The 1995 CD-ROM Upgrade Experience: Creative Discovery CD Kit
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- Опубліковано 27 вер 2024
- 2X CD-ROM! Sound Blaster 16! Speakers! Tons of software! This time on LGR we're revisiting the mid 1990s to unbox and install a Creative Sound Blaster Discovery CD bundle - new old stock! I drooled over these as a kid but owning one was never anything more than a dream. Until now, 26 years later!
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#LGR #Retro #Computers
You can always tell someone is a collector by how they open a package.
Unless they're collecting for the sake of collecting, in which case it's more a matter of how they _don't_ open the package
@@HubrisInc yeah but those types of collectors are just hoping to get money in the end or are just weird
@@alfulton5946 Tbh I'm one of the weirdos, but it's because I'm a bit of a preservationist. I still love tp use my old electronics when the stuff isn't pristine tho lol.
@@HubrisInc ikr lol
@@dooplon5083 the best way to preserve old machines is to use them.
Not gonna lie. I would totally rock "birds" on a t-shirt.
Hey Bosh 🌈
Bird-Up!!
yes, someone has to make it happen
with a picture of dragonball z's android 16, i hope. BERDS.
hey b0sh 👋
"Nooooooo you're opening them and ruining it!"
Who cares lol. Clint gives these items the spotlight they deserve and they truly become a museum piece of some sort. Better to see it all function now and document it before it rots away.
Agreed
This is some Toy Story-esk saga for computers. Parts locked in a garage until finally freed from storage only to then be sent to the perfect person to utilize it's potential and finally shared with the masses. Kudos sir.
Your video bring me back 20 years before, and I'm french, I bought this audio card kit in a store called "Surcouf" and it doesn't exist in our days... So just I love to see and thanks so much for this nostalgic moment.
man i just missed this era. i grew up with windows 95 and DOS was still around in school like an angry revenant. still brings back some major nostalgia!
"Then I have a drink or two and go on eBay, aaaaand, that's the basis of my channel."
That cracked me up!
I would be lying if I hadn't been drinking while watching LGR and purchased things from ebay that he was reviewing.
Late night sleep deprived eBay is a hell of a drug...
@@rwdplz1 Been there, done that lol...
Somebody at Ebay is sending him a case of something, they know his weakness.
@@sdewey4152 Oh LORDS!
Oh man so much of this software brings back so many memories. I can't tell you _how many times_ I had a book report due that day when I was in grade school in the early 90's and basically copying/pasting whatever the CD-ROM encyclopedia had on it lol.
I was getting into music production (using Sound Tracker, Impulse Tracker, etc) in my late teens, and scored that exact sound card from a friend. It was so amazing, it is what ultimately got me into audio production and later in 2000 I used it to begin my online live DJing thing. I owe a lot of my early adulthood joy to the SB16 card. I still have it stored in a box somewhere.
Is it viable to use a retro PC as a MIDI DAW in this present day?
@@valdotorg Nice thought! I'm definitely not going to try, but I am down to watch (or listen to or read about) anyone who does.
"I always love looking through these, cause I always get ideas, and then I have a drink or two and go on eBay, and... that's the basis of my channel." I'm glad you do what you do! *raises glass*
Okay I absolutely ADORE that appointment reminder software that pops up and talks to you!! The fact the character is animated to look like it's actually saying the words you typed, the fact it SAYS OUT LOUD what the appointment is for and for how long is ace (and hilarious)!! I could honestly do with software EXACTLY like this today!! :D
Man all the sights and sounds of 90s computing tech makes me feel really nostalgic for that time period. I know computers have gotten a LOT faster and more reliable, but for me they've gotten a LOT less fun!! We don't get amazing bundles of tech and software like this any more, or hilarious sounds and experimental software. Nor do we get the wacky experiments done with the technology itself OR its design - everything just looks like the same old black or white box nowadays.... boo!!
I remember seeing these bundles in magazines and being so amazed. I didn't even have a CD drive at that point. What a time it was!
