Connect PC Speaker from motherboard to sound card for better sound in old DOS games

[@UncommonKnowledge587]

I thought it would be complex to make a cable but you showed it and it's really easy. Cool feature to show!

[@chadmasta5]

I know other people have said it since you started doing this, but I like that you're comfortable showing your face in videos more. It makes them feel more personal to see the person I've heard so much over the years.

[@philscomputerlab]

Awesome!

[@SeeJayPlayGames]

@@philscomputerlab ​at first I thought you didn't show your face because you had, as some would put it, "a face for radio"... now that we've seen your face, we know that to NOT be the case.👍🏼🙂 Now if we could only get 8-Bit "no-Show"-and-Tell and ETA Prime to stop doing the talking hands videos and finally let us see their faces... yeah, good luck with that.

[@JFinnerud]

I did he opposite back in the day, mounting two PC speakers in a large desktop cabinet and connecting it to the SB-Pro's line out. Worked like a charm and even left a few Amiga users puzzled.

[@yopachi]

I was about to post "now do it in reverse" 😅 I'm glad somebody did

[@worroSfOretsevraH]

Yes, we need more DOS sound/soundcard videos. :)

[@philscomputerlab]

Noted!

[@JE-wd4lu]

Another good example where this is quite useful is for the early Access Software games that utilised their RealSound technology. I recall that games like Mean Streets, Countdown and Crime Wave benefited greatly in terms of sound quality by rerouting the speaker sound through the sound card.

[@philscomputerlab]

Makes me want to test them. I remember some sort of shooter game that had digital speech. I could never quite make out what it said. Also some BIOS from Asus could speak, like errors at Post.

[@NaoPb]

World Class Leaderboard (Golf) is another one. I remember my cat trying to see if there was a bird in the computer, due to the bird sounds on the opening screen. And when I'd press F2 I'd get a story about battling space pirates. Quite odd. Maybe I should upload my version sometime haha.

[@djpirtu2]

When I was a teenager I made a cable from my 386SX/33 motherboard speaker-output to my ministereo line-in. I didn't have any sound card at that time but some games could output digitized sound through PC-speaker. Didn't take very long when I build myself a Covox.

[@rodhester2166]

I remember messing around with all of the in and outs of that card .. my favorite sound card of all time

[@JohnSmith-iu8cj]

Maniac mansion sound was really cool, never heard that before 😂

[@philscomputerlab]

A great game!

[@lordwiadro83]

The good thing is that you can control the PC speaker volume. On a different note, it is not possible to get a case like yours, today they are all black inside and outside. What a horrible time we live in.

[@GYTCommnts]

Awesome, Phil! Thank you! We can appreciate nowadays in some games and music, the great work of making something cool with what was available back then. In fact, I like in some specific games the PC speaker sound more that the alternatives in the sound configuration.

[@mpettengill1981]

I did this connection on one of my machines, connecting into a Vibra 16. It's nice to have for no other reason than being able to adjust the volume on the PC speaker effects. I find that on most older computers that have the 2.5" internal speaker the output is just too loud for my taste. Having a way to do a quick volume adjust on my amplified speakers is awesome. One problem I do have on this machine is that it's impossible go get the PC speaker and adlib/sound blaster sounds level to 'match' in the software mixer. So the PC speaker is either very loud or almost inaudible relative to the adlib music on games that split the audio in that way - but this may be a unique situation on my particular combination of hardware.

[@NaoPb]

I totally forgot about this option! Thanks for the reminder and the guide for making the cables. Very usefull! Great quality video once again.

[@philscomputerlab]

Any time!

[@UncleAwesomeRetro]

The sound of the pc speaker is charming and nostalgic :)

[@nooboard]

Comming from a Atari ST I was always a bit distracted why my friends PC had such bad sound. Today I know he had no soundcard, just the beepy speaker 😀

[@UncleAwesomeRetro]

@@nooboard yeah, I had no sound card at first on my first pc also 😄 That's why I find it charming today I guess, even if I thought it sucked back then compared to my brothers Amiga.

[@mesterak]

Happy Friday Phil! Thanks for sharing this neat tip 👍

[@yeoldestuff]

In fact, you could connect the PC Speaker output to a CD or line input, but you would need a capacitor to block the DC component and an ~100 Ohm resistor to bring down the level of the signal

[@philscomputerlab]

Might be worth testing this and doing a video...

