Er. Sorry about that last post.

The Windows 95 API totally supports multiple sources for audio in out.  The only requirement is that a program be designed to use the low-level API algorithms to select a sound card.  Gabriel Malonado's real-time Csound uses these algorithms to select the input and output audio devices.  If he wanted, he could just have easily selected multiple input and output sources using the same API functions.

Most programs simply default to the system default audio settings, which are set in the Windows95 control panel.  Instead of using the API functions to find a card and play audio to that card, these programs use one function to play audio to the default card.  If this device is not available and one doesn't have the "Use Preferred Device" option checked, then when a program uses the default audio settings, it will output to the second source.  As a test of this, you can play two long sound files at the same time in Windows95 using the built in audio player if you have two sound cards.  For most applications this is the functionality one desires.  For everyday web browsing, error notification, and game playing, you just want to use the industry standard SoundBlaster or equivalent (which also has Wavetable and FM synthesis MIDI mixed in its final output).

Personally, I don't recommend that everyone rushes out to buy multiple SoundBlasters.  Before having two cards that use the same driver, one needs to make sure the driver is capable of supporting multiple cards.  Sound Blasters do not officially have this supported, although it will work most of the time.  Also note that most Sound Blasters are IRQ hogs.  They have a MIDI port, a Wave Audio Device, and a IDE connector each requiring an IRQ.  In Windows 95, you can disable these, but there aren't jumpers on the cards anymore to disable them, so you never know for sure that a disabled device isn't going to cause an IRQ conflict.  One is better off with either a multichannel card,  (which don't necessarily use the API), or a second card that only has audio.
-----Original Message-----
From:	Khalid [SMTP:khalid.dermoumi@uni-essen.de]
Sent:	Tuesday, November 04, 1997 3:14 PM
To:	csound@maths.exeter.ac.uk
Subject:	Re: More than two channels

n> Joel Stern wrote:

well, well, well...
	of course you may install several soundcards
under Windows. The problem I see is that Windows (95)
only seems to know 1 input and output at a time. So you
may use one card's input and another one's output at
a time, but never two cards inputs(or out). However,
ActiveSound may work differently. Anyway, there might
be some clever software that manages this somehow. I
would definitely like to know ...