The Secret of Monkey Island Shows Evolution of PC Audio 348
Normally I don't have much interest in stuff like this, but this history of PC audio is dripping with nostalgia. From the bleeps and bloops of the PC Jr to the Gravis Ultrasound I lusted after while stuck with an Adlib ... it warms the cockles of my old-man heart. Not sure that Monkey Island was the right demo choice, but hey.
Re:Gravis Ultrasound -- the love and hate (Score:5, Funny)
I had the original GUS.
Getting a GUS and SB16 to coexist peacefully under Dos, windows 3.1, and Windows 95 is probably the apex triumph of my dos/win 9x hardware troubleshooting youth.
IRQs, DMAs, and win.ini/system.ini can rot in hell.
On the other hand, I suppose it prepared me for linux...
Soundblaster had cd quality over 15 years ago (Score:1, Funny)
I hear they are almost ready to release a functional driver in a few years.
Re:Roland MT32 (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Roland MT32 (Score:3, Funny)
I had a 386/66 when I was about 12
Really? A 386/66? Well I have a 5G iPhone.
</nitpick>
Space Quest 4 & Sound Blaster (Score:2, Funny)
In 1992 I saved up enough allowance to buy a Sound Blaster, my first sound card. After I made my AUTOEXEC changes I tried out my favorite game of the time, Space Quest 4. What I experience was this annoying ringing that made me stop the game, quit, tweak the settings, reboot and start the game again. This went on a few times until almost an hour had passed.
Then out of defeat I started the game and didn't quit it, only to discover the annoying ring was the beginning of the soundtrack. Mind you, it's an MIDI instrument to the sound isn't as annoying on better sound cards, but on a SB it was pretty annoying, check it out for yourself:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKE4YExWcy8 [youtube.com]