[@IbilisSLZ]

@@philscomputerlab I'm not sure if voltage divider made out of two resistors wouldn't be better solution (+capacitor for DC blocking). As PC Speaker probably uses 5V (and CD uses probably line level audio - circa 1Vpeak-peak so 470 Ohm between "Speaker Power" and "center point" and 100 Ohm between "center pont" and "Speaker ground" (makred as "Speaker" in your mobo's manual), from "center point" positive side of electrolytic capacitor (4.7µF should give enough bandwidth , even better would be two 10µF capacitors connected together with their negative legs - it would give unidirectional polarized capacitor, which should be more reliable solution), negative side of capacitor (or second positive side of 2x10µF configuration) should be connecterd to CD_IN positive. Though, because CD is stereo it should also be connected to both positives (and „speaker ground” to both grounds).

[@TimVerweij]

@@philscomputerlab I would be very interested in a video about this topic. There is a topic on vogons about this ("PC Speaker with Soundcards that Don't Have Headers") but I haven't attempted this yet.

[@D00Dable]

Golden Axe actually has one of the best PC speaker soundtracks I've ever heard. The game will automatically play music through the speaker if it doesn't find other drivers. Maybe you could try it out and record some gritty music.

[@tomexplodes]

Hey! Thanks so much for this! I bought the stuff through your links. I've been wondering about this since I built my Pentium 90 DOS machine. What a cool thing to be able to do!

[@32KOFDATA]

Always wondered why sound cards had PC SPK input. Now I realise that indeed many games had some decent tunes coming through the PC speaker like intro from Bad Cat or Crime Wave

[@ThomasPerl4]

I like the change from "Hey Guys" to "Hey how are 'ya?"

[@dycedargselderbrother5353]

0:20 "older slot 1 motherboard [with] the front panel connector" Yet it is almost exactly the same today, haha. Back in the day it infuriated me that virtually all PC speakers were 4-pin while all sound card leads were 2-pin. What were they thinking? I think maybe Compaq, Dell, IBM, or some other OEM may have used 2-pin speakers, but it was not standard. On the other hand, you could get these parts and kits from any of the 8,000 Radio Shacks around, though getting the information on what to do was a lot harder back then. I think I ended up scavenging a two pin connector from somewhere and using a butter knife or screwdriver to get the leads out.

[@nooboard]

4 Pin is "standard" since IBM 5150 (internet said). And if the sound card vendors would have put a 4 to 4 pin cable into a box which can also connect to a CD header that could have caused problems by user error. ;-) Just a quess. It also is cheaper to add a 2 pin header. I also saw mainboards which had only a 2 pin connector.

[@appwraith]

No joke, back in the day as a kid, I thought that if I connect the PC speaker in the case to that pin on my Sound Blaster, the PC speaker noises would be nicer :D And, I was puzzled why it wasn't working :D

[@Super123456789Kuba]

That is super interesting, since I only used the PC Speaker on the cases and nothing else.

[@SolSeal]

Lol. I played a lot of games this way. My brother’s IBM midtower pc with the internal speaker. Good times. 😊

[@moofree]

You're doing God's work, since God speaks with only a single voice.

[@mxbunnycatter]

Wow.... This solves a 25-year long thing I wondered about. Great to see you don't actually connect the speaker to it; but wire it to it instead 😅

[@jacquesb5248]

i played all those. also build a parallel sound adapter , was fun times

[@linuxgeex]

I did this on my Cyrix PR120+ system in the late 90's and I soldered a capacitor across it to soften the digital crunch of the pc speaker square wave drive signal. I think I used a 2.2uf cap.

[@cheater00]

you can turn the pc speaker "signal" into a normal audio signal using a transistor, some resistors, and a capacitor. i don't have a good circuit for that, but i know it's possible. maybe you'd like to make a video about DIYing that as it's a very good case for learning easily how transistors work and what they're about. that would be fun to watch!

[@kunka592]

From the schematics I've seen and cables I built, I think just a capacitor and a resistor is enough for 5v PC Speaker to line audio conversion. Not sure if you need a transistor anywhere.

[@cheater00]

@@kunka592 might work too.

[@philscomputerlab]

I'll look into it.

[@joebruno2675]

What about using a Speaker to Line Level Output Converter from like Parts Express?

[@stephanemignot100]

That's why 95% of the games I play have MT-32 support! You PC speaker for the "voice" in Silpheed though.

[@retroboby007]

Very interesting video. This is usefull for me. The original PC speaker is too loud. With this cable I can control the volume. That is so cool.

[@Maciej.R.]

Golden Axe. Best old game.

[@k9cj5]

I didnt know this was a thing. This sounds like an awesome project. Just in time to as I Just got my AWE64 CT4520 working. If anyone has the same card, its located on the top right near the blue line in connector. Jumper is labeled as CN08 pretty much the same spot as on the gold. One day Ill get my hands on a AWE64 gold. One day. Thanks Phil!

[@linoxyard]

You can also build a cable to connect the pc speaker to the line in with a bunch of passive components

[@rayek4eq]

One recommendation is to add some kind of multi-effect guitar pedal to the chain, PC speaker sounds start to sound really good with just a little bit of reverb and chorus. Found this out when I didn't have a set of speakers for my DOS PC and used a Roland MicroCube. I recommend a Zoom multieffects pedal, like MS-70CDR or MS-50G, very basic pedals with lots of options and the footswitch lets you bypass for when you're playing AdLib/SB sounds and don't want effects. Also, there's something to be said for hearing computer whir and having a game run quietly with just SFX. Commander Keen 1-6 were enjoyed a lot by me in the dark on PC speaker, something eerie about that experience. Highly recommended, especially if you played these games in the past and modern implementations don't give you enough nostalgia. But yeah, try a multi-effect that has preset saving, tune in a few effects for PC speaker, and if you want, AdLib/Soundblaster. Makes a massive difference.

[@trash_miner]

Thats a really neat idea, i have one

[@kunka592]

My Yamaha Audician 32+ cards don't have this connector, so I added pin headers to the internal "aux" input solder points, made a cable using a capacitor and a resistor (schematics found online) and connected the PC speaker that way. Note that you can also hook it up to the CD audio input using this special cable, but then you won't have the CD audio input available for the CD.

[@philscomputerlab]

Well done.

[@rojovision]

I did this with my SB Pro 2.0 and an old Gateway 4DX-33, but every keyboard stroke makes an audible click through the speakers. The only way I've found to turn it off is to entirely disable the PC speaker in the BIOS, which unfortunately defeats the purpose. To that end, I'd be really interested to see a cable that routes the PC speaker from the motherboard to the line in port of a sound card via your standard 3.5mm jack. I could see a particular use for capturing footage for very old games in native environments that even a 386 or 286 is too fast for, or from a PC that doesn't have a sound card installed at all.

[@TheSynrgy1987]

This is cool especially for motherboards with weak speaker output, but also for games that mix pc speaker sounds and adlib /whatever else iirc Overkill uses pc speaker and midi or adlib which is a cool vertical scrolling space shooter.

[@philscomputerlab]

Will test that game.

[@thesmokingcap]

So handy to have to capture game footage or if you're like me with flatmates, you can have headphones on while playing games

[@ozzyp97]

This may be convenient, but I don't think it works all that well with most sound cards. The thing about those old PC speakers is that the speaker itself acts like a low pass filter, which makes the sound a lot less harsh and annoying. Sound cards don't usually match this behaviour, meaning you don't really get the sound the developer expected you to get. It's probably not a huge deal for the occasional sound effect, but some crafty developers went much further than this with suprisingly good music and even PCM. If you actually want to know how good a PC speaker can sound, you kinda need a real one.

[@philscomputerlab]

I experienced all sorts of real PCs back in the day and PC speaker option always sounded very basic. Most annoying was the loud volume and no option to control it. Making late night gaming impossible.

[@Leeki85]

@@philscomputerlab PC Speaker can operate in two modes. First is 1-channel square wave generator. You simply set frequency and ON/OFF status. That way you can play simple tunes with very low CPU usage interrupting normal code execution only when you need to play next note. Simple simulated polyphony is also possible as seen in demoscene like recent Area 5150. Second mode is to use PC Speaker the same way ZX Spectrum used. As a simplest ON/OFF switch, where you need to do everything on CPU. Physical speaker took 60 ms to change it's full position. By careful timing it was possible to reproduce any type of wave form. For example there was RealSound a patented technology to reproduce somewhat high quality PCM samples on PC Speaker. Later other similar techniques were created with quite a few games having PCM sound and music on PC Speaker, but they supported Sound Blaster anyway. Playing PC Speaker through a sound card is a good thing, but it should be noted that in edge cases it will sound a bit different.

