RealSound is a

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A ...

ed (US US5054086 A) technology for the PC created by Steve Witzel of Access Software during the late 1980s. RealSound enables 6-bit digitized

pulse-code modulation Pulse-code modulation (PCM) is a method used to digitally represent sampled analog signals. It is the standard form of digital audio in computers, compact discs, digital telephony and other digital audio applications. In a PCM Stream (comp ...

(PCM)-audio playback on the

PC speaker A PC speaker is a loudspeaker built into some IBM PC compatible computers. The first IBM Personal Computer, model 5150, employed a standard 2.25 inch magnetic driven (dynamic) speaker. More recent computers use a tiny moving-iron or pie ...

by means of pulse-width modulation (PWM) drive, allowing software control of the loud speaker's amplitude of displacement. The first

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...

s to use it were '' World Class Leader Board'' and '' Echelon'', both released in

1988 File:1988 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The oil platform Piper Alpha explodes and collapses in the North Sea, killing 165 workers; The USS Vincennes (CG-49) mistakenly shoots down Iran Air Flight 655; Australia celebrates its Bicenten ...

. At the time of release,

sound card A sound card (also known as an audio card) is an internal expansion card that provides input and output of audio signals to and from a computer under the control of computer programs. The term ''sound card'' is also applied to external audio ...

s were very expensive and RealSound allowed players to hear lifelike sounds and speech with no additional sound hardware, just the standard PC speaker. RealSound was an impressive enough technology that a few other PC video game developers, like

Legend Entertainment Legend Entertainment Company was an American developer and publisher of computer games, best known for creating adventure titles throughout the 1990s. The company was founded by Bob Bates and Mike Verdu, both veterans of the interactive ficti ...

, licensed it for use in their own games. However, as the early 1990s progressed, sound card prices dropped to the point that they eventually became a baseline requirement for gaming PC-audio, leaving RealSound obsolete as it no longer filled a niche in the market.

Examples of games using RealSound

* Access Software: ** '' World Class Leader Board'' (1988)PC Mag – Google Livros
/ref> ** '' Echelon'' (1988) ** ''

Mean Streets ''Mean Streets'' is a 1973 American crime film directed by Martin Scorsese and co-written by Scorsese and Mardik Martin. The film stars Harvey Keitel and Robert De Niro. It was released by Warner Bros. on October 2, 1973. De Niro won the National ...

'' (1989) ** ''

Countdown A countdown is a sequence of backward counting to indicate the time remaining before an event is scheduled to occur. NASA commonly employs the terms "L-minus" and "T-minus" during the preparation for and anticipation of a rocket launch, and eve ...

'' (1990) ** '' Crime Wave'' (1990) ** '' Links'' (1990) ** '' Martian Memorandum'' (1991) ** '' Amazon: Guardians of Eden'' (1992) * Legend Entertainment: **''

Spellcasting 101 ''Spellcasting 101: Sorcerers Get All the Girls'' is a 1990 adventure game. It was the first installment of the '' Spellcasting'' series created by Steve Meretzky during his time at Legend Entertainment. All three games in the series tell the s ...

'' (1990) ** '' Spellcasting 201'' (1991) **'' Timequest'' (1991) **'' Spellcasting 301'' (1992) **''

Companions of Xanth ''Companions of Xanth'' is an adventure game published in 1993 by Legend Entertainment. Gameplay The game is based on Piers Anthony's ''Xanth'' novels and loosely follows the plot of his 1993 novel '' Demons Don't Dream'', in which a young man u ...

'' (1993)

References

{{Legend Entertainment Sound production technology Obsolete technologies

Examples of games using RealSound

See also

References