Creative founder Sim Wong Hoo, the man behind Sound Blaster, has died

guest · Jan 7, 2023

He founded Creative in 1981 and ran it ever since.
By Sean Hollister - January 7, 2023

Creative Technologies founder, CEO and chairman Sim Wong Hoo has died, his company has confirmed. He “passed away peacefully on 4 January 2023,” according to a press release. He was 67 years old.
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It might seem hard for younger readers to believe, but there was a time that computer sound wasn’t guaranteed. If you wanted to plug in headphones or speakers that could do more than bloops or bleeps, you probably needed a sound card — and none were as successful as Creative Labs’ Sound Blaster. It sold over 400 million units as of its 30th anniversary in 2019.

Creative got a piece of that action by rebranding its card the “Game Blaster” in 1988, and in 1989, the company’s first Sound Blaster added a dedicated game port to plug in a joystick. That’s something that PC gamers usually had to buy separately and helped make the Sound Blaster look like an excellent deal over the AdLib.
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And, I hear, the Audigy 2 is still going strong in some people’s PCs.

Update, 8:32PM ET: Added more images and info about the Cubic99, an earlier Creative computer. Also, you might want to read this CustomPC interview with Sim from 2019, where he talks about the early days, namedrops Michael Jackson, and more, and BrassicGamer’s debunking of some of the things he told CustomPC.
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Press Release (PDF): https://links.sgx.com/FileOpen/Announcement5Jan23.ashx?App=Announcement&FileID=743361

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Creative founder Sim Wong Hoo, the man behind Sound Blaster, has died

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Creative founder Sim Wong Hoo, the man behind Sound Blaster, has died

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