[@ozzyp97]

@@Leeki85 PCM is one of the things that particularly benefits from the LPF effect of traditional PC speakers. Sample playback is implemented via PWM, which requires a carrier frequency. With sound cards you tend to hear that carrier as a loud noise on top of the sample, whereas a real speaker will significantly dampen it.

[@ianhanschen]

Doing a lot of PCI bus hackery recently, I implemented something that snoops writes to the PIT, implements the PIT in an FPGA , and lets me handle the sound output however I want (right now: to a PC speaker attached to the FPGA PCI card). Made me realize, this is possible, and then digging deeper, it seemed like, some ISA sound cards (maybe an Aztec?) do this to output PC speaker sound themselves - without needing the PC speaker output from the motherboard passed through.

[@philscomputerlab]

That's how the Pro Audio Spectrum did it. It was an ISA card.

[@ianhanschen]

@@philscomputerlab ah thanks. Great video as always BTW!

[@sly_botts1189]

Perfect. Thanks Phil.

[@RootiferasRetroGameplay]

Thanks! This was very helpful. Turns out AWE64 has the PC speaker pins, I remember seeing them before but I thought they were output for some reason, not input.

[@shaunclarke94]

I did this back on the day too, but one time got the polarity wrong and the cable literally went up in smoke. That was fun!

[@SlyNine]

I don't think that should happen due to polarity. Sounds would just be out of phase, which would just sound funny with two speakers. You'd get raking artifacts and sound cancelation. But since both speakers world be out of phase it shouldn't matter.

[@rtomas82]

I always liked more if the SB had an output header instead so that it could sound via the internal speaker. It would be very convenient for creating a small cable/peripheral free retro pc

[@jeckjeck6943]

Hello. You can buy usb powered speakers. they are cheap and you can powered them with an usb port or the +5V. Just disassemble them in order to integrate them as you want in you build.

[@Roxor128]

I think I got a cable for the job with my SB16ASP back in the day. Never actually used it, though. Maybe I should have? Would have been able to avoid disabling the sound effects for a few games when Mum wanted to sleep. Ah, well, I use DOSBox now, so it's all through headphones.

[@InfiniteClouds]

I actually tried adding one of those fat old school speakers to my time machine specifically because I prefer the meatier sound they provide in OLD machines (like my Tandy 1000) versus routing through speakers like in this video. As you mentioned, though, acoustics are a big deal. You could barely hear it in my 90s Dell case!! My Tandy 1000TL actually has a dial on the front of the case the can control the PC speaker volume - of course this also does 3voice for those early Sierra games as well. I'm not sure it can run golden axe though even with a "Make it 486" upgrade.

[@Synthematix]

Yes and if you make your own cable you need to use shielded cable and fit a ferrite to the cable

[@Pickle136]

another option is the pro audio spectrum which used software to detect the pc speaker so no cable needed

[@philscomputerlab]

Ahh yes!

[@techdistractions]

Some sound cards can use the ISA signalling to sniff out PC Speaker also. The PAS16 also has the ability to filter “realsound” games like WC Leaderboard golf and enhance the quality.

[@overdriver99]

oh yeah.. I totally forgot about PAS16 which I owned very very long time ago. It had that function.

[@Leeki85]

A lot of Windows XP/Vista era PCs will play PC Speaker sounds through integrated sound card. All laptops and at least some desktop motherboards even though they won't support Sound Blaster or any other DOS era sound device. So if for some reason there's a need to record real PC Speaker output, it can be done on such PCs. We all have such hardware anyway and if not it's super cheap, like any old thin client.

[@philscomputerlab]

Some thin clients also

[@redavatar]

It's cool to hear how it sounds but I doubt I'd ever use this - one of my biggest "annoyances" with DOSBOX was how the PC speaker didn't sound authentic. I mean, for some this might be a good sound since it's less shrill for some games but if you have a good case & PC speaker, it can sound amazing.

[@rBennich]

Re-routed pc speaker sound in all honor, but there's something nostalgic about hearing these blip blop sounds though a shitty case speaker. The ability to swich between the two options would be great, and probably not that hard to do.

[@matthewday7565]

You could probably use some electronics (are you there, Necroware) to convert PC SPK to line in or CD in, it would need level conversion to be 0v referenced and some attenuation, so probably RC rather than active... series capacitor to take out the DC component, resistive divider to reduce the level, and maybe some parallel C to take the sharp edges off and smooth the PWM

[@MarcoGPUtuber]

It's music to my ears!

