vwestlife
Veteran Member
This seems to be a forgotten sound card in the history of PC audio:
The "3 voice synthesizer plus noise generator" sounds an awful lot like our old friend, the IBM PCjr / Tandy 1000 sound system... and the microphone connector and joystick port implies that it has the functions of the Tandy DAC audio, too.
The "Sound Cards That Time Forgot" thread says "IBM PS/1 Audio/Joystick Card: This is not an ISA card, but connected to a special connector on the early IBM PS/1 systems. It is capable of three-voice music (like a Tandy 1000?) and digitized sounds. More than that is unknown. It also a gameport and a midi port."
I found this video on YouTube, and indeed, the PS/1 audio card sounds identical to PCjr / Tandy 1000 sound on Silpheed, plus DAC audio for the digitized speech:
In addition to having DOS in ROM, it sure looks like IBM was trying to copy Tandy, and also to keep the best feature of their own PCjr!
IBM PS/1 press release said:AUDIO CARD DESCRIPTION:
The Audio card, which fits into the system unit, includes the following:
· 3 voice synthesizer plus noise generator
· Joystick connector for one Joystick
· Microphone connector
· MIDI interface connector
The MIDI cable, provided with the Audio card and Joystick option, splits the single audio card midi connector into the industry standard MIDI in/out/through.
Since this card has been designed exclusively for the IBM Personal System/1 Computer, applications wanting to take advantage of all its capabilities have to be written specifically for the IBM PS/1 Computer.
MIDI applications available today in the market will not run on an IBM PS/1 Computer unless re-written to the IBM PS/1 hardware interface (device driver).
The "3 voice synthesizer plus noise generator" sounds an awful lot like our old friend, the IBM PCjr / Tandy 1000 sound system... and the microphone connector and joystick port implies that it has the functions of the Tandy DAC audio, too.
The "Sound Cards That Time Forgot" thread says "IBM PS/1 Audio/Joystick Card: This is not an ISA card, but connected to a special connector on the early IBM PS/1 systems. It is capable of three-voice music (like a Tandy 1000?) and digitized sounds. More than that is unknown. It also a gameport and a midi port."
I found this video on YouTube, and indeed, the PS/1 audio card sounds identical to PCjr / Tandy 1000 sound on Silpheed, plus DAC audio for the digitized speech:
In addition to having DOS in ROM, it sure looks like IBM was trying to copy Tandy, and also to keep the best feature of their own PCjr!