And here we are again with no CD/DVD drive in (most of) the computers! Isn't that odd? 😉
CD-ROMS were so expensive back then that when my REVEAL kit CD-ROM started to die and couldn't spin the disc, I had to open up the drive and spin the disc manually till the engine kicked in. That hack kept it alive for another 2 years till prices came down (and I got my first job at McDonald's).
@LGR oh wow! That brings back memories... I was a 9-10 year old boy and i've seen a bundle like that at a local shop, took the next day my parents with me and all my savings and bought the kit to upgrade the family 386-dx40 desktop. I remember we had to get rid of the 5,25" floppy drive to install the 4x cdrom and then we installed the soundblaster with my uncle who was a pc technician at the time, to help update the autoexec.bat and install all the drivers. What a treat in the late 1994! Still have the wish myself to find a bundle like this nowadays to remake my old system. But i guess it's not gonna happen, since they are so hard to find! As it was the desktop pc case. It was the most beautiful case I have ever seen, with black transparent front, a big central power button and a sliding door on the left which hid the turbo, reset and keylock. While on the right side there was a hinged door hiding 2 5.25" bays.
Got the notification while watching the death of emachines video.. a lil depressed now but i’m here for it!
This takes me back... I got a sound card/cdrom (quad speed!) bundle kit by Reveal to upgrade my 386. The bundle came with SimCity 2000 and Strike Commander among other games! It was one heck of a learning experience figuring out how to get everything to work and run. Turns out all the software that came with the kit was indirectly educational!
Oh man. The memories. After begging my parents we actually got one of these back in 1994! Annnnnd... sadly the CD drive died a few months later. I remember being on hold for ever on a long distance call ($$$) to tech support. Oh the fun times. Still, it was a great kit!
Same here as you guys. We got the 2x version of this kit and I remember the CD-ROM breaking also. We were so careful with it. Just died. I can't recall if we got it replaced via warranty or another drive ... :(
Yea my first PC was a Gateway 2000 486 dx/2 66. It came with the soundblaster kit. CD Rom kinda died after a couple of years, the harddrive died also (replaced under warranty), and I remember staying up nights trying to fix problems because of the stupid IRQ stuff that always seems to conflict for whatever reason. Then one day I flashed the BIOS for no reason and bricked the whole PC (because I had no idea what BIOS flash was like). Got the whole motherboard replaced under warranty as well. That's in addition to all the general protection faults and illegal operations (windows 95) that kept happening too. I discovered one reason for all these reliability issue is they used power supplies that couldn't deliver the juice.
Thing is, I never have this kind of failure today... they must have either used lower quality component or manufacturing was not as efficient as today.
Yeah even Clint got to deal with that the first time around with the Creative CD Kit, his was dead on arrival and broke as soon as he installed it lol. Glad the one he showed here was in better shape but it sucks that the quality control just wasn't there for Creative drives back in the day.
I remember when my friend got his "custom" Gateway computer built (I think it was around '98), and he had them put in the cream of the crop Sound Blaster Gold in the build complete with the front-panel addition. Many hours were spent playing games like Quake II and Tribes on his computer lol.
That’s one chunky bundle! Lots of goodies to be used and discovered. Never had one of those, unfortunately (or fortunately, since my first PC had multimedia capabilities installed from the factory) but the feeling of seeing stuff like this, really takes me back
My parents bought this for me back for Christmas in 1994. I stayed up all night trying to figure out why I couldn’t get the CD-ROM to work only to realize after several hours the IDE cable was backwards. I guess that was back before they put the little tab in the middle to keep you from making that mistake! I was so blown away at that Grolier encyclopedia and still remember the first video I watched on there which was the Hindenburg crash. I had just turned 15 years old when I got this and put it in my Packard Bell 486/SX 25. One of the problems i discovered with the PB is some of the internal components took up too many IRQ’s and I really struggled to get the sound card working correctly, but finally figured out how I could re-assign some IRQ’s for some of the other devices to free up the one’s I needed to get the SB card working. Sure was an exciting time!
