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Link: (http://www.gamespy.com/articles/july03/25smartest/)
Gamespy listed the “top 25 moments in computer history” … Sierra is included in one!
-Ken WSierra and Adlib Make a Beautiful Noise
Suggested by AscarelKen and Roberta Williams, the founders of Sierra, are justly remembered for their pioneering efforts with that company. Prior to LucasArts getting in the game, Sierra was the company if you were an adventure game fan. Indeed, Roberta had already revolutionized the genre starting with her first game Mystery House, where she inserted graphics onto an Infocom-style text adventure. In 1988, however, it would be Ken who would start a revolution through a brilliant agreement he brokered with two companies, Roland and Adlib.
It’s difficult to believe, but prior to 1988, PC sound was limited to the “bleeps” and “bloops” that could be generated by the PC’s tinny internal speaker. The result of that was less than aesthetically pleasing. Roberta had been struggling with each new version of the company’s flagship series, King’s Quest to make the games more cinematic, with better dialogue and a deeper sense of drama. The latest edition of the series King’s Quest IV: the Perils of Rosella was going to be biggest and best version of the game yet. It would be the equivalent of a feature film, filled with excitement and pathos. The PC speaker wasn’t going to cut it anymore. Fortunately, Roland and Adlib had come up with two independent solutions for her. They were called “Sound Cards”, and using two different types of technologies (Adlib used FM Synthesis, Roland a “wavetable Synthesizer”) they could make real music and sounds come out of a PC.
Roberta was thrilled. This was just what she was looking for. King’s Quest IV would support both the Adlib and Roland standards. Ken Williams was thrilled too, but for an entirely different reason. He knew that he was seeing the future. Sound would revolutionize PC gaming the same way it had the movies some 60 years earlier, and Sierra would lead the way. He put together a deal with both companies in which Sierra promised that every game after KQIV would be compatible with both the Adlib and Roland sound cards and Sierra would also become a reseller of their cards, putting its marketing muscle behind them in the hopes that PC Gamers would eventually adopt the new technology.It worked brilliantly. PC gamers who heard games played in PCs with sound cards attached immediately drooled at the thought of being able to own one of them. After hearing it, one could never play a game like X-Wing again without desperately wishing for those familiar sound effects from the Star Wars movies. Eventually, the temptation grew too great and most players broke down and bought one. They were still expensive, though, and despite the Roland’s superior quality, it was eventually the Adlib standard that took over the world, thanks to a lower price point. It was a company called Creative Labs, though, who made the Adlib compatible Soundblaster sound card, that eventually ended up dominating the sound card market through a combination of aggressive marketing and underhanded technical tricks.
Regardless of which company won, though, the deal Ken Williams put together stands as not only one of the Smartest Moments in gaming, but possibly as one of the Smartest Moments in Computing. Even as today’s news is filled with people downloading MP3’s into Apple iPods and fighting the recording industry over the right to get and share digital music, it’s worth remembering that none of it would be possible without a computer’s sound card. And it’s also worth remembering that no one would have sound cards if not for Sierra, Adlib and a princess named Rosella.
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(re: Computer Sound) neat!
I played KQ4 on the Apple IIGS… am i right in guessing that the sound cards described in this article were for PCs only? (except i think they were called IBM Compatibles back then!) Or did the Apple version also have better sound than its predecessors? I can’t remember how the game sounded, personally…
🙂 emily -
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(re: Computer Sound)
I thought I read the whole top 25 gaming moments list! I completely missed this one! I even complained in the Forums that Serra On-Line and Ken & Roberta williams wearn’t mentioned! But now that it has, here’s another plus! Sierra was the only company mentioned in the “Top 25 Gaming Moments” that WASN’T mentions in the”top 25 gaming msitakes!” 🙂
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(re: re: Computer Sound) The other computers utilized their own soundchips to generate the sounds…I guess the Tandy would be best for the old PC speaker-only games since it had a three-voice speaker compared to the one-voiced the PC had.
The last Amiga games from Sierra even came with a Roland MT-32 driver which you could use to hook up your Amiga to a Roland MT-32 and get the same music as the PC-version. You needed a MIDI interface for that though. I believe Sierra was the only game company that supported the MT-32 in their Amiga versions. -
(re: Computer Sound) The first sierra game I ever played was King Quest 1 on my brand new tandy 1000 ( an ibm roughly compatible).
This machine was 128 K of ram with only one floppy drive, but it had a special sound chip and graphics much better than the standard IBM PC at the time. And the only game I knew was exploiting this was King Quest 1, I was hooked. Boy, at the time did I wish I could be working one day doing one of these cool games… I guess, it changed my life, and 20 years latter I ended up doing a career in computer graphics.
Thanks,
Jean Blouin -
(re: Computer Sound) Hi Ken:
It’s been a long time, hasn’t it? Neil forwarded this link to your sight and I thought I might drop by to say hello!
We had a lot of fun back then, didn’t we. I loved coming to visit you, Al, Guruka Singh, the Coles, and all the others. Remember the Major BBS and its ridiculous filtering? Working for Sierra was a highlight for me and it gave me my first big break with PC Magazine when I wrote a feature article about MIDI.
It sounds like you and Roberta have settled into an adventure filled retirement, but I’m glad to see you re-emerge to talk about old times.
Janet Rubenking -
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(re: Computer Sound)
I saw a demo of KQ4 in a computer shop with a Roland MT32 sound module and was I hooked.
I seriously wanted one but was scared what my dad would say if he found this huge box sitting next to my PC and asked me how much it cost.
Fortunately Roland later also made the compatible and slightly better LAPC-1 which was on full length ISA card which meant I could hide it away inside my PC case.
My “soundblaster” sure sounded bloody amazing after that.
There is a special version of DOSBOX (a full DOS emulator for Win2K and XP) that also “emulates” a MT32 and it is pretty close in it’s sound and it can be found at
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(MT-32 ROM)
The MT32 ROM is available on the internet as part of the VDMSOUND project below.
http://vdmsound.sourceforge.net/files/stuff/MT32_PCM.zip
There is some legal issues surrounding this ROM but since the MT32 family is no longer in production and Roland no longer uses LA synthesis I really don’t see what the problem is.
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(re: MT-32 ROM)
Some of you guys might remember this better than I would, but what was the big difference between AdLib and Roland cards? And why did Roland stop making cards? The only chance I ever got to see a different computer than my parent’s was at the local Radio Shack Computer Center in the mall, and most of those never had sound cards. Of course, this was a place where one of the managers actually told a customer to turn the 3.5″ disk over, and she could use the other side…hence “Double Sided disks”. Super-yikes. ^_^
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(re: re: MT-32 ROM)
The difference is quite pronounced. The AdLib card used only FM synthesis, had 9 voices and they weren’t stereo. Although excellent for the time, the sound now seems decidedly tinny and nowhere like real instruments. The MT-32 is an external MIDI sound module that uses wavetable synthesis (actual recordings of actual instruments). It has 32 stereo voices and, even after 15 years, sounds amazing. Out of all the sound cards I’ve had, I still think it sounds awesome. Much better than even the SB Live! or Audigy. (The only thing equally good IMHO is the Gravis Ultrasound — of which I have 2 lying around).
An AdLib rendition of Sierras Silpheeds level 1 theme music.
An MT-32 rendition of Sierras Silpheeds level 1 theme music. -
(re: MT-32 ROM)
Link: tibby_dude@absamail.co.za(mailto:tibby_dude@absamail.co.za)You shouldn’t really post a link that could endanger the MT32 Emulation product further. The developers involved removed the link and moved the file.
If you read the project status, Roland are still not happy with the emulator being available but have allowed it to continue whilst they attempt to locate evidence so that can shut it down permanently. It’s complete bull…. if you ask me as the company have absolutely zero interest in the h/w any more but it’s their IP after all.
As google is a net users friend, the exact filename would have been enough to come back with the URL 😉 -
(re: re: Computer Sound)
It’s easy to underestimate the effect of the music and soundtrack in sierra games. I downloaded a couple of old tracks from Leisure Suit Larry and Space Quest 3. I was in a trance while listening to them. It was like I was back in the 80’s experiencing the magic of sierra games over and over again. It was like a moment from the movie ‘Somewhere in Time’ when Christopher Reeve went back to the past. Simply amazing.
I think that’s one big thing lacking from current games (and movies perhaps), a good soundtrack.
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(re: Computer Sound)
Right, Sierra was leader in games supporting PC soundcards!It was a revolution, but in France it was quite difficult to buy such Soundcards at that time.
I first acquired a Creative Labs SoundBlaster 1.0, but the sound was not perfect.
So in 1991, I bought a Roland CM32L just to replay Sierra GAMES (Space Quest IV, King Quest V) with their original musics !
It really changed the experience… There was such a big difference between the Soundblaster and the MT32.
Nowadays all this has been forgotten by players; All games use waves/mp3, the magic is gone…
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