Creative & EMU

[Ming]

Thanks... that shed some light... ;)
One more thing, here's an excerpt from ALSA website:
http://alsa-project.org/main/index.php/Matrix:Vendor-Creative_Labs

"Creative actively preventing support due to no datasheets being
released to ALSA developers."

and here's another one on the same page:

"Emu have supplied hardware sample and datasheets to the developer."

It seemed to me that Creative & EMU have different attitude toward
Open Source (Linux & ALSA in particular), and since EMU is a
subsidiary of Creative, isn't it contradictive? :(


On 4/1/08, Farrell McGovern <farrell.mcgovern at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 2:30 AM, Ming <ming8080 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I'm a bit confused about those two brand names, are they related in
> >  any way? I've seen EMU products in creative-lab's website & in EMU's
> >  site, I've seen photos of their soundcard have a "creative lab"
> >  printed on it.
>
> Well, that involves some history...
>
> First of all, there was the Fairlight CMI, the first production
> digital sampler keyboard synth. People like Kate Bush, Peter Gabriel
> and such used it to great effect. Unfortunatelly, it cost a huge
> amount of money, and weighed a great deal, which made it hard to tour
> with. This created an opening for E-mu systems, which to that point
> had been making modular synths, and designing the chips to be used in
> them, and other synths. They became more popular than the Fairlight
> cmi because of their ease of use/transport, and cheaper prices.
>
> Another company, Ensoniq also jumped into the same field with the
> Mirage, and also built the own chips. It did to E-mu Systems the same
> thing that E-mu systems did to Fairlight. In addition,  one of the
> highlights of Ensoniq's career was use of their sound chips in the
> Apple IIGS, which gave it the full capabilities of some of the hottest
> synths on the market at the time.
>
> Both companies made excellent sampler keyboards (I own an Ensoniq
> EPS), as well as the chips to drive them. Creative had made lots of
> money making sound cards, the Sound Blaster in particular, because it
> had everything that not only average users of sound card wanted, but
> many things that mucians wanted. Before that, MIDI cards and such were
> super-expensive. the Sound Blaster was cheap, had a MIDI interface,
> Digital recording and playback, and synthesis. So they bought up both
> Ensoniq and E-mu Systems to get their hands on their respective music
> chip technologies. Both were relatively cheap, as in the 90's keyboard
> oriented music was pushed aside as Grunge & similar types of music
> dominated the music scene.
>
> So, Creative owns both Ensoniq and E-mu systems, and their respective
> chip technologies. Ensoniq doesn't exist as a separate company,
> although E-mu systems is a subsidiary of Creative.
>
> I hope that helps...
>
> ttyl
>     Farrell
>
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