Something about these old software bundles are still exciting to me.
I was at Babbages with my dad, and they had a stack of the earlier version of this kit front and center on the floor. I knew he wanted it. I was the devil on his shoulder. $350 later, we had entered the age of multimedia.
Mom was not pleased with this development, and she and dad spent most of that evening in the bedroom with the door closed having a conversation that did not sound like enthusiastic appreciation for mid-90s state of the art multimedia technology. Apparently they came to an agreement that he would get it for father’s day.
The bundle we got had the same Creative branded 2x MKE drive and speakers, but a different (slightly smaller) SB16 with no IDE, and a totally different software bundle, with BodyWorks and Grandma and Me instead of the games here. All in all, a solid bundle that had a little something for everyone.
I still have the sound card - it’s in my 486DX/2. I have since gotten a plain Matsushita drive, but I would love to find one with the SB branding on it. They’re fantastic, reliable drives that are quite sought after these days, though. To get one NIB for $5 is absolutely insane.
Does anyone else remember how PC 'speakers used to lie about their power rating, and those lies got more ridiculous as the 90's wore on? I think I bought a pair of "300 watt" speakers in 98.
"Not the end of the world, but it's an additional extraneous step and I took it personally!" Bro I love Clint's dry-ass sense of humor. 🤣🤣🤣
"Delightful annoyance with this system", I admire your outlook on incompatible (but compatible) hardware!
That "Birds" composition is like an early "graphic design is my passion" meme
It’s better put together than a lot of modern memes.
LGR's office belongs in a 90s Tech Museum!
This is awesome, keep this going please! I LOVE Creative's hard and soft bundles. I had a few of them and was always like opening a Christmas present, as you called it!
Man, this brings back memories...I remember setting this up as a kid.
Yeah, I had the same experience with the REVEAL kit in 1994. My family was too poor to get the SoundBlaster kit... And honestly, the REVEAL kit wasn't that bad.
Woooow simply amazing! That is a piece of gold! In 1999 when my father bought me my first PC it bundled the discovery Kit 40xCDRom drive + SB 128PCI +cambridge Soundworks speakers(2 satellite and sunwoofer)...they were great! And they are still working today...😁. Thank you Dad for that gift that last forever 😁.
thank you with all my heart. Way back in 1994 I got a Creative multimedia kit to upgrade my 486dx2 66 with 8 MB of RAM. This video took me back to the days when my passion for this fantastic hardware was born. The arrival of multimedia is a revolution to transform the PC from a work tool to home entertainment. How many hours spent with my favorite bundled title, the Bullfrog Syndicate masterpiece 🤩
This brought memories. Back in the mid 90's I did scrape up enough cash to buy a Creative Lab multimedia kit. It was a 2x CDROM with a SB 16. I still have the card, the main SB 16 manual, and the floppy driver disk. I remember too being Wowed by the postage stamp videos and the sound. This is where the PC was starting to become a Gaming machine. ;)
I still have an IMAX movie on CD called Speed that was bundled in the kit (It is on a long "forgotten" codec though).
Best of Times.
A local store here ran a special for these kits for the first 30 customers on a particular Saturday morning. It was like half price. My friend and I literally camped out in front of the store for the whole night and we got our magic boxes.
This video is a total mindf*ck.
This kit kept me busy for months and months and months. Years. It turned my computer from a bleeping blooping doorstop into basically an early version of what we have today.
My bedroom was basically a bunch of football posters, a football, a bed, a desk, and this computer. With those exact speakers and that exact cd-rom drive and sound card. Such good quality stuff compared to today's cheap nonsense. I wish I never threw them out. I missed this so much, I'm deep into a PCem 486DX-33 build with all this software installed. I eventually scored a DX2-66. The memories are amazing.
Except for the memory management memories lol
Thanks for this. Made my week.
Nothing makes Friday better than a new LGR vid.. Keep up sir!
Opening that nice box like you were still that 9-year-old kid. Absolutely lovely, I wish I had that spirit.
