible is it?" In May 1983, Future Computing defined four levels of compatibility: During development, Compaq engineers found that Microsoft Flight Simulator would not run because of what subLOGIC 's Bruce Artwick described as "a bug in one of Intel's chips", forcing them to make their new computer bug compatible with

10043-496: The interfaces were made, but in practice, many of these attempts were either flawed or ignored. Even so, there were many expansion options, and despite the confusion of its users, the PC compatible design advanced much faster than other competing designs of the time, even if only because of its market dominance. During the 1990s, IBM's influence on PC architecture started to decline. "IBM PC compatible" becomes "Standard PC" in 1990s, and later " ACPI PC" in 2000s. An IBM-brand PC became

10164-471: The late 1990s, the success of Microsoft Windows had driven rival commercial operating systems into near-extinction, and had ensured that the "IBM PC compatible" computer was the dominant computing platform . This meant that if a developer made their software only for the Wintel platform, they would still be able to reach the vast majority of computer users. The only major competitor to Windows with more than

10285-428: The latest version of Windows, and Microsoft's annual WinHEC conferences provided a setting in which Microsoft could lobby for—and in some cases dictate—the pace and direction of the hardware of the PC industry. Microsoft and Intel had become so important to the ongoing development of PC hardware that industry writers began using the word Wintel to refer to the combined hardware-software system. This terminology itself

10406-487: The latter becoming the most popular. Because of the great number of third-party adapters and no standard for them, programming the PC could be difficult. Professional developers would operate a large test-suite of various known-to-be-popular hardware combinations. Meanwhile, consumers were overwhelmed by the competing, incompatible standards and many different combinations of hardware on offer. To give them some idea of what sort of PC they would need to operate their software,

10527-419: The logarithm, depending on the context and application. One definition of signal-to-noise ratio is the ratio of the power of a signal (meaningful input) to the power of background noise (meaningless or unwanted input): where P is average power. Both signal and noise power must be measured at the same or equivalent points in a system, and within the same system bandwidth . The signal-to-noise ratio of

10648-525: The market and competition grew IBM's influence diminished. In November 1985 PC Magazine stated "Now that it has created the [PC] market, the market doesn't necessarily need IBM for the machines. It may depend on IBM to set standards and to develop higher-performance machines, but IBM had better conform to existing standards so as to not hurt users". In January 1987, Bruce Webster wrote in Byte of rumors that IBM would introduce proprietary personal computers with

10769-540: The marketplace. By June 1983 PC Magazine defined "PC 'clone ' " as "a computer [that can] accommodate the user who takes a disk home from an IBM PC, walks across the room, and plugs it into the 'foreign' machine". Because of a shortage of IBM PCs that year, many customers purchased clones instead. Columbia Data Products produced the first computer more or less compatible with the IBM PC standard during June 1982, soon followed by Eagle Computer . Compaq announced its first product, an IBM PC compatible in November 1982,

10890-528: The mic, line in, or AUX sources may be unmuted at a time. The Audigy SE and Audigy Value both carry the SB0570 model number. It is possible that the same card was sold in different markets with different names, that perhaps the cards were sold with one name for a while and later it was changed or it's possible they could even be slightly different cards. The SE is a low-profile PCI card in the Audigy family, and still has many unsold units at online retailers unlike

11011-401: The minimum possible noise level is the error caused by the quantization of the signal, sometimes called quantization noise . This noise level is non-linear and signal-dependent; different calculations exist for different signal models. Quantization noise is modeled as an analog error signal summed with the signal before quantization ("additive noise"). This theoretical maximum SNR assumes

11132-522: The new computer did not need to fear that future IBM products would be incompatible with the Compaq, because such changes would also affect millions of real IBM PCs: "In sticking it to the competition, IBM would be doing the same to its own people". After IBM announced the OS/2 -oriented PS/2 line in early 1987, sales of existing DOS-compatible PC compatibles rose, in part because the proprietary operating system

11253-422: The noise has expected value of zero, as is common, the denominator is its variance , the square of its standard deviation σ N . The signal and the noise must be measured the same way, for example as voltages across the same impedance . Their root mean squares can alternatively be used according to: where A is root mean square (RMS) amplitude (for example, RMS voltage). Because many signals have

11374-504: The noise level to 1 (0 dB) and measuring how far the signal 'stands out'. In physics, the average power of an AC signal is defined as the average value of voltage times current; for resistive (non- reactive ) circuits, where voltage and current are in phase, this is equivalent to the product of the rms voltage and current: But in signal processing and communication, one usually assumes that R = 1 Ω {\displaystyle R=1\Omega } so that factor

11495-434: The noise standard deviation σ {\displaystyle \sigma } does not change between the two states. The Rose criterion (named after Albert Rose ) states that an SNR of at least 5 is needed to be able to distinguish image features with certainty. An SNR less than 5 means less than 100% certainty in identifying image details. Yet another alternative, very specific, and distinct definition of SNR

