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The Secret of Monkey Island Shows Evolution of PC Audio
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.
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...
I hear they are almost ready to release a functional driver in a few years.
Which one was it again?
>> Standing on head makes smile of frown, but rest of face also upside down.
I had a 386/66 when I was about 12
Really? A 386/66? Well I have a 5G iPhone.
</nitpick>
I'm not an expert, but I play one on slashdot.
On a tangent, and a somewhat interesting experience I had...
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