Ha this was a fun trip down memory lane. We bought this exact package back in 1994 or so to upgrade our 33 mhz 486 (or maybe it was a 386). I remember much of this kit like it was yesterday. Thanks for posting!
Having grown up on Mannheim Steamroller, this card sounds like Christmas, much as I'm sure it felt like it to Clint.
@@patrickglaser1560 I 'MEMBER!
For me, it’s just not the Christmas season without Mannheim Steamroller.
The editing on these is so good lol
The User manual for Ultima 8... man that takes me back, i had a friend whose dad got him a soundblaster card. We spent nights trying to finish that game.... such old memories. thanks Clint for bringing back all these memories.
Oh man so many memories... , I remember back in the day when my dad was so happy because of the purchase of that box , I was 7 and it was my first approach to a hardware/software setup ever, and to learning the meaning of the "multimedia" thing; we installed it on a Compaq Deskpro XE 560, we lived in Bogotá and in the 90's PC parts were very rare to find, we didn't have big stores to buy so it was kinda a big deal for us.
I remember getting a CD-ROM and soundcard set with Monkey Island II back in the 90's. Brilliant upgrade. Thanks for the video!
Always envied the Soundblaster guys. I had to live with Adlib Gold.
My first "real PC" was a 233Mhz Pentium II IBM system, and at the time I was also getting big into Linux (this was around 1996). I can't even tell you how disappointed I was finding out about all the onboard garbage chipsets or the fact I couldn't get online with it under Linux because it had a "WinModem" in it which I had no idea what that even was at the time. Slowly but surely I started learning more and more about the hardware side of things and SoundBlaster was always the go-to, especially during my escapades dumpster diving for spare computer parts lol.
@@livefreeprintgunsHah.. winmodem.. :) I had a 286 and I don't know how I got my Adlib Gold (think my Dad bought it for me), but I remember being smug about how awesome it was... until my friend brought his 386 tower over with Soundblaster. I feel like a jerk for chucking the Adlib now because they've become so collectible, but the SB just smoked it all around.
Greetings from India. Ohh man! This takes me back to my first Multi-media PC. 200 MHz Pentium MMX with 32 MB RAM and the Creative multi-media kit. With a CD ROM drive that came with a remote control, SB 16 included. It was awesome! I experienced Doom, Duke 3D, Quake and Quake 2 for the first time with that PC. 🙂
I'm listening to this video through my Creative Gigaworks T40 speakers. It's been nearly three decades and Creative still makes the best PC speakers. 😁
I have for years had Creative speakers that cost about 30 € attached to my TV. It looks laughable but the sound quality is so good I haven't felt the need to upgrade.
LGR really takes me back to my childhood. I remember seeing this in my childhood in a store at Dubai and of course not being able to buy it. O was and still am a PC gamer and this things just fascinate me.
I got the " media vision " multimedia kit with 2x cd-rom, sound card and speakers for Christmas one year. That probably was one of the best gifts ever . Replaced the 5.25 floppy drive in my 486 SX 33 desktop with 4 my of ram . I absolutely loved it!!
Makes you kinda appreciate when we could go into a store and choose from these components in a store. I'm thinking increasingly gratitude for getting to experience that time.
Bringing back memories. My Dad got an earlier Creative multimedia bundle... Definitely pre plug and play. I think it took him 3 or 4 long nights to troubleshoot the install and he was a computer engineer. I impatiently bugged the whole time to get into the new games and sweet CD encyclopedia. Do you realize how easy early 90s homework was with that power at your whim!
The amount of stuff packed with a sound card is amazing. I would like to buy a speaker and soundcard pack this day with games and software included. I guess the cd rom push to market was happening so had to include a cd rom bay also.
I still get excited at the sight of the blue and yellow box!
That was very good sound in the 90s! I had a sound blaster in my second pc and it sounded great! I use Altec Lansing speakers set with a fine sub woofer. I'm still using them since 1999 and they are still great! No need to change a good thing. Now that's a good value!
