Ad Lib, Inc.
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| Industry | Electronics |
|---|---|
| Fate | Bankrupt, assets bought by Binnenalster, later resold to Softworld. |
| Founded | Quebec, Canada (1987) |
| Headquarters | Canada |
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Key people
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Martin Prevel |
| Products | Audio, Computer-related products |
Ad Lib, Inc. was a Canadian manufacturer of sound cards and other computer equipment founded by Martin Prevel, a former professor of music and vice-dean of the music department at the Université Laval. The company's best known product, the AdLib Music Synthesizer Card (ALMSC), or simply the AdLib as it was called, was the first add-on sound card (on IBM compatibles) to achieve widespread game-developer acceptance, becoming the first de facto standard for audio reproduction.
Today the AdLib's functionality can be recreated with emulators such as AdPlug and VDMSound (the latter is now deprecated but its source code has been incorporated into DOSBox). Emulating the AdLib Gold 1000 proves more of a challenge due to the surround sound module and the 2x oversampling effect.
After development work on the ALMSC (Ad Lib Music Synthesizer Card) had concluded, Prevel struggled to engage the development community with his company's new product. For example when he handed out development kits at trade shows, with the hopes of having them reach development staff at software companies, the attendees simply used the handouts as personal entertainment, or discarded them outright. Needless to say, the Adlib hardware was not reaching its intended audience, developers with the PC gaming industry.
Subsequently, Prevel engaged the assistance of Top Star Computer Services, Inc. (also known as TSCS), a New Jersey company that provided quality assurance services to game developers. Top Star's President, Rich Heimlich was sufficiently impressed by a product demonstration in Quebec in 1987 to endorse the product to his top customers.Sierra On-Line's King's Quest IV became the first game-title to support the AdLib. The game's high audio-production values, including a hired professional composer, riding on an already popular game-franchise, catapulted the AdLib card into mainstream media coverage. Soon, all game developers embraced the Adlib, hoping to give their software a competitive edge.
On the retail-channel side, most retail stores chains and wholesale distributor were selling AdLib sound cards by 1990.
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