christo930 Posted June 27, 2018 Share Posted June 27, 2018 I'm 99% sure this is some fake sound, but perhaps my memory is not serving me well? Any thoughts? I was wondering if the newest of PCs running dos were capable of doing good speaker sound. I know there was a windows driver that allowed the PC speaker to play wav file, but it took 100% of the resources of the computer and still sounded kind of shitty. I'm calling BS, but I'd love to be proven wrong. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+OLD CS1 Posted June 27, 2018 Share Posted June 27, 2018 I was rather surprised the first time I heard a PC speaker playing music, and not just the beep-boops. Yes, this indeed happened. I was there when it did. It does not take much to play low-quality samples. We used to do so with Apple II's speaker. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+OLD CS1 Posted June 27, 2018 Share Posted June 27, 2018 In particular, I remember The Three Stooges running on a computer at the BX where my mom worked around the time of the A500 Newtek demos and Macs running Dark Castle. The PC in question did not have a sound card and did use the internal speaker, which was lamented by her co-worker as he could not turn its or the Mac demo's volume down. Which could also explain why when he was working you could hear the Newtek demo as you entered the store. I also remember my buddy had a tracker on his PC, looked similar to the one in the video as I recall, which would play Amiga MODs -- impressive, yet again, because his PC also did not have a sound card and he was bragging about how it sounded "as good as [my] Amiga." Rubbish. Pretty certain I hit him for saying so. Then later in high school we had PS/2s in our lab which one of the guys would bring in some game which played music. Not sure what game it was, but it was a pleasantry since he tended to finish his assignments ahead of the rest of us and would give something to listen to other than the sounds of 30 clicky keyboards and power supply fans. All-in-all and yet anecdotal, I would call this video or what it purports to demonstrate neither fake nor bullshit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flojomojo Posted June 27, 2018 Share Posted June 27, 2018 This is plausible to me -- you didn't have much control over the volume, because it was more like a farting piezo than a real speaker, but people did some cool stuff. As for this Macs running Dark Castle. Macs had better built in sound, and were used to play back digital samples all the time. Crystal Quest, Tetris, and of course Dark Castle were famous for this. You could record your own sounds, too. TURN UP YOUR VOLUME TO THE MAX TO EXPERIENCE MY TEEN YEARS IN AUDIO/VIDEO FORM I remember a friend was in awe of this shitty World Builder game that used Star Trek samples. "It's just like a tape recorder!!" I don't have a video but you could load the file into an emulator if you wanted to do the work. :-) https://www.macintoshrepository.org/13047-star-trek-world-builder- Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Turbo-Torch Posted June 28, 2018 Share Posted June 28, 2018 (edited) So real... I was reading the comments when the Space Racer clip started playing and that really brought back memories. I had many of those games and my EX played them well. Unlike XTs and most clones, the EX had a decent built in speaker, volume control and headphone jack which worked nicely with an external speaker (or amp) so those games rocked! The 1000 SL I bought later had an amazing DAC system built in but not many games supported it. Edited June 28, 2018 by Turbo-Torch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
butterburp Posted June 28, 2018 Share Posted June 28, 2018 Another vote for, it's probably all real. Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure is another DOS game that has real music and audio clips available via PC speaker - which is what I had to use back in the stone age, when I had a 286 and no sound card. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zonie Posted June 28, 2018 Share Posted June 28, 2018 (edited) I had a sound blaster 16 in my DOS PC inn 1990. Pre-windows. Used external speakers. There were some other sound cards at the time, but the SB16 was the best one. Sounded great. Edited June 28, 2018 by Zonie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+frankodragon Posted June 28, 2018 Share Posted June 28, 2018 I might still have it but additional sounds came from the Disney Sound Source. The Tandy computers also were able to produce sound like those. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted June 28, 2018 Share Posted June 28, 2018 There were even plans to make your own d/a converter that connected to the parallel port. And the results were quite impressive. Eventually a commercial product was made in similar style. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacecadet Posted June 28, 2018 Share Posted June 28, 2018 I think the reason for this post is that this is sound being played with no sound card and through the PC speaker. I don't think anyone is unaware that you could do stuff like this with external speakers and a sound card. This seems to be about an early DOS PC playing PCM music while playing a game, using the CPU alone, through the internal speaker, with no additional hardware. I personally don't believe this is real, but I can test it and I will. I've got a 386 machine with VGA graphics but no sound card; tonight I'll try loading up some images of these games and see if I can get PCM sound. One reason I don't really believe it is that I had one of the first 486 systems, and it came with a sound card, as did every other machine I remember back then. Most of these games look like they'd really require a 486 to run the way they are in the video. I think there were probably still some business machines at that time that didn't have sound equipment, but nobody'd be programming a game for a machine like that at that point. So all the DOS games I remember from that era either supported a sound card, or they gave you standard beeps and boops from the PC speaker. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
