#MS Bookshelf Audio
20 messages in this thread
I just installed MicroSoft Bookshelf on my Comapq DeskPro 66M with Business
Audio. Although pronunciations and animation sounds are OK, most of the
music audio is disabled.. Does anyone have any experience with this? I
also posted a message over in the Compaq forum.
I beleive that bookshelf uses CD Audio for the music. You can check this
by attaching headphones or speakers to the audio out on the front of your
drive (assuming it has this capability). I do not believe that there is a
CD audio pass-through on the Compaq.
It evidently uses Midi files for some of the audio and Compaq business
Audio doesn't include midi.. only a special midi adapter or, I think,
something like Sound Blaster.
that's what I understand form Compaq, anyway…
thanks for your reply.
Neither Compaq Audio nor MicroSoft's sound card really fully support
mixed audio except in proprietary formats with specific drivers (MS's isn't
even out yet, don't know about the Compaq). The Pro Audio Spectrum,
SoundBlaster Pro and particularly the 16, and others do support this to
varying degrees.
I better start lurking in forums where they discus these things, so I can
shop intellegently for an audio board…. I assume the same is true for the
multi-media Beethoven.. glad I found out before I bought it… I'd be one
sad guy if it didn't have any audio… I can live w/o the music on
Bookshelf.. it's sucha a small part of the info.
What sound drivers do you have installed in Control Panel/Drivers? And
what drivers came with the card? You may have a driver that will do it but
just not installed.
Compaq says "no MIDI supported by business audio". They probaly know.
Yeah, I checked after I talked to you. Neither the Compaq Business
Audio nor the MicroSoft sound card supports MIDI, nor are they really
compatible with a lot of existing sound software out there.
You didn't say which version you have…DOS or Windows. I believe if you
have the windows version it will run ok IF you install all the proper
drivers…including the midi driver, WAV drivers, SB drivers all found on
Disk #3 of the 5.25 version of windows. Let me know how it works out…I
have the MS CDROMS on the way.
Mason
Compaq says MIDI isn't supported on business Audio. Evidently most of the
music on MS bookshelf (Windows) is MIDI.. therefore.. no music.
I think you need to make sure you have a MIDI device configured
through the control panel. The national anthems and such play
through the MIDI device. Good Luck. 🙂
Thanks Richard… As I've learned multi-medi isn't multi-media and the
multi-media I have with my CD and Compaq BusinessAudio doesn't include MIDI
support… Glad I found out before I bought Multi-media Beethoven… I
would truly be missing something w/o the audio on that!
Thanks for your reply.
I was considering getting MS Bookshelf w/ MS Word 2.0 on CD.
Is it slow and how do you like it?
T.K.
Word installs to the hard disk; it is nearly impossible to run it from a
CD ROM in any practical sense. The idea is that you install Word to disk
and keep the specially hooked CD installed for Bookshelf. It's basically a
way to sell Bookshelf, and was done, I suspect, because there was enough
room to do it.
I haven't used MS Bookshelf much yet… have only tried using it from
within another application (with quick keys .. or hot keys) once. I'd say
it's typical of CD-ROM based applications. My Random House disk based
dictionary is much-much faster.. but MS-Bookshelf doesn't leave me any time
to sip my coffe either.
MS Bookshelf will probably lose in any head to head competition of one book
versus a stand alone program ,expecially in hard disk. I wouldn't bother
sticking it in just to look up an occassional work. Its advantage is when
you want information which might be in more than one book. If, for some
reason, you ever wanted not just a definition of the word, you also wanted
to have a quotation using it, MS Bookshelf wins. I especially like the way
you can get either an encyclopedia article or almanac article when you find
a country with the atlas. The included atlas would be almost worthless
without the almanac and encyclopedia.
I hadn't tried that feature of the Atlas. (Xref to Almanac and
encyclopedia) Otherwise, I agree that it (Atlas) isn't worth much.
i do not know wether it is interesting in this section: ms bookshelfs even
runs fine in a CD-ROM-network. I tested Meridian CDNET with Windows
workbench. my PC has a soundblaster pro works fine simultaneously.
christian heinisch
Thanks, Christian. We are not supporting CD-ROM on our NetWare network,
*YET*. Just one workstation… but it won't be long until we do, and we'll
be looking for reference applications, like MS Bookshelf, to run. I doubt
we'll have audio boards on the workstations, however.
I'm sure many other forum members are interested in your experiences, too.
thanks for your answer, but Multimedia CDs without sound-card??? you should
insist on it! regards, christian