OMG. My father bought the exact same kit when I was a kid. This brings back so many memories.
“I always love looking at these, I get ideas, have a drink or two and then get on ebay” lmao
Nice! This is the same kit kit I installed in my Packard Bell 486sx back in the day. I still have the disc with Syndicate, Strike Commander, and Ultima. It's awesome to see it again!
Creative had the best, most complete and colorful bundles. They made computing fun
One would say they were creative
My family had a combo set like this with the CD caddy style that came with 7th Guest. It was pretty cool.
Oh My God, I had this when I was a kid!!! I played the hell out of Wing Commander II from this
I had exactly this multimedia kit back in 1994! I still have the speakers, CDs, manuals, 2x CD ROM, and the games... Only the ISA card went away with my 486 DX2 when I upgraded the system.
The Pentium I had later already used a PCI Vibra16 card.
EDIT: I remember all the fight I had back then.. My system had 8 megs of RAM!
Most problems were gone when I started using quarterdeck's QEMM 386, that loaded stuff in the high memory, and left the conventional memory free, at about 634kb!
Can't believe it... My dad bought us this kit like 25 years ago. Nostalgia just hitted me like a truck
damn, such beautiful memories, i had the kit with the awe 32 with a lot of titles like full throttle
Getting the Sound Blaster 16 was one of the happiest *months* of my life. After 5 years of PC Speaker poverty, my mom finally got this for my birthday. The upgrade was life changing back in the day, and I would reply *ANY* game I had to hear how it sounds in this.
I just stopped by to say I think this is the best I've ever heard "Canyon" sound.
Your videos are always a sheer joy to watch and revisit for your pure enthusiasm, positivity, and smooth voice.
Oh. My. God. I had a similar version to this this back in the day (I had the 4x CD-ROM version). I wish I could get my hands on one, they're ultra rare! Better keep it under lock and key, LGR 😂
Edit: I played Dune 2 on our new 486 system with the Creative 4x Discovery bundle installed, having previously played it only on our previous IBM PS/1 286 which was too slow to output sound for it through the audio card option we had. I was blown away by the SB16 and those speakers, and have been a Creative fan ever since (although admittedly not since the X-Fi range came out, a little pointless these days sadly).
the one i got as a kid had a cd-rom with an infra red remote control and it was the coolest thing ever, i hope LGR reviews that one someday, it was a killer bundle and all my friends were amazed that my cdrom had a remote control with it.
I've never been this nostalgic when watching LGR. I had this full size sound blaster board and CD-ROM with the bundled software like Syndicate and the encyclopedia. Childhood memories ❤️
(Sorry for my Eng.)
Clint, I can't tell you how happy and nostalgic I am watching this. That's basically the same kit we got for our first PC(486 dx2-66) You can imagined it cost a fortune back then(and I believe our PC was the only one of 2 that has this kit in the entire town lol) I remember that Peter Pan game fondly. Makes me really miss my dad(may he rest in peace)
A little upset that I'm in my mid 30s and cracked up at the "...farts"
I had the Game Blaster kit that came with Rebel Assault and a joystick. My bike got stolen from High school and I had a choice of a new bike or the kit. First time I ever installed something in a non-Apple PC. I was so surprised by how easy it was that I started upgrading every part of the PC until I had enough parts left over to build my Dad's original PC.
You summed up the whole allure of retro in the first 14 seconds of your video.
Great video! I remember our family's first CD-ROM drive, but I think we already had a sound card. The CD drive used a special caddy for loading into the drive, it was pretty wild.
OMG I was fortunate enough to experience this back in 95 on my father's IBM PS/2 486. This is so awesome to see again.
Ah, Creative... the OLDEST component of my "modern" PC is STILL the Creative sound system. (Creative I-Trigue 3300, circa 2002)
This takes me back to my first PC that I built as a teenager in the mid-90s. Such memories.