11616-408: The original IBM PC by introducing yet another processor mode with an instruction set modified for 64-bit addressing, but x86-64 capable processors also retain standard x86 compatibility. Signal-to-noise ratio Signal-to-noise ratio ( SNR or S/N ) is a measure used in science and engineering that compares the level of a desired signal to the level of background noise . SNR is defined as

11737-514: The original IBM PC, they use an Intel x86 central processing unit and are capable of using interchangeable commodity hardware , such as expansion cards . Initially such computers were referred to as PC clones , IBM clones or IBM PC clones , but the term "IBM PC compatible" is now a historical description only, as the vast majority of microcomputers produced since the 1990s are IBM compatible. IBM itself no longer sells personal computers, having sold its division to Lenovo in 2005. " Wintel "

11858-521: The original XT circuits: one 8237 DMA controller, one 8253 interrupt timer, one 8255 parallel interface controller, one 8259 interrupt controller, one 8284 clock generator, and one 8288 bus controller. Similar non-Intel chipsets appeared for the AT-compatibles, for example OPTi's 82C206 or 82C495XLC which were found in many 486 and early Pentium systems. The x86 chipset market was very volatile though. In 1993, VLSI Technology had become

11979-587: The other Audigy cards. Sound quality Wavetable 64-voice synthesizer Audio path Analog-Digital Converter (ADC): 24 bit @ 96 kHz Digital-Analog Converter (DAC): 24 bit @ 96 kHz recording: 16‥24 bit @ 8, 11.025, 16, 22.05, 24, 32, 44.1, 48, 96 kHz Digital path S/PDIF : 24 bit @ 44.1, 48, 96 kHz Sound channels Analog: 2.1, 4.1, 5.1, 6.1, 7.1 and Creative Multi Speaker Surround (CMSS) which means that Audigy SE 7.1 cards can upmix mono or stereo sources to 7.1 channels. Digital: 2.1 The Sound Blaster Audigy LS (SB0310)

12100-402: The pixel values over a given neighborhood. Sometimes SNR is defined as the square of the alternative definition above, in which case it is equivalent to the more common definition : This definition is closely related to the sensitivity index or d ' , when assuming that the signal has two states separated by signal amplitude μ {\displaystyle \mu } , and

12221-434: The professional ASIO 1 driver interface natively, making it possible to obtain low latencies from Virtual Studio Technology (VST) instruments. Some versions of Audigy featured an external break out box with connectors for S/PDIF , MIDI , IEEE 1394 , analog and optical signals. The ASIO and break out box features were an attempt to tap into the "home studio" market, with a mainstream product. This variant (SB0160) uses

12342-509: The rapid growth of the smartphones (using Android or iOS) as an alternative to the personal computer; and the increasing prevalence of Linux and Unix-like operating systems in the server farms of large corporations such as Google or Amazon. The term "IBM PC compatible" is not commonly used presently because many current mainstream desktop and laptop computers are based on the PC architecture, and IBM no longer makes PCs. The competing hardware architectures have either been discontinued or, like

12463-455: The ratio of mean to standard deviation of a signal or measurement: where μ {\displaystyle \mu } is the signal mean or expected value and σ {\displaystyle \sigma } is the standard deviation of the noise, or an estimate thereof. Notice that such an alternative definition is only useful for variables that are always non-negative (such as photon counts and luminance ), and it

12584-417: The ratio of signal power to noise power , often expressed in decibels . A ratio higher than 1:1 (greater than 0 dB) indicates more signal than noise. SNR is an important parameter that affects the performance and quality of systems that process or transmit signals, such as communication systems , audio systems , radar systems , imaging systems , and data acquisition systems. A high SNR means that

12705-596: The rear. It also featured built-in Dolby Digital Surround EX decoding for improved DVD play-back. An IEEE 1394 (FireWire) connector was present in all modifications except Value. Audigy 2's 3D audio capabilities received a boost when compared to its predecessors. Creative created the EAX 4.0 ADVANCED HD standard to coincide with Audigy 2's release. The chip again can process up to 64 DirectSound3D audio channels in hardware. It also has native support for

12826-542: The reputations of others like TI and DEC despite superior technology. At a San Francisco meeting it warned 200 attendees, from many American and foreign computer companies as well as IBM itself, to "Jump on the IBM PC-compatible bandwagon—quickly, and as compatibly as possible". Future Computing said in February 1984 that some computers were "press-release compatible", exaggerating their actual compatibility with

12947-539: The same effect, but this did not easily extend to the greater color depths and higher resolutions offered by SVGA adapters. An attempt at creating a standard named VESA BIOS Extensions (VBE) was made, but not all manufacturers used it. When the 386 was introduced, again a protected mode OS could be written for it. This time, DOS compatibility was much easier because of virtual 8086 mode . Unfortunately programs could not switch directly between them, so eventually, some new memory-model APIs were developed, VCPI and DPMI ,

13068-490: The same programs, expansion cards , and peripherals as the PC. The x86 computer marketplace rapidly excluded all machines which were not hardware-compatible or software-compatible with the PC. The 640 KB barrier on "conventional" system memory available to MS-DOS is a legacy of that period; other non-clone machines, while subject to a limit, could exceed 640 KB. Rumors of "lookalike," compatible computers, created without IBM's approval, began almost immediately after

