PC internal speaker's corner

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PC internal speaker tools for DOS

You will find in this section players/drivers or tricks to play common format with those players/drivers. Also included are tools to mute the PC internal speaker.

These tools will also work well in Windows 9x, provided you reboot your PC to DOS. They will not work from a Win9x DOS box.

It is easier to find good tools for the PC internal speaker under DOS. Here is what I found, if you know something better, please let me know. Thanks in advance.

WAV format

I have yet to find a program that would play any WAV file without having to give any technical arguments. And just play the file without anything else on the screen ... So here is what I found so far.

- LxVox V1.0 (20Kb) from Stefan Peichl (1998)

The good side is that that your WAV file can be of any length. The bad sides are that you can't stop the process once it is running (well I could not) and that the WAV file can be of any sampling rate (22050 Hz recommended) but must be 8 bit mono.
I have yet to find a program, working under DOS, than can modify any WAV file to match those parameters and that I would be happy with.
There is some interesting information in the documentation file of the zip file.

- WMBZZ V2.01 (14Kb) from Wojciech Migda (1996)

The good sides are that that your WAV file can be of any length and any sampling rate. You can even stop the process once it is running. The bad side is that you need to know the sample rate of the WAV file.
I have yet to find a program, working under DOS, than could tell me the sample rate of any WAV file.

- A trick to reduce your WAV file size without loosing (much) sound quality

Of course, you don't want to be dealing with double digits megabyte size files, as the windows recorder needs to load the whole file first. You would better go for 8 bit mono and 22050 Hz (or lower) sound quality. Again, you can modify any WAV file to match those parameters using the windows sound recorder.

Size of a WAV file is critical for the kind of PC we are talking about. A good way not to lose quality (we are talking for 8bit mono 22050 Hz files) is to convert your WAV file to MP3 and then convert the MP3 file back to MP3 (see tools below). Provided the source of your first original WAV file was not a MP3, you should see a significant decrease in size but none in term of quality.

MP3 format

We do have one MP3 player and it is still possible to convert your MP3 files to a WAV format.

- DSS V3.2 (242Kb) from Serguey Sapelin (1998)

It plays MP3 and of course WAV files too. Not bad.

- Convert MP3 to WAV converter using Lame Encoder (600Kb) from Mike Cheng and Mark Taylor (2002)

Works both ways MP3 to WAV or WAV to MP3. Works under Windows 9x or plain DOS.
Probably the best freeware MP3 codec.

CD format

There is no CD players, that I know of, that would play directly for the PC speaker under DOS
The trick is, once again, to convert your CD tracks to the WAV format.

- Convert CDA to WAV converter using CD2WAV (290Kb) from Rasmus J.P. Allenheim (1998)

Works under Windows 9x or plain DOS. Read the documentation file.

MIDI format

- Midiplay (25Kb) MIDI player for PC speaker from James Allwright (1997)

This is player makes you listen to only one channel of a MIDI file. Look at the help document in the ZIP file.

- Convert MIDI to WAV using Modplug Tracker from Olivier Lapicque (1997-2002)

I do it (with Modplug Tracker version 1.12) on a PC 486-75 with 8Mb memory, no sound card and a 640*480 screen resolution. Make sure the sound level in Modplug Tracker is to the maximum.

MOD formats (IT, MOD, S3M, XM, ...)

They are a lot of players for this format working under DOS. You can also still convert your MOD files to the WAV format. You can use Modplug Tracker (see MIDI section above).
My criteria of choice were : type of format supported, memory usage, ability to run other programs while listening to music, sound quality, playlist support. The choice is not that easy.

- GLX v2.12 (90Kb) from Carlo Vogelsang and team (1994)

It is great. I can have music, while using my favourite (small) text editor...

Turning the PC speaker off

- HUSH 4.01 (16Kb) from Foley Hi-Tech Systems (1994).

Well it does the job (eliminate a majority of the sounds generated by the PC's internal speaker), but is shareware.

Volume adjustment for the PC speaker

Not found yet. If you don't mind a bit of electronics, you can try that link ...

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