"Snark Barker" - Build your own 1989 Sound Blaster card
Because some times you just need to build your own ISA sound card!
Earlier today I was reminded (by a member of The Lunduke Journal Community) of the existence of the Snark Barker — a 100% compatible clone of the original Creative Labs Sound Blaster card from 1989.
The original Sound Blaster is an absolutely legendary card in the DOS gaming world, and the Snark Barker (fantastic name!) goes to great lengths to be feature compatible with the original — with full schematics, a bill of materials, and all the details you could need to build it entirely from new, available parts.
It implements all the features, including the digital sound playback and recording, Ad Lib compatible synthesis, the joystick/MIDI port, and the CMS chips (which are actually Philips SAA1099 synthesizer devices).
Not only does the card function the same… but it looks nearly identical to the original. Compare the original Sound Blaster to the new Snark Barker:
Cool, right?
A few fun notes about the Snark Barker
The “Snark Barker” was originally named the “Snood Bloober”. Which is an equally delightful name.
On the bottom of the card, where the original Sound Blaster reads “MADE IN SINGAPORE”… the Snark Barker reads… “MADE IN ANGER”. Which makes me smile.
The same astoundingly talented engineer, who goes by the name of “Tube Time”, has also created details on how to create a clone of an ADLIB sound card, an FPGA powered CGA graphics card, and a clone of the COMX-35 8-bit computer from 1983.
All open source with full details and schematics published.
Legendary.
There is also a MicroChannel variant for PS/2 series machines:
https://github.com/schlae/snark-barker-mca