[@jasper8291]

Show dem gravis cards and cound sards

[@3dfxvoodoocards6]

Interesting, like!

[@SlyNine]

I've always wanted to hear the post at 80 Db

[@philscomputerlab]

To hear the post beep, go with a sound blaster pro as it doesn't need drivers to initialise.

[@overdriver99]

Thanks for info!!! I love Ultima 6 PC which uses native PC speaker for sound effect, but uses MIDI for background music. When I played long time ago.. I had to play on PC laptop so I have fond memory of PC speakers.. even with Monkey island PC speaker LOL! now I will try to use this PC speaker input. thanks for making cable idea! I didn't know you can make one.

[@dabombinablemi6188]

It certainly made a big difference in the PC's that I've used both my Live Value! and Awe64 Value in (mainly in Duke Nukem E1-3, Crystal Caves and Keen 1). Problem is that none of my other PCI or ISA soundcards have the ability to passthrough the PC speaker - and sound quality in DOS games has priority so I rarely use the Awe64 - at least outside of it's original PC.

[@philscomputerlab]

I've seen the header on some ESS cards. The chips itself have PC speaker inputs as per data sheet.

[@dabombinablemi6188]

@@philscomputerlab I haven't been lucky enough to find a reasonably priced AudioDrive that is fully featured. I was ecstatic to only pay $48 AUD to get a "for parts/untested" card with the IDE header (which I actually use for my 1997 Matshita CD-ROM).

[@dabombinablemi6188]

@@philscomputerlab I might be mistaken however - there is an unlabeled 4 pin header towards the top and back of the card, which is labelled J6 with pin 1 marked, and the traces go to 3 resistors which then lead towards the top left of the 1868F with 2 going through capacitors.

[@philscomputerlab]

@@dabombinablemi6188 The ESS chips are well documented so it's easy to follow the traces and fi d out what's what.

[@weepingscorpion8739]

@@dabombinablemi6188Interesting. I have two 1868Fs myself. I will need to check that out. Or did you manage to get it to work?

[@ricardobarros1090]

Hi Phil !!!! How are you? I have Sound Blaster Live! X-Gamer CT4670, Is possible to connect ???

[@michaelluong6484]

Phil Friday!

[@nm0490]

You should also demonstrate with Xenon 2 Megablast 🙂

[@philscomputerlab]

I actually played that game, but footage didn't make it into the video.

[@matthewday7565]

I suppose the mixed idea dates back to Adlib, which was FM sound but no digital

[@philscomputerlab]

I'm curious how many other games did this.

[@davkdavk]

I've never thought of that. cool as

[@bradsmith8977]

Hey don't forget about this game that really took a vantage of the pc speaker was Mean Streets!!!!!

[@philscomputerlab]

Will check it out, never heard of it...

[@bradsmith8977]

@@philscomputerlab That great I had copy of the game before the music and other things I guess you say the pc speaker to the limit in that game!!!!

[@weepingscorpion8739]

You know, I have been wondering if this was possible for a long time. I bought a Tandy ISA card and noticed it also had PC speaker and would mix like the Tandy 1000 did. I was wondering if you would use the internal AUX plug but it's very good that this video came out to show not only that it's possible but also how to do it. And I do happen to own a AWE64 Gold so that's even better. Now games like Ultima VI and Planet X3 can be played and all souunds come from the same place. So, thanks for this video. I will be looking to do this on as many of my systems as possible.

[@andiarrohnds5163]

great video but could you show us a comparison of regular pc speaker and the sound card speaker? also would like to hear the difference between a full sized pc speaker and the smaller beeper speaker. thank you

[@GuilleIguini]

I thought that with that connection you could output sound to a speaker to listen to music, for example, that the amplified audio would come out.

[@wongkinchung9985]

Can I do the reverse and use the internal speaker for audio playback? I know some computers from Dell/Compaq/HP/Lenovo do that, but they seems to have everything onboard instead of using cables

[@awhooley]

great video phil! sadly my soundcard does not have a pc speaker header. If i were to use resistors over the cable, would it be ok to use cd in instead?

[@asakopako86]

Thank you Phil!! That is great. I just implemented it on my sound blaster awe64 ct4520. What is the other VISA card seen in the video? What do you use it for? is it for sound? Best regards

[@philscomputerlab]

It's a MIDI adapter for MT-32 and Sound Canvas.

