Covox Speech Thing SPU
Hardware entity
An extremely primitive & cheap dongle that plugged into a parallel port to provide 8-bit DAC digital sound output that was superior to the PC speaker.
20
games
1platform
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Despite being composed of fewer than 25 cheap parts (mainly 18 resistors) available at any electronics store, it retailed between $70-$80 to be slightly cheaper than decent sound cards available at the time.
Sound had to be completely generated through the CPU so quality was limited to CPU speed and how much bandwidth the developer wanted to spend on sound and/or music. Duke3D used up to 44KHz and 8 voices of music, sound, and speech.
Many versions, including the original, has a pass-through port so a printer and such could be plugged-in without removing it.
The idea was directly cloned and/or improved upon by other companies who sold their versions for as little as $9.99. Disney Sound Source was once such improved device for $14.
It was not that difficult for a PC user to build their own clone.
A good purpose of this device was for laptops that had no sound hardware except a speaker.
Sound had to be completely generated through the CPU so quality was limited to CPU speed and how much bandwidth the developer wanted to spend on sound and/or music. Duke3D used up to 44KHz and 8 voices of music, sound, and speech.
Many versions, including the original, has a pass-through port so a printer and such could be plugged-in without removing it.
The idea was directly cloned and/or improved upon by other companies who sold their versions for as little as $9.99. Disney Sound Source was once such improved device for $14.
It was not that difficult for a PC user to build their own clone.
A good purpose of this device was for laptops that had no sound hardware except a speaker.
Popular tags
3.5disk 5.25disk cdrom cpu-386 cpu-486 display-cga display-ega display-mcga display-tga display-vga dos3 joystick keyboard mouse spu-adlib spu-adlibgold spu-aria spu-covoxsoundmaster2 spu-csm spu-dss spu-gus spu-mpu-401 spu-mt32 spu-pas spu-pas16 spu-pcspeaker spu-rsc spu-sb spu-sb16 spu-sbpro spu-tandy spu-tandydac spu-windowssoundsystemParent group
Related groups
Hardware
Disney Sound Source, Covox Voice Master SPU, Covox Sound Master, Intersound MDO SPU
Games by year
The first Covox Speech Thing SPU video game was released in 1988.
Electronic Arts and Knowledge Adventure published most of these games.
Platforms
| MS-DOS |  | 20 |
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