I had a non-creative one of these kits that came with the 7th guest among other games I can't even remember. I don't remember how much it was and I remember it took my dad the weekend to get the kit to actually work right in our particular system because of irq conflicts.. Those were fun times
Thanks for this "Back to the good old times" video. I remember it like it was 1984 and later on. I had the priviliage to enjoy all of it, the first XT, AT PCs, MFM Controllers, The first Sound Card, Hercules Grafics, the 8,16,32 and 64 Bit area. What a journey. Even when the Gravis Sound Card in combi with a SB16 Card, or the Wave Module from other vendors or the AWE32. THX
14:00 "And I took that personally." -LGR
Seeing these videos makes me want a retro DLC for PC Building Simulator so badly!
Also, am I the only one that went out of their way to try and put as many screws as possible into the drive bays? Instead of the usual four, I'd put all eight if I happened to have the extras screws available.
And I might've missed it, but, any plans for a full on Creative build using as many of their cards and drives as was available from the time?
You mentioning cuts bring back to the days of sharp steel edges, which I'm pretty thankful they've (mostly) done away with on newer cases.
One last thing, but I noticed you mentioned IRQ, and I've seen that in the settings before, but I've never actually had to try and configure it, so I'm not actually all that sure what it was used for. Similar to the jumpers on HDD's I presume?
It's so easy to get caught up reminiscing about old CPU:s, motherboards and peripherals, it's hard to remember just how HUGE it was to just have a CD-rom reader in your pc at one point.
Takes me back, I brought the earlier single speed drive caddy version. It came with encarta which just amazed me. "real" sound and so much info on one CD, a game changer. Thanks for that.
I clicked so fast when I saw this! I got the same kit minus the software, in 1994 when I bought my 486DX2-66. I still have the computer and all the stuff, except the original sound card and speakers that were loaned to a friend and eventually disappeared to the annals of time. I have since found a slightly newer model of the SB16, and I found the same speakers at a thrift store.
30:04 Nick sounds suspiciously like Simon, who likes to do “drawrings”… and Nick is a pencil… coincidence?! 🤨
Awesome catch!
Ahh love that era. I was allways excited about getting descent games, but couldnt afford it back then. Now i enjoy it on my overkill system as well as on my retro with a flight joystick mod. Great vid once again 👌
This. This is what makes your channel unique. Takes me right back to when my dad bought an AWE32 new in '95.
Jeez, brings back memories for me. In 1995, I had a 486SX computer that I got when I graduated college. But Best Buy's weekly flyer had all sorts of upgrade goodness in it. I got a personal loan then drove the 280 miles to the closest Best Buy where I lived. Then I went on a joyous shopping experience. I did get the Soundblaster kit similar to yours but it was a whopping 4X speed!! The card was a Soundblaster 16. Then I also upgraded my 486SX to a 486DX chip for that major 50 Mhz speed. I got what was probably the largest hard drive available at the time, a Connor 1GB hard drive (that later FAILED). I also added RAM although I can't remember the amount, had to be at least 1MB, expensive! There may have been some additional stuff I got, software and stuff. I had Windows 3.1 on my computer at the time. Spent about $1650 that day. Just like every other computer geek of the time, you had to UPGRADE to the newest, coolest stuff! Now we look back and compare what we have today, how things changed exponentially.
The first ever CD-ROM drive I ever had was a Creative 2X like this one, but with a Sound Blaster Pro (in my 486-DX 33MHz). So many memories!
As always, very good content, Clint. I had a Soundblaster 32 and this felt very very nostalgic. Always appreciate your excitement for these items, makes me feel comfortable knowing others feel the same.
I had this one. Around 1996, a store had these on sale for $200 but I only learned about it at the end of the sale. My mom knew the manager and bought me the "last one". Turns out it was broken, it was returned. All it needed was some superglue on the CD tray and voila! I enjoyed using this, oh man!
Brings back and unbelievable amount of memories like the first time sound ever came out of my PC! I was running a 386 SX 25, and remember when sound cards and cd ROMs were released, I think I had the same set you've unboxed!
