Uploaded September 2021 | Updated September 2026, 6 hours ago
Hello friends, as I am always looking for old soundcards, I stumbled over this PINE MAESTRO cards on Ebay Kleinanzeigen - the seller said it was like new / never installed and this was me worth the 20€ as its hard to get old soundcards in good condition today.
The ES688 is the second audiocontroller by ESS (their first one was the ES488 which I don't have). The ESS brand is known for their "Audiodrive" lineup which offers high quality audio as well as high compatibility (Proprietary, SB Pro, SB and WSS) and also owns proprietary standards rarely used (ESPCM compression or later ESFM advanced FM synthesis with the ES1688 onwards).
According to Wikipedia, ESS (Electronic Speech Systems) was founded in 1983 by Professor Forest Mozer, his son Ted Mozer and Joe Costello. ESS solds Mozers patented Speech Synthesis System which was able to create electronic synthesized speech in several applications / games which probably was a big thing back in the days. But most of us surely know ESS for their soundchips which were found in many OEM soundcards as well as retail cards.
This card from Pine, featuring the ES688 is set up by jumpers which is a great thing for old non plug and play computers so you don't need to install any drivers in MS-DOS.
The ES688 was before ESS integrated their own ESFM OPL3-clone - so it comes with a dedicated 100% Yamaha OPL3-clone. The chip that generates the FM sound here is marked as DXP44Q.
ESS Audiodrive is supported directly by some games, Descent as an example, and in all other games you can adress it as Soundblaster Pro 2.0, Soundblaster, Adib or Windows Sound System (WSS). So I guess there isn't any DOS-Game that won't run with this card!
Track of choice is "Into Sandy's City, music from the MS-DOS PC Game "Doom 2 - Hell on Earth" - Map 9, developed by ID Softwre and released in 1994. It is composed by Robert Prince.
listen - enjoy - like - subscribe
Ernie
PC-SOUND-LEGACY
Hello friends, as I am always looking for old soundcards, I stumbled over this PINE MAESTRO cards on Ebay Kleinanzeigen - the seller said it was like new / never installed and this was me worth the 20€ as its hard to get old soundcards in good condition today.
The ES688 is the second audiocontroller by ESS (their first one was the ES488 which I don't have). The ESS brand is known for their "Audiodrive" lineup which offers high quality audio as well as high compatibility (Proprietary, SB Pro, SB and WSS) and also owns proprietary standards rarely used (ESPCM compression or later ESFM advanced FM synthesis with the ES1688 onwards).
According to Wikipedia, ESS (Electronic Speech Systems) was founded in 1983 by Professor Forest Mozer, his son Ted Mozer and Joe Costello. ESS solds Mozers patented Speech Synthesis System which was able to create electronic synthesized speech in several applications / games which probably was a big thing back in the days. But most of us surely know ESS for their soundchips which were found in many OEM soundcards as well as retail cards.
This card from Pine, featuring the ES688 is set up by jumpers which is a great thing for old non plug and play computers so you don't need to install any drivers in MS-DOS.
The ES688 was before ESS integrated their own ESFM OPL3-clone - so it comes with a dedicated 100% Yamaha OPL3-clone. The chip that generates the FM sound here is marked as DXP44Q.
ESS Audiodrive is supported directly by some games, Descent as an example, and in all other games you can adress it as Soundblaster Pro 2.0, Soundblaster, Adib or Windows Sound System (WSS). So I guess there isn't any DOS-Game that won't run with this card!
Track of choice is "Into Sandy's City, music from the MS-DOS PC Game "Doom 2 - Hell on Earth" - Map 9, developed by ID Softwre and released in 1994. It is composed by Robert Prince.
listen - enjoy - like - subscribe
Ernie
PC-SOUND-LEGACY
