System Beeps - a PC Speaker music album \ VOGONS

System Beeps - a PC Speaker music album

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First post, by Shiru

Posted on 2019-01-27, 18:25

Shiru Offline

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Hopefully you guys won't mind this little bit of shameless self-promotion. I believe it may reach some people here who is interested in this kind of stuff.

PC Speaker was one of earliest and most primitive sound devices of personal computers, intended to produce very basic system beeps. It is only capable to play single voice of square wave without any volume or timbre control. This album reveals some hidden potential of this little device that remained pretty much unexplored due to rapid progress in the computer technology back in the day.

Basically it is an MS-DOS program that is supposed to run at XT with CGA or better, that plays some PC Speaker music. You can download the program alongside with some in-depth info in the sb.txt file, source code and project files, or just listen to the music or watch a video with the program running on a PC.

Listen at Bandcamp: https://shiru8bit.bandcamp.com/album/system-beeps
Watch on Youtube: https://youtu.be/tUy1MEpqbvk
Download music program: http://shiru.untergrund.net/files/system_beeps.zip
Get all sources and project files: http://shiru.untergrund.net/files/system_beeps_src.zip

Reply 1 of 7, by lolo799

Posted on 2019-01-29, 22:58

lolo799 Offline

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Great stuff!

Filename: hp 200lx.mp3
File size: 1.85 MiB
Downloads: 68 downloads
File license: Fair use/fair dealing exception

Filename: ast 700n.mp3
File size: 1.97 MiB
Downloads: 69 downloads
File license: Fair use/fair dealing exception

The laptop is a 486 SX33 with a really basic beeper, and there's a graphical glitch on it for some reason.

PCMCIA Sound, Storage & Graphics

Reply 2 of 7, by Shiru

Posted on 2019-01-30, 00:57

Shiru Offline

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Thanks a lot for the photos and recordings, very interesting to see and hear it on other hardware!

I think the graphical glitch is related to some localized VGA font, maybe European or something. I also had a similar but different looking glitch with a Cyrillic font (that replaced EQ bars with a letter).

Reply 3 of 7, by lolo799

Posted on 2019-02-02, 23:58

lolo799 Offline

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Shiru wrote:
Thanks a lot for the photos and recordings, very interesting to see and hear it on other hardware!

I think the graphical glitch is related to some localized VGA font, maybe European or something. I also had a similar but different looking glitch with a Cyrillic font (that replaced EQ bars with a letter).

It's some of the best music this laptop's piezo-electric speaker has ever made, it doesn't have an onboard soundcard and usually it sounds like the following:

Filename: ast700N-cfvew211-doom.mp3
File size: 2.22 MiB
Downloads: 89 downloads
File license: Fair use/fair dealing exception

I thought loading ansi.sys would resolve the graphical glitch, but it didn't, you're not using it to display the extended characters set, right?

PCMCIA Sound, Storage & Graphics

Reply 4 of 7, by Shiru

Posted on 2019-02-03, 09:48

Shiru Offline

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I'm only using the standard CGA ANSI charset. Those frame double/single line corner symbols that is displaying wrong is pretty common in text programs. Weird that they has been replaced with letters in some font.

Reply 5 of 7, by Stiletto

Posted on 2019-02-21, 03:15

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Gave it a listen on Bandcamp. Great stuff!

You forgot to link your blog post about it, Shiru: https://habr.com/en/post/439192/

"I see a little silhouette-o of a man, Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you
do the Fandango!" - Queen

Stiletto

Reply 6 of 7, by keenmaster486

Posted on 2019-02-21, 03:23

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lolo799 wrote:
It's some of the best music this laptop's piezo-electric speaker has ever made, it doesn't have an onboard soundcard and usually it sounds like the following:

ast700N-cfvew211-doom.mp3

How is it playing DOOM music and sound if it has no onboard sound card? PCMCIA?

World's foremost 486 enjoyer.

Reply 7 of 7, by lolo799

Posted on 2019-02-21, 15:48

lolo799 Offline

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keenmaster486 wrote:
lolo799 wrote:
It's some of the best music this laptop's piezo-electric speaker has ever made, it doesn't have an onboard soundcard and usually it sounds like the following:

ast700N-cfvew211-doom.mp3

How is it playing DOOM music and sound if it has no onboard sound card? PCMCIA?

I don't want to derail Shiru's thread, but yes, it's a part of the pcmcia official specs.

PCMCIA Sound, Storage & Graphics

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