How it began
Creative Technology was founded in Singapore in 1981 by Sim Wong Hoo and Ng Kai Wa, schoolmates from Ngee Ann Polytechnic. In 1986 the company introduced the Cubic CT, a computer with multimedia and multilingual features, which sold poorly. Sim turned to its music technology and in 1987 designed the Creative Music System, a low-cost card for stereo sound. From this came the Sound Blaster, launched in November 1989 at the Comdex trade show in Las Vegas.
Before it existed
The Creative Music System struggled to win buyers, so Sim traveled from Singapore to Silicon Valley, set up Creative Labs, and made a deal with RadioShack's Tandy division to sell the card under the name Game Blaster. It did not overcome the market leader, the AdLib card. PCs of the period otherwise had little built-in sound capability.
How it works
The first Sound Blaster kept the Creative Music System hardware and added the Yamaha YM3812 chip used on the AdLib card, plus a component for playing and recording digital samples. It was the first card to bundle what came to be seen as a complete sound card: digital audio, an on-board music synthesizer, a MIDI interface and a joystick port. The first cards were monaural, and stereo Sound Blaster Pro cards followed in 1992.
What changed first
Creative took 600 orders at the launch show. The card arrived as the multimedia PC market took off with Intel's 386 processor and Microsoft Windows 3.0. Creative's revenue grew from 5.4 million US dollars in 1989 to 658 million in 1994. In 1992 the Sound Blaster held 72 percent of the global market, AdLib went bankrupt, and Creative became the first Singapore company listed on the Nasdaq exchange.
Where it stands today
Sound Blaster was the de facto standard for PC sound cards for many years. Creative still develops Sound Blaster products, including audio built into mainboards and laptops by partner manufacturers. Sim Wong Hoo led the company until his death in January 2023.