13189-481: The same system architecture as their Wintel counterparts and could boot Microsoft Windows without a DOS Compatibility Card . However, with the transition to the internally developed ARM -based Apple silicon , they are again the exception to IBM compatibility. The processor speed and memory capacity of modern PCs are many orders of magnitude greater than they were for the original IBM PC and yet backwards compatibility has been largely maintained –

13310-433: The selection of a representative or reference signal. In audio engineering , the reference signal is usually a sine wave at a standardized nominal or alignment level , such as 1 kHz at +4 dBu (1.228 V RMS ). SNR is usually taken to indicate an average signal-to-noise ratio, as it is possible that instantaneous signal-to-noise ratios will be considerably different. The concept can be understood as normalizing

13431-442: The signal is clear and easy to detect or interpret, while a low SNR means that the signal is corrupted or obscured by noise and may be difficult to distinguish or recover. SNR can be improved by various methods, such as increasing the signal strength, reducing the noise level, filtering out unwanted noise, or using error correction techniques. SNR also determines the maximum possible amount of data that can be transmitted reliably over

13552-484: The simple terminal applications that MS-DOS supported directly. Spreadsheets , WYSIWYG word processors , presentation software and remote communication software established new markets that exploited the PC's strengths, but required capabilities beyond what MS-DOS provided. Thus, from very early in the development of the MS-DOS software environment, many significant commercial software products were written directly to

13673-412: The software supports EAX 3.0, which supports 64-channel software wavetable with DirectSound acceleration, but without hardware accelerated wavetable synthesis. DAC is rated 95 dB Signal-to-Noise Ratio. It is available as an integrated option for Dell Inspiron , Studio and XPS notebooks. Of note is that Creative hardware is not necessary for this device. It is entirely a software solution that

13794-569: The strengths of the PC-compatible design is its modular hardware design. End-users could readily upgrade peripherals and, to some degree, processor and memory without modifying the computer's motherboard or replacing the whole computer, as was the case with many of the microcomputers of the time. However, as processor speed and memory width increased, the limits of the original XT/AT bus design were soon reached, particularly when driving graphics video cards. IBM did introduce an upgraded bus in

13915-463: The very successful Compaq Portable , also with a clean-room reverse-engineered BIOS, and also not challenged legally by IBM. Early IBM PC compatibles used the same computer buses as their IBM counterparts, switching from the 8-bit IBM PC and XT bus to the 16-bit IBM AT bus with the release of the AT. IBM's introduction of the proprietary Micro Channel architecture (MCA) in its PS/2 series resulted in

14036-566: Was PC DOS made by Microsoft . In a crucial concession, IBM's agreement allowed Microsoft to sell its own version, MS-DOS , for non-IBM computers. The only component of the original PC architecture exclusive to IBM was the BIOS (Basic Input/Output System). IBM at first asked developers to avoid writing software that addressed the computer's hardware directly and to instead make standard calls to BIOS functions that carried out hardware-dependent operations. This software would run on any machine using MS-DOS or PC DOS. Software that directly addressed

14157-438: Was for several years sold only as an OEM product. There was no Microsoft-branded MS-DOS: MS-DOS could not be purchased directly from Microsoft, and each OEM release was packaged with the trade dress of the given PC vendor. Malfunctions were to be reported to the OEM, not to Microsoft. However, as machines that were compatible with IBM hardware—thus supporting direct calls to the hardware—became widespread, it soon became clear that

14278-477: Was no standard interface for using higher-resolution SVGA graphics modes supported by later video cards. Each manufacturer developed their own methods of accessing the screen memory, including different mode numberings and different bank switching arrangements. The latter were used to address large images within a single 64 KB segment of memory. Previously, the VGA standard had used planar video memory arrangements to

14399-465: Was not available. In 1988, Gartner Group estimated that the public purchased 1.5 clones for every IBM PC. By 1989 Compaq was so influential that industry executives spoke of "Compaq compatible", with observers stating that customers saw the company as IBM's equal or superior. After 1987, IBM PC compatibles dominated both the home and business markets of commodity computers, with other notable alternative architectures being used in niche markets, like

14520-591: Was not immediately obvious in Creative's literature, and was difficult to ascertain even upon examination of the Audigy's spec sheets. (A resulting class-action settlement with Creative later awarded US customers a 35% discount on Creative products, up to a maximum discount of $ 65.) Aside from the lack of an end-to-end path for 24-bit audio, Dolby Digital (AC-3) and DTS passthrough (to the S/PDIF digital out) had issues that have never been resolved. Audigy card supports

14641-467: Was that application writers would write to the application programming interfaces in MS-DOS or the firmware BIOS, and that this would form what would now be termed a hardware abstraction layer . Each computer would have its own Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) version of MS-DOS, customized to its hardware. Any software written for MS-DOS would operate on any MS-DOS computer, despite variations in hardware design. This expectation seemed reasonable in

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