christo930 Posted June 28, 2018 Author Share Posted June 28, 2018 I think the reason for this post is that this is sound being played with no sound card and through the PC speaker. I don't think anyone is unaware that you could do stuff like this with external speakers and a sound card. This seems to be about an early DOS PC playing PCM music while playing a game, using the CPU alone, through the internal speaker, with no additional hardware. I personally don't believe this is real, but I can test it and I will. I've got a 386 machine with VGA graphics but no sound card; tonight I'll try loading up some images of these games and see if I can get PCM sound. One reason I don't really believe it is that I had one of the first 486 systems, and it came with a sound card, as did every other machine I remember back then. Most of these games look like they'd really require a 486 to run the way they are in the video. I think there were probably still some business machines at that time that didn't have sound equipment, but nobody'd be programming a game for a machine like that at that point. So all the DOS games I remember from that era either supported a sound card, or they gave you standard beeps and boops from the PC speaker. From what I can tell, at least some of it is faked. A lot of the games don't have any indicator as to what game it is so you can try it yourself. I know that with a powerful enough CPU, you can do a lot with the PC speaker and you can play PCM through it, but it takes so much of the CPU's power, that there is not enough left to play a game. Some of them sound real though. Any game targeting a high end 386 or 486 or Pentium is going to assume you have a soundcard. There's another video with apparently a DOS PCM program playing NES music through the speaker. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Turbo-Torch Posted June 28, 2018 Share Posted June 28, 2018 The music is from the game title screens and cut scenes. The music wasn't playing during actual game play, so yes, that part of the video is faked. A few games like Mean Streets pulled it off with short clips like the really cool gun shots. As far as the games needing a 486...lol, most are playing in CGA and a few in EGA and have 80s copyrights. Most of those games were designed to play on an 4.77 mhz 8088 machine and if you had a faster clone, you often had to turn off the "turbo" in order for them to play properly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacecadet Posted June 28, 2018 Share Posted June 28, 2018 (edited) The music is from the game title screens and cut scenes...As far as the games needing a 486...lol, most are playing in CGA and a few in EGA and have 80s copyrights. Sounds like you didn't get very far into the video. https://youtu.be/pzNbGa05dfg?t=7m4s https://youtu.be/pzNbGa05dfg?t=8m18s https://youtu.be/pzNbGa05dfg?t=9m12s etc. Edited June 28, 2018 by spacecadet Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ed1475 Posted June 28, 2018 Share Posted June 28, 2018 (edited) Here's a video with great PC speaker music I made a few years of Jungle Hunt by Atarisoft (1982).. The video capture in from an original IBM PC (model 5150). For the audio, I removed the PC's cover and set a microphone right next to the speaker. Edited June 28, 2018 by ed1475 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ed1475 Posted June 28, 2018 Share Posted June 28, 2018 (edited) Sounds like you didn't get very far into the video. https://youtu.be/pzNbGa05dfg?t=7m4s https://youtu.be/pzNbGa05dfg?t=8m18s https://youtu.be/pzNbGa05dfg?t=9m12s etc. The sound at 7:04 sounds like it could be PC speaker but at 8:18 and 9:12 it definitely sounds like it's from a sound card. Edited June 28, 2018 by ed1475 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+OLD CS1 Posted June 29, 2018 Share Posted June 29, 2018 Aspar GP Master players: single player input: keyboard, joystick distribution: 5,25 floppy disk graphics: CGA sound: PC speaker, Tandy Abandonware DOS popularity: low I have never heard Tandy sound, so I suppose it is possible the video is made from the Tandy sound system and not a PC speaker. But here, just have a look-see at this piece of work. (Forgot, there IS PCM in this demo.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jhd Posted June 29, 2018 Share Posted June 29, 2018 One reason I don't really believe it is that I had one of the first 486 systems, and it came with a sound card, as did every other machine I remember back then. I bought a Dell 486 in Fall 1993, and it did not include a sound card. Indeed, it was several years later that I acquired a second-hand AdLib card at a flea market. There was software to route Windows 3.1 sounds to the internal speaker, though that caused an obvious performance hit. Most DOS games provided PC speaker sound effects as an option, but the quality was obviously much reduced. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacecadet Posted June 30, 2018 Share Posted June 30, 2018 I made an attempt to load both that motorcycle game and Hard Drivin' on my 386 IBM P70 with no sound card... unfortunately my floppy drive that I thought I'd fixed has decided to start acting up again (and I've never gotten my HxC to work with this machine). So nothing was loading last night. I did try running both Hard Drivin' and Pinball Fantasies in DOSBox, which is how I assume a lot of this footage was taken (if not all). I set the system to "none" for sound card, though I didn't alter the system speed because I assume it's probably not very accurate anyway. Interestingly, Pinball Fantasies gave me the PCM music just like in the video, but Hard Drivin' gave me nothing but sound effects. I don't even remember music like that in Hard Drivin' anyway. I didn't see any way to turn on music either. I just don't think it's there. Also, just because Pinball Fantasies played music in DOSBox doesn't mean it would on a real computer. For all I know the game defaults to assuming a sound card is present and DOSBox isn't fooling it into thinking there's not one. I still want to try a few games on a real system, but I need to get my floppy drive working properly again... ugh. That thing's been the bane of my existence for the last month. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Turbo-Torch Posted July 1, 2018 Share Posted July 1, 2018 (edited) Sounds like you didn't get very far into the video. Sounds like you missed the word MOST in two of my sentences. Furthermore, none of those games you listed appear to be running at more than EGA and I guarantee they don't need a 386, let alone a 486. I made an attempt to load both that motorcycle game and Hard Drivin' on my 386 IBM P70 with no sound card... unfortunately my floppy drive that I thought I'd fixed has decided to start acting up again (and I've never gotten my HxC to work with this machine). So nothing was loading last night. Not to worry, both of my P70s work just fine. Horrible system to use as an example as the speaker is a piezo the size of a dime and there are no vent holes in the case to let the sound out. I put the camera right next to the case where the speaker is and the fans still tend to drown out the sound. 1st system is running in 486 mode. It's running so fast, the music is pretty much noise. Game is unplayable due to speed. 2nd system was booted in native 386 mode and the music is exactly as in the video. Still next to impossible to keep the car on the track. VGA was selected for both. Edited July 1, 2018 by Turbo-Torch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+OLD CS1 Posted July 2, 2018 Share Posted July 2, 2018 The beepy-music is one thing -- any shoddy computer should be able to do that -- but PCM music is another. Does anyone have any examples of those kinds of games running on real iron? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Turbo-Torch Posted July 2, 2018 Share Posted July 2, 2018 (edited) The beepy-music is one thing -- any shoddy computer should be able to do that -- but PCM music is another. Does anyone have any examples of those kinds of games running on real iron? What do you consider real iron? The P70s I used are genuine IBM, made in 1987, have no sound card and a speaker the size of a dime. Edited July 2, 2018 by Turbo-Torch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
christo930 Posted July 2, 2018 Author Share Posted July 2, 2018 (edited) Sounds like you didn't get very far into the video. https://youtu.be/pzNbGa05dfg?t=7m4s https://youtu.be/pzNbGa05dfg?t=8m18s https://youtu.be/pzNbGa05dfg?t=9m12s etc. I was actually jumping around in the video. The first linked time is clearly PC speaker sound and not all impressive The second link to Aspar GP Masters Actually sounds like this: The third link is Mean Streets and apparently is pulling off the sound (seems to require a 286) but the Wiki article says it can pull off the digitized sound through the speaker. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mean_Streets_%28video_game%29 The fact that the video is cheating on the second link puts the whole thing in question, which is why I posted the question here. As I said in my follow-up post, I do think some of these are fake and I know at least one is. 3:40 Purple Saturn Day actually sounds like this: Edited July 2, 2018 by christo930 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+OLD CS1 Posted July 2, 2018 Share Posted July 2, 2018 What do you consider real iron? The P70s I used are genuine IBM, made in 1987, have no sound card and a speaker the size of a dime. That is real enough iron, I was talking about the difference between PCM (sampled, if you will,) music versus beep-boop music. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
christo930 Posted July 2, 2018 Author Share Posted July 2, 2018 The sound at 7:04 sounds like it could be PC speaker but at 8:18 and 9:12 it definitely sounds like it's from a sound card. Believe it or not 9:12 is coming from a PC speaker. 8:18 is coming from a sound card. See my other post for what the dos version without a sound card actually sounds like. I certainly don't feel like identifying and looking up every single game. The author of the video has either made mistakes or is deliberately misleading people. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nebulon Posted July 12, 2018 Share Posted July 12, 2018 I think at least some of it is real. I still have that old .exe for the XT that says, "Help! I'm stuck inside the computer." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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