Man, this almost makes me cry... I miss those days sooo much. At the time I'd had a few sound cards over the years, from friends or from work mostly - I rarely paid full price for this stuff. I blew through 2X really fast; probably within a year we had 4X CD drives... then 8X and almost immediately 16X... and then they just stopped advertising speed. It was amazing how fast CD drives took over the world. I always used to tell people I didn't get a new machine; it just "evolved" over time, upgrade by upgrade....
I cannot fathom how many hours I sunk into WaveStudio alone back in my SB16 days ;). Very exiting toolbox for kids who enjoy tinkering with audio.
Oooh, I remember drooling over these kits back in the day too. Then again, I didn't get a computer till well after the millennium turned, so... I guess I drooled over everything I saw in the magazines of the era. So nice to see this opened and used after all this time. Brings back a ton of memories. Great content as always!
Oh man, this brings back memories. It felt like the ultimate Christmas for us when my best friend's dad bought this pack for his 486. Just mindblowing at the time!
Those speakers lasted quite a bit as well, hell whenever people mentions PC speakers its either this or the Roland's that pop up in my mind. :p
My parents got us this exact bundle! I never understood why some games worked at the time but some didn't. If I recall correctly, one of the CD also has music files you can play on any CD player, classical music. It was the bundle that kept giving and giving and giving. thank you for this!
I had a similar newer multimedia kit but I didn't get it until 1997 I had an old digital venturis 433SX PC running at 33mhz and it had 8MB of RAM (4MB when I first got it) and that's it. The kit had the same as here but an 8 speed CD ROM drive, sound blaster AWE32 card, speakers which I still have and the cables to hook it all up and a ton of games and software. Back then I did have Doom and Doom 2 which I used to test the card. I had Creative Wave studio and Sound OLE which I used to record tons of music onto my PC. I did get another hard drive put in. Main C drive was 270MB and the other was 345MB.
I like how the different players (CD, Wave, MIDI etc) resemble hi fi stacked systems with VFD displays and buttons. A lot of the stuff you used on this machine brought back memories of when I had my machine but mine was so slow.
And yes I stayed up at night on a school night playing DOOM, with headphones.
My father bought this for our PC back in '95. It was **The COOLEST** thing I had ever seen and experienced.
Wow, I remember when my parents bought this (including those speakers!) for our first 486 dx 2/66.
i bought one that had a video card, a sound card, a front panel audio, and midi interface, and it came with a 4x drive, that was in 1997 that cost £700, it came with around 25 programs and games, and was reallly focused on midi applications as well, and it allowed me, using the dsp's, to handle video and audio with ease, and i quickly built up a midi music daw station, all using creative kit, i remember it having an insane number of midi channels for the virtual instruments, something creative were good at, and the reason i got it was for college, and the fact i could easily get samples and music into a daw, quickly, and it was my first, focused upgrade, even now, I spend a lot of time looking at sound chips, and high end audio dsp cards, which still appeal greatly to me, and im still fond of creative stuff to this day, you cant argue they know dsp.
In 1995 I took an NRI Schools multimedia course just because it included a kit like this. I installed it in my 386DX 33 computer, it was great! One of the games that came with the kit was Return to Zork, loved that game.
Really with the MPC Level 2 badge on there, the CD-ROM was just as exciting as the Sound card. You needed that HUGE CD to contain all those sound effects, voice samples, and heavily compressed full motion video clips.
Wow, this brings back memories. My brother had a 486 computer that was basic as it gets but it was a lot in that day's money. It didn't come with a CD drive, just a floppy and came with those really old PC speakers. We talked about getting one of these bundles that include a sound card, CD-ROM drive and speakers, and there were so many different types of CDs bundled with it, and we would decide upon which one to get, and eventually settled for one with a lot of games.
It was a big upgrade to a boring quiet computer (other than the beeps from the PC speaker), but I remembered the novelty wore off once I've played all the games though, and the CD drive didn't last as long as I hoped it did. However, after that, there was no turning back. A computer without a CD drive or sound card just seemed so boring.
The direct recording you did of the midi samples was great with headphones!