[@dabombinablemi6188]

For the life of me I can't find the PC speaker input listed in the datasheet for the 1868f, however the Solo-1 has it listed as being pin 54, so I might just track down a couple of original Solo-1 cards for that very feature - so far the 1e has matched the compatibility of it (after tweaking the easy DOS menu to add the soundcard's necessary lines) and the Awe64 Value (CT4520 - I use a salvaged socketed power LED cable for the PC speaker). Since the Solo-1e was originally intended to be a laptop chip, it mainly seems to be used on recently manufactured cards which are always barebones compared to even early OEM ESS cards. And mine doesn't have a trace leading from pin 54 to one of the 4 pin headers.

[@dabombinablemi6188]

Edit: The 1868 never had the PC speaker input. However the 1869 does. For the 1869 it's pin 53 which is also used for "Modem interrupt request active-high input." or "MMIRQ". MMIRQ/pin 54 on the 1868 is only used for that single function.

[@andiarrohnds5163]

oh man this is golden

[@drzeissler]

AGI Adventures can be routed to ADLIB or even ROLAND and the sounds are best with Roland and SC55. To my ears that is best, better than using a MT32 on AGI.

[@CSIG1001]

can you recommend a PC speaker that is currently sold on ebay or a vendor? I heard Germany makes a good 4" pc speaker?

[@RETROMachines]

Nice video, thanks...

[@airmicrobe]

My original speaker from. hP Compaq business mini form factor has good PC speaker and even good with normal sound like far cry or doom 3 😁

[@computerenthusiast402]

Doesn’t that setup create unwanted noise on the sound card ?

[@philscomputerlab]

A little, so just mute the PC speaker mixer input when you don't need it. You can write a few batch files ..

[@louistournas120]

There is Golden Axe for DOS? I have Golden Axe, I think 1 and 2, on my AtGames Genesis.

[@Karreth]

I don't know, to me the PC speaker is part of the retro experience for some games. We didn't have a sound card back in the day, so many of the games only sound right in PC speaker mode.

[@bob9483]

It’s fun to be able to control the volume or use headphones but it sounds unnatural to me

[@MrAlan1828]

Trying playing Access Soft Crime Wave with Real sound and Wizball, both plays digitized ound from PC Speaker

[@TheCarlosMendonca]

This is great!! Could you make a similar video about the TAD port for modems and the DIGITAL IN port for CD drives that had the DIGITAL OUT? Would be great to see it in action, compare the CD digital to the analog, see whether there's noise etc. I guess one downside of doing this is that you lose the POST beep codes, because the sound card will only be initialized by the OS, correct? Or do sound cards route the sound to external speakers even before being initialized? Thanks.

[@philscomputerlab]

There are cards, like SB Pro, that work without initialisation. Many Thin Clients also route PC speaker through audio port.

[@philscomputerlab]

Digital CD audio is indeed cleaner. It's most useful under windows 98 with cards like Live! or Audigy. Using optical output you can have everything digital with minimal noise.

[@TheCarlosMendonca]

@@philscomputerlab I suspect that it never got used much because starting in XP (i think?), CD ripping was straight through IDE, which was much faster than 1-1 through either of the audio channels (analog or digital), correct?

[@MGRracing]

This is good to know, but I actually came here looking for a way to play sound card audio through the PC speaker 🔊 😅 . Is this possible? Could I wire a pc speaker to the front panel output on a sound card?

[@andyoldschool810]

Hey Phil thats incredible, I never heard before that this is possible! I want to do this with my Sound Blaster under Windows 98, do I have to activate this funcion somehow like you are doing it under DOS with the mixer?

[@philscomputerlab]

Yes, Windows mixer also has that option!

[@andyoldschool810]

@@philscomputerlab Oh yes, it really has! Thank you! Now I remember that option and as a kid I always wondered whats this checkbox is for, cause I couldn´t affect the speaker with it ;-) Can you give also a hint where to connect + and minus to the soundcard? I got a Sound Blaster CT4830 and my guess is, that + is connected at the pin with the triangle, but the manual and Dr. Google will give me no answer.

[@philscomputerlab]

@@andyoldschool810 Afaik it doesn't matter with the polarity. But if you want to be sure you can test GND with a multimeter!

[@damian9303]

Aren’t PC beepers more for mid-late 80s DOS games rather than early 90s onwards? Most do support PC beeper but they have a richer multimedia-sounding output when you tell it to use your sound card instead, it’s like comparing the iPhone 2G to its iTouch counterpart during 2007 same scenario.

