Inside Your Computer
The Sound Card
A.K.A.
- Sound Card
What Is It?
An expansion card or circuit board that is located inside your computer. The sound card plugs directly into your motherboard, some are built right onto the board itself.
What Does It Look Like?
What Does It Do?
A sound card converts computers signals into sound. This signal is sent to speakers or headphones that might be connected to the device at the time.
When you play your favorite game or are listening to your favorite music CD-ROM, the sound is being generated form the sound card.
Not that you really care but for the sake of adding information to this page, sound cards employ three sound standards:
- AdLib - 8-bit sound, which of course is very poor quality sound.
- SoundBlaster - 24-bit and above, produces digital or CD-quality sound.
- Musical Instrument Digital Interface (called MIDI)- produces the same sounds as an actual musical instrument.
All but the worst of sound cards can duplicate the last two standards.
Who Makes Them?
I Must Know More!