Hello there!
There was a time when IBM PC Compatibles were much quieter than they were now.
Not the fans of course.
The fans were a lot noiser.
But in terms of soundcard technology, back in the 80s and early 90s, a lot of IBM PC
Compatibles, didn't have sound cards, unless you had a lot of money and you could afford
a soundblaster or Adlib card.
Now my first IBM PC Compatible, didn't have a soundcard.
But there was a piece of software - this is what I have just dug out of my shoebox of
floppies - that allowed you to drive sounds, through your PC Speaker!
Ahhh yes, the PC Speaker, sometimes also referred to as the PC Beeper or PC Squeaker.
It's been with us since the first IBM Personal Computer, the 5150.
Back then it was a typical 2 1/4 " magnetic driven speaker, mounted onto the case which
would provide an array of beeps if there was a hardware fault or perhaps if your keyboard
just wasn't plugged in.
As PC's evolved, the speaker remained with us, usually in the form of a piezoelectric
device, which is much smaller and typically just dangles off the motherboard.
With my recent PC build, the speaker proved it's continued worth, bringing some faulty
memory to my attention.
With no visual cues, it's often necessary to refer to your motherboard manual at this
point to trace the problem.
But the PC speaker is utilised for more than just faults.
Any software package can make use of the speaker through a programmable interval timer providing
a similar setup to the early ZX Spectrums, with the output driven via.
the CPU rather than dedicated audio hardware.
In typical operation beeps can be driven by a 1 bit input, however richer sound can be
sent using pulse width modulation.
Using this method, more complex waveforms can be encoded into a pulsing signal, allowing
a close approximation of 8 bit audio to be sent.
This uses up more CPU time than any usual PC Speaker activity, but allows for some impressive
sounds in games like Space Hulk, with in game sound effects and even speech from the rubber
lipped terminator.
Of course, if you have a sound card, then you also get music, and the whole experience
is much more pleasant.
But like a lot of people, I didn't have a sound card for a number of months after obtaining
my PC, so to find a driver which allowed Wave files to be played through Windows 3.11 was
revelation.
This particular driver is courtesy of Microsoft in 1992.
Distributed as freeware, it came bundled with various software packages, but for this video,
I'm only concerned with what it sounds like.
Installation is a doddle through the Windows control panel, and your treat for this fleeting
moment of configuration is the glorious Windows startup sound.
And this is what it sounds like with a Soundblaster.
It's not perfect by any means, but it was a vast improvement over this.......
Now those sounds - or lack of sounds - were played through emulation, but to get the real
"90s speaker" experience, we need to hear the sounds through that tinny little speaker.
So here's how it compares to its Soundblaster driven counterpart.
You may notice that moving the mouse creates a crackling sound.
This is because the mouse shares interrupts and processor time with the driver.
So any interaction with the system leads to some sound degradation.
Over what is already, pretty degraded sound!
And it doesn't stop there.
We've covered Waveform sounds, but what about MIDI.
Now MIDI files don't hold a waveform as such.
They just specify instructions for the sound card to interpret.
It's really the last vestige of computer generated music before CD audio came along, and used
in most DOS games throughout the late 80s and 90s, thanks to the arrival of hardware
like the Adlib music synthesizer card in 1987.
But there is a Microsoft MIDI driver for the PC Speaker, and it sounds like this....
Not something you'd want to listen to for an extended - in fact - any period of time
as it simply converts one track of the MIDI file into beeps.
Good for composing Nokia ringtones perhaps, crap for anything else.
Here's what Canyon.mid sounds like with a Soundblaster 16 FM synthesis card.
There were other tools which tried to make use of the PC Speaker such as Access Software's
"RealSound", integrated into several games in the late 80s...
And you could even desolder your PC Speaker wire and connect it up to a stereo for better
sound.
Some soundcards even had PC Speaker connections to allow the audio to come through your MAIN
speakers.
But by this point, real soundcards were appearing and the technology was soon super-seeded,
as the PC platform fought off machines such as the Amiga which has sophisticated sound
from the go.
For me, this art of pushing hardware to it's limits is utterly engrossing, and we'll be
visiting some other areas of sound over the coming months, including the full story of
PC compatible Soundcards.
Stay tuned, but until then, thanks for watching and have a good evening.