[@thepirategamerboy12]

lol, "cound sard."

[@philscomputerlab]

😅

[@captain1334]

@@philscomputerlab 😂

[@PlanetLinuxChannel]

I picked up one of (well actually a 10-pack) those tiny little beep speakers and plugged it into the four-pin speaker header on my board, but the shrill little peep just isn’t giving me those Windows 98-POST beep vibes. Can that larger speaker you show near the beginning hook into that same (5V?) speaker header on the board? Does it provide that more substantial beep?

[@philscomputerlab]

Yes it plugs into the motherboard header. It will sound a bit more substantial. Back in the case the speaker was inside the case further adding to the sound.

[@PlanetLinuxChannel]

@@philscomputerlabThanks. What would I be looking for to get a speaker like that one you used? I’ve no idea where to start beyond “retro internal PC speaker”

[@philscomputerlab]

@@PlanetLinuxChannel Hmm I think chances are low someone sells them individually. These days the recyclers are after the magnets. Best bet would be an old case or computer...

[@PlanetLinuxChannel]

@@philscomputerlab Thanks!

[@SneakiestDuke68]

I will try it.

[@LorisPeretto]

Nice idea, I am amazed

[@dyter424]

On my Pentium PC I made up some wiring that allows me to use the otherwise useless Turbo button to switch between the internal speaker and redirection through the soundcard. Still need to make a permanent solution though, which would probably involve a small prototype board.

[@philscomputerlab]

Cool!

[@dyter424]

The sound card is an AWE64 Value (model CT4500) I bought four years ago for just 3€, works perfectly. As i'm juuust a bit crazy, the PC can also run Windows 3.11 in Win95 DOS mode, no multi-boot involved here. Seeing "Windows 95 Version 4.00.1111" inside WFW's DOS prompt is just priceless. (unfortunately the machine is not in working order at the moment, needs a full OS reinstall that doesn't date from the year 2000 lol. I might go full insane here and install XP temporarily just for the laughs)

[@r.d.7698]

Hi thanks for the video. Could it be somehow dangerous for the sound blaster? Provided the polarity is observed.

[@philscomputerlab]

As long as you use PC SPK header. Do not use CD input.

[@RCD4444]

Hey Phil what standoffs are you using? I was looking for some for my ide to sd adapter.

[@philscomputerlab]

I got a plastic standoff kit. Contains various sizes and also plastic nuts.

[@PROSTO4Tabal]

thanks for sharing

[@philscomputerlab]

Thanks for watching!

[@JohnSmith-xq1pz]

If my Audigy SE had standard audio headers I'd so be doing this, But I do have a plan. I'm keeping my eyes out for a broken vintage speaker to put a PC speaker I salvaged from a case and rig it up with a ear phone plug so I can be enjoy true PC speaker sound on DosBox

[@retro4fun358]

Hello Phil I like your videos especially of retro PC's. Can you make Videos about lagging games? Why GTA San Andreas have fps slow downs and the first deues EX game? Please I need help.

[@Mykil84]

Hey Phil, I'm fairly certain I have this hooked up right inside the PC, but I can't get it to work. Im running Windows 98se & the PC speaker option in the sound mixer doesn't let me change the volume or even mute it & in SB Lives mixer it's greyed out. When booting in Dos mode, SBEMIXER doesn't even show the PC speaker as an option. Do I need to do this on a clean install of the drivers or Windows, or will this work on an existing install? Thanks for all the videos!!!!

[@philscomputerlab]

You know what, I never tried it on the Sound Blaster Live!

[@Mykil84]

If you get the chance, can you share your results please? I've pretty much struck out searching for this anywhere, & this video is literally all I can find on this topic on youtube.

[@sch-corp]

Seems weird that the headers on the sound cards exist but the cables to make them work don't? Maybe they are something that was once available to buy but have long since disappeared from the mainstream.

[@philscomputerlab]

That's a good point, I don't recall ever seeing such a cable sold in retail! So yes, I assume that the idea was to build such a cable yourself, or maybe it was meant for OEM?

[@daddydanny5588]

Wow..whts yr mobo..

[@CinemicMagazin]

Super duper cool🎉

[@MarcoAntonio-df7sl]

I remember trying to do so back in the day, but for some reason it didn't work so I didn't try with any other computer