Case analysis of the PC audio industry.

Abstract

From the simple buzzer tone in the original IBM Personal Computer (PC) to the sophisticated Wavetable Synthesis that replicate the sounds of various musical instruments with amazing richness and fidelity, the PC Audio Industry has come a long way. The audio solution itself has gone through much changes. From a simple timer chip that generated the buzzer tone to the Sound Blaster sound card that established the first true PC Audio standard, it has further developed into a single integrated circuit (IC) solution that integrates all the functions of the sound card. The PC applications that make use of audio information have also become more sophisticated. The most prominent being the PC games.