Connectors
Sound Blaster cards since 1999 conform to Microsoft's PC 99 standard for color coding the external connectors as follows:
| Color | Function | |
|---|---|---|
| Pink | Analog microphone input. | |
| Light blue | Analog line level input. | |
| Lime green | Analog line level output for the main stereo signal (front speakers or headphones). | |
| Black | Analog line level output for rear speakers. | |
| Silver | Analog line level output for side speakers. | |
| Orange | S/PDIF digital output (sometimes used as an analog line output for a center and/or subwoofer speaker instead) | |
Up until the AWE line in 1994, Creative cards has short text inscriptions on the backplane of the card, indicating which port does what (i.e. Mic, Spk, Aux In, Aux Out). On later cards, the text inscriptions were changed to icons. With the latest cards from Creative, the cards were changed to use numbers as the ports are flexi-jacks and can have different functions assigned to them at run-time (i.e. changed from speaker output to mic in), but a color overlay sticker is included with retail units to help consumers identify the commonly used functions of the ports in their default modes.
Read more about this topic: Sound Blaster