Today i'd like to talk about... Zool 2
for the PC, this is the CD-ROM version and there's a very good reason for that.
[music intensifies slightly]
You see, this video isn't really about the game itself, even though it's a pretty decent
little platformer developed by Gemlin Graphics from 1994.
It's not even about the box contents, including a Zooz postcard, sheet of stickers, depictive
manual or even this splendidly coloured poster.
It's about that CD, which incidentally, isn't really necessary for this game.
You see, during the mid '90s, CD-ROM was an important, emerging technology, and so even
games which could fit on a single High Density disk, were baked into CD format, perhaps with
a new 3D rendered intro, or a selection of music.
but nothing really that warranted the expense of a CD-ROM drive.
But it also meant that the odd warning would appear on disks from certain publishers, warning
us to "Not play track 1 of this game CD on ANY audio CD Player".
So, it would seem rude not to really.
For this task, I'll be using a Sanyo MCD-Z10 Boombox.
A fine looking machine which oozes that mid 90s sound appeal, an era when we were moving
rapidly away from cassette tape and onto that new circular digital medium.
To demonstrate its versatility, first I'll pop in a tape.
Here I have The Crystal Mountain, by Nightlights (otherwise known as Snowkitten)
[synth music]
I've been listening to their stuff for years, and I love albums on tape, so this is no exception.
There's a bit of wow and flutter from this system, but I imagine a few new bands and
a bit of grease would clean that right up.
Anyway onto the CD.
[suitably 90s clunking sounds[
Right, track 1, let's see what all the fuss is really about.
[Never gonna give you up]
[Welcome to Rick Roll country]
What?
Are they being serious?
"Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down..."
Wait, Ahhh, man, I must have picked up the wrong CD.
Yep, there you go I left Rick Astley right next to it.
Ho ho, easy mistake to make!
Let's try that again.
[inserty sounds]
[clunk]
[absolute silence]
and there we have it, absolutely nothing.
No sound what-so-ever.
It's also the only track on the disc, so it seems a strange disc to place that warning
on in the first place.
If there were some audio tracks on here as well - as was common on a lot of CD games
of the time - then it would have made more sense to play this disc on an audio player.
Also, I find it a little amusing that the track length is 4:04.
So just like a 404 wepage error, the contents of this track are apparently absent.
But, it might be that we just need to try a different CD player to get a true idea of
what's going on here.
ok, so now I'm at my parent's house and they have a Grundig stereo from
about... what is it? 1995?
Mother: ummm, yes?
About '95, '94. So, let's see if it works with this one...
Now, I have a sneaky suspicion that we might get a different output from this system.
which I'll explain more about, in a second.
Let's try
[click]
[white noise]
[LOUDER white noise]
Ahhhh, yes, there we go.
Now THIS is what the warning is for. It's nothing outrageous or shocking really is it?
This time, we're just hearing this Grundig unit play the raw binary patterns from the
data track as audio.
It's not going to destroy your system, or send you foaming at the mouth, but I guess
if you had the volume turned up high, it might cause auditory pain, or at worst, blow your
speakers.
So, how come the Sanyo played nothing, yet this Grundig system emited what can only be
described as a ZX Spectrum tape on steroids?
Oh also, thank you to my parents for letting me borrow this stereo we bought in the mid '90s
The reason for this is due to how these sound systems are designed.
[funky beats]
But to explain the design, we first must look at the structure of the data on a CD.
The Compact Disc Digital Audio standard was established in the joint Philips and Sony
Red Book release way back in 1981 - the red book being essentially just a rule book named
so, after it's binding colour, but it's also the start of a rainbow of these books, defining
further standards.
The yellow book would follow in 1984, and its purpose was to define the Compact Disc
Read Only Memory format.
The same format - of course - used to store data on this Zool 2 CD.
The significant difference between the two is that the audio CD allows for 2,352 bytes
per sector (or timecode frames, if you prefer), plus 98 control bytes which hold the timing
information which you see on your Stereo LCD display.
The CD-ROM structure however, splits that sector up into 12 bytes for synchronisation,
4 bytes for header information, 288 bytes for error correction and 2,048 bytes for the
actual data itself.
So, if you put a CD with a data track into a fairly recent CD player, it will be able
to recognise the data track structure and either throw you an error when you try and
play it, or in the case of my Sanyo, simply silence out the noise of what it perceives
as incorrectly structured data.
If you have an older stereo, which hasn't been programmed to ascertain whether data
is actually formatted as Compact Disc Digital Audio before belting it out, then it will
simply attempt to play it as it comes.
Despite the differences in the format, the stereo will just start reading a large, single
track of - what it presumes to be sweet, sweet melody - which it will stream directly out
I mean, the chances of someone even having a CD-ROM to put in their spanking new CD player
were incredibly low until the mid 90s, so building in these checks just wasn't deemed
that necessary.
[jazz time]
But you may point out that the Grundig stereo is actually from the mid 90s, and about the
same age as the Sanyo, so how come the difference in playback?
Well, this, as I suspected is down to the quality of the goods.
Both systems are modern enough to weed out data tracks, however, because the Grundig
is a cheaper system, it likely utilises components which just don't care.
Perhaps older components, or just cheaper components, but regardless, the Grundig has
no idea as to what a data track is, so it does it's best to play it as CD audio, and
it really is the CD player attempting to process the binary pits and lands of the CD surface,
as an uncompressed wave format.
[more white noise]
The result of this, is noise streaming in at a relatively high baud rate, and if we
slow down the audio, perhaps to a more familiar speed, then it starts to sound just a little
bit more like an 80s home computer
[slower white noise]
ahhhhh, yes
or even a dial up modem from the 90s.
it's blissful
I could just drift off to this.
Maybe we'll play Zool 2 another day.
Now this might have been a bit of a silly video
but hopefully I've explained a few noggins of interest.
That's all I can hope for really.
Anyway, thanks for watching, and hopefully, I'll see you next time!
[you know what it is]
[fades to white noise]