Terrible: Windows Audio Before Soundcards [Nostalgia Nerd]

Before Soundcards were common place, many of us had to make do with the PC Speaker for sound effects on our IBM PC Compatibles. Some games utilised this limited medium to good effect, but Windows was always still lacking in sound.

That is, until Microsoft developed the PC Speaker Audio driver for Windows. This allows Waveform sound to be played through the PC Speaker in Windows, so you could hear the fabulous startup sounds of Windows 3.1 and Windows 95. You could also play your various audio files, and even MIDI files (debatable).

In this episode of Nostalgia Nerd we'll listen and compare how PC Speaker WAVE files sound compare to Soundblaster driven counterparts (it's not great). Also, we take a look at a few games and the software innovations which allowed some impressive use of the PC Speaker, in a bid to keep up with the Friends and Atari STs of the rapidly moving world.


(by: Nostalgia Nerd)