7 ms·

This is cool, but doesent even seem to mention the ScreamTracker pc speaker hack. Maybe it was done the same way, but it was able to output about 8khz bandwidth

This is cool, but doesent even seem to mention the ScreamTracker pc speaker hack. Maybe it was done the same way, but it was able to output about 8khz bandwidth, 1 bit rendered and anti-aliased from 8 or 16 bit sound samples to the pc speaker. It worked so well I still have tape recordings I made with a hacked up rca plug attached. The paralell port adapters sounded better, but had their own neat lofi sound. About the best you could do without a sound card, which were stupid expensive back then. It was a far cry from the 'musical' beeping I was used to.

httpsterio 8y ago
Is this the same used in the 8088 mph demo productions end credits? https://youtube.com/watch?v=yHXx3orN35Y https://youtube.com/watch?v=yHXx3orN35Y
- magicalhippo 8y ago
  Reminded me of Mean Streets, with it's RealSound[1] voices https://youtu.be/WJ4rYt8v--4?t=153 https://youtu.be/WJ4rYt8v--4?t=153 Was amazed when I heard it for the first time. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RealSound https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RealSound
  - magicalhippo 8y ago
    And having now read the article I see it mentions RealSound, albeit not Mean Streets. The digitized speech was something else when I heard it. Game too, for that matter.
  - gorb314 8y ago
    I agree, even as a young kid with no idea how make the speaker even go beep (I was young, ok?) hearing the music/speech coming from Mean Streets was amazing. Everything else up to that point was just beeping and blipping... IIRC the volume was very low though.
- jchw 8y ago
  IIRC 8088 mph has to go to great lengths for the timings to line up, using cycle counting instead of interrupts for timing, among other hacks/shortcuts. I'm guessing that typical 386/486 CPUs were powerful enough to not need this level of optimization.
ghusbands 8y ago
The article does clearly mention it (and has links to videos of games that used it) > PC Speaker can be turned in a DAC either by disabling timer count then enabling/disabling sound output, which makes it a very basic 1-bit DAC, or by using sound channel of the PIT to generate short pulses of variable width (PWM) at carrier frequency set by the timer interrupt, which effectively gives a much better 6-bit DAC.

httpsterio 8y ago

Is this the same used in the 8088 mph demo productions end credits? https://youtube.com/watch?v=yHXx3orN35Y https://youtube.com/watch?v=yHXx3orN35Y

magicalhippo 8y ago
Reminded me of Mean Streets, with it's RealSound[1] voices https://youtu.be/WJ4rYt8v--4?t=153 https://youtu.be/WJ4rYt8v--4?t=153 Was amazed when I heard it for the first time. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RealSound https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RealSound
- magicalhippo 8y ago
  And having now read the article I see it mentions RealSound, albeit not Mean Streets. The digitized speech was something else when I heard it. Game too, for that matter.
- gorb314 8y ago
  I agree, even as a young kid with no idea how make the speaker even go beep (I was young, ok?) hearing the music/speech coming from Mean Streets was amazing. Everything else up to that point was just beeping and blipping... IIRC the volume was very low though.
jchw 8y ago
IIRC 8088 mph has to go to great lengths for the timings to line up, using cycle counting instead of interrupts for timing, among other hacks/shortcuts. I'm guessing that typical 386/486 CPUs were powerful enough to not need this level of optimization.

ghusbands 8y ago

The article does clearly mention it (and has links to videos of games that used it) > PC Speaker can be turned in a DAC either by disabling timer count then enabling/disabling sound output, which makes it a very basic 1-bit DAC, or by using sound channel of the PIT to generate short pulses of variable width (PWM) at carrier frequency set by the timer interrupt, which effectively gives a much better 6-bit DAC.