Re: Hearsay 1000 for IBM PC - a missing piece of PC sound history from mid-eighties

Posted on 2020-12-16, 05:36

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by Agrajag27

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I designed that thing back in the 1980s. Any chance you'd be open to sharing who you are for the future record? I remember having Hearsay 1000 in my QA shop, and we did test it with a number of products early on. I also wrote about it in several publications back then (like Computer Gaming World). …

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Re: Hearsay 1000 for IBM PC - a missing piece of PC sound history from mid-eighties

Posted on 2020-02-06, 22:27

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by Agrajag27

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Well, I don't recall anyone from the company by name, but likely spoke to someone there by phone at some point. They likely called to get our address to ship us the boards. If it was 1987 then that was THE window really. Martin Prevel was, in my very biased opinion, the smartest of that early bunch …

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Re: Hearsay 1000 for IBM PC - a missing piece of PC sound history from mid-eighties

Posted on 2020-02-06, 21:21

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by Agrajag27

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Okay, I started to type one thing and then clicked the video link you posted on the Echo PC+. I was pretty sure I hadn't ever heard of that thing until I looked at the video and the memory of it came fully back. I actually did have one of those, but it was likely sent to me by Street Electronics. No …

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Re: Hearsay 1000 for IBM PC - a missing piece of PC sound history from mid-eighties

Posted on 2020-02-06, 19:38

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by Agrajag27

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Sierra was pretty much a known entity by this point. What wasn't all that clear was the whole "On-Line" part of their name. No one knew what to do with that. Almost no one used that part of their name. The next screen is the telling bit. King's Quest II? By that point EVERYONE knew who Sierra was.

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Re: Hearsay 1000 for IBM PC - a missing piece of PC sound history from mid-eighties

Posted on 2020-02-04, 18:00

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by Agrajag27

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Speaking of business, I have a question that you are perhaps the perfect person to ask: why is that, that some sound cards succeeded on the market, and some failed miserably and disappeared into the void so quickly? Hearsay 1000 for PC is an example, but there were so many sound cards in 80s-90s …

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Re: Hearsay 1000 for IBM PC - a missing piece of PC sound history from mid-eighties

Posted on 2020-02-04, 05:38

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by Agrajag27

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

bristlehog wrote on 2020-02-04, 05:29: I think someone watched your interview and mistook quality assurance for quality insurance... Errare humanum est! Well, in a strange way we were an insurance company for our clients. heheheh. Without us there'd have been a lot worse releases going out to the …

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Re: Hearsay 1000 for IBM PC - a missing piece of PC sound history from mid-eighties

Posted on 2020-02-04, 04:54

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by Agrajag27

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Okay, I have not posted on here in a LONG time (since 2009 it appears). This is Rich Heimlich. One of Vogon's users tracked me down on Facebook Messenger (a user named Carlos) to let me know this discussion was going on. I'm not sure, after all the battles of the 80s and 90s why anyone would have …

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Re: Simple Refresher Questions on Sound.

Posted on 2009-10-11, 15:49

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by Agrajag27

in DOSBox General

in DOSBox General

I still have a myriad of Wave Blaster-type devices. Pity that header is no longer supported. I suspect there's probably a way to build a box that would function as a MIDI device but that's a bit beyond my scope.

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Re: Simple Refresher Questions on Sound.

Posted on 2009-10-11, 15:43

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by Agrajag27

in DOSBox General

in DOSBox General

Yes, I realize that. However, that means you need a MIDI port. I still have an MT-32 floating around here somewhere. I was speaking more about my MPU-401AT that still in the closet and the Sound Canvas.

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Re: Simple Refresher Questions on Sound.

Posted on 2009-10-11, 15:07

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by Agrajag27

in DOSBox General

in DOSBox General

Thanks. I actually did mean emulation of MIDI devices as I don't think I'm going to bother with installing one. All mine are ISA solutions and without an ISA slot I'm pretty out of luck.

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Simple Refresher Questions on Sound.

Posted on 2009-10-11, 04:48

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by Agrajag27

in DOSBox General

in DOSBox General

I'm enjoying the current DOSBox quite a bit and spreading the word to everyone. In the past years I've had trouble but current hardware and updates to the code have made for beautiful results. Thank you. 1. In Railroad Tycoon Deluxe and Master of Orion I have both of their hardware setups set to …

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Re: Perfect ISA soundcard, in theory

Posted on 2009-09-15, 23:03

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by Agrajag27

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

The complete lack of any filtering for starters. It was one hell of a noisy card. On the book, you have NO idea how hard it was to get the info in it that was in there for programming. Sim (the CEO) outright refused to allow ANY programming info in there at all feeling that it would negatively …

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Re: Perfect ISA soundcard, in theory

Posted on 2009-09-15, 21:52

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by Agrajag27

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Hey, don't get me wrong. I wrote the book and people think that means I was a big fan. I was just a capitalist. It's the only book that made sense to write from a remuneration standpoint. I soured towards them starting with Sound Blaster 16.

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Re: Perfect ISA soundcard, in theory

Posted on 2009-09-15, 21:18

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by Agrajag27

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Sorry, I missed you mentioning the emulation part. It did really lose ground and was really getting down to being useful in a few key FPS shooters. For those of us that play those it was a must. Now that they're going away it goes back to quality again. Sadly, it goes back to it now that few care.

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Re: Perfect ISA soundcard, in theory

Posted on 2009-09-15, 17:03

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by Agrajag27

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

The Xonar series are excellent cards but it's not EAX compliant on anything beyond EAX 2.0. What they've done beyond 2.0 is sort of similar to what Alchemy does. They're essentially emulating EAX and the results are very hit-and-miss. We tested this out heavily not that long ago when doing an audio …

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Re: Perfect ISA soundcard, in theory

Posted on 2009-09-07, 21:25

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by Agrajag27

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Wow, I never expected you to show up, it is an honour! I look forward to you spilling some beans Wink. Even though ISA soundcards are no longer marketing, as in the time you were writing about them, but are now mostly surplus garbage with a certain nostalgia. Thanks! Glad to find a place where …

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Re: Perfect ISA soundcard, in theory

Posted on 2009-09-07, 16:23

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by Agrajag27

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Frankly I'm a bit surprised that in 2009 we still haven't found the Valhalla of emulation yet. The digital end is pretty straight-forward and emulating an AdLib one would think would be quite possible. So I guess my question is, is it that the emulation is that difficult or is it that not enough …

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Re: Perfect ISA soundcard, in theory

Posted on 2009-09-07, 15:17

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by Agrajag27

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

It seems the main goal here is the best DOS-based card for legacy game play. In that arena the toughest thing, of course, if finding a machine that even has an ISA slot or keeping an older setup going. For current cards, like the rest of the industry, I've gotten away from it a bit. X-Fi solutions …

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Re: Perfect ISA soundcard, in theory

Posted on 2009-09-07, 05:14

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by Agrajag27

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

(from Rich Heimlich) WOW, I must say I wish I saw this a lot sooner when you guys were still discussing this. A friend pointed me to this thread. Thanks for the kind words and MANY thanks for the last patch set overview I did as I actually had lost it and meant to track it down. Now I have it again. …

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