What metaphor does the original IBM PC Speaker tell about today's music

Well.... I'm obsessed with metaphors so why not talk about the metaphors about today's music.

And what better way to describe it for metaphorical use is the good ole IBM PC Speaker from the bygone days of the IBM Compatible machines...… I mean, technically we still use the PC since the PCs of today are descendants of the architecture powering the original IBM 5150 PC from 1981.

So, This little 8 OHM Cone Speaker........

What metaphor can I think of with this little guy when it comes to music?

I think the reason my generation wants to only listen to the most explicit of GANSTA-RAP is because they too feel like the other parts of music that you listen to the RADIO or SPOTIFY is utter crap.... at least the modern stuff and I can see where this is heading.

Whenever I hear music from the likes of Modern Artists after 2010, I often cringe because It's often nothing but jabbering or using AUTOTUNE....

GODDAMMIT.... WHY DO I HAVE TO HEAR THAT AUTOTUNED SHIT ON THE RADIO.

So what's the metaphor behind this rant?

Well, the PC Speaker is often referred as a single voice generator that only does SQUARE WAVES as a sound which makes sense since it's original purpose was to talk to the user via a beep....

As in those POST Beeps you hear every time you start up your computer back in the day. We still have those beeps in today's desktops but they're disabled be default on your motherboard's BIOS and often the pins for these speakers are not inhabited by the speaker.... oh and the speaker is also not a cone anymore but rather a small PIEZOELECTRIC Barrel held by dangling wires.

But the underlying principle is that the Speaker generates tones.

What separates the PC Speaker of the IBM PC when compared to it's fellow competition is the fact that the speaker is pretty flexible due to the Integer Timer built on these PCs since 1981.

Yes, I'm talking about this guy above this sentence. This is the timer chip used for driving the tones used by the PC Speaker.

You ever wondered how the PC can generated pseudo-polyphonic melodies despite being only a single voice generator? Well, the chip above is the one responsible for all the tone generations.

It actually made the PC far better at optimizing melodies than the APPLE II since it didn't have any hardware timers and just fed the timing to the 6502 CPU,

It also made the PC more versatile than the Commodore PET which had 4 hardware timers.

But how many hardware timers does the PC have with it's PIC Chip?

It's probably best not to think too much so let's move ahead.

I've heard many good compositions on the PC Speaker, if the right amount of effort is taken to programming those square waves. This term is what we refer to as ARPEGGIO.

It's to allow the device to alternate at a fast rate from one note to another in rapid succession. Have you ever whistled in the show or hummed a tune during a walk on the street and you tried to hum or whistle a melody that has more polyphony? Well, think of the arpeggio of the PC Speaker as your own voice humming or whistle.

I wish I could embed a sound file to this BLOGPOST but it ain't possible. The issue is not just the space but rather the integration. 

YOUTUBE videos could be another alternative to embedding the audio so I'll look into that in the future.

But what does the PC Speaker arpeggio logic have as a metaphor for music?  

Well, there are some people who just can't stand today's music due to what they perceive as a cacophony of crazy noises or nonsensical polyphony.

John K. for example criticizes all music made after the 70s and prefers music from before 1969. Maybe that's why REN & STIMPY always uses music that sounds like it was recorded in the 1940s.

For me, I enjoy a lot of music made before the 2010s because that's when most of the artists didn't become so preachy about using AUTOTUNE.

I can't tell you how many songs I've listened to that has that goddamn auto tune and it's really baffling to me that it's still used today.

And even I have issues with today's POP Music regardless if it uses AUTOTUNE or not.

But wait, there's more to back up my critique: 

You ever played around with that sound app pre-installed on your NINTENDO DSi or NINTENDO 3DS.

Here's something you should try if you still have your Nintendo 3DS:

Put a modern song in your 3DS' micro-SD card and try the 8-bit filter.

Notice how when you do that, the filter doesn't know what to do with the song? 

Yeah, that's kind of the metaphor I was looking at.

But that 8-bit filter is pretty polyphonic so imagine taking away all the polyphony of those extra voices and leaving only one voice?

Now imagine the PC Speaker trying to arpeggiate those songs.........

You decide for yourself if it's possible to arpeggiate a melody of today's modern music with just a single voice square wave generator.

Just don't tell that to HERMIT, aka Isaiah Letinihn who I know from high school.....

Update as of October 5 2024:

The sentence where I mentioned Motherboards disabling the Beeper Speaker by default was referring to my old MSI Motherboard.

I've since switched to a GIGABYTE AORUS Motherboard where the sound of the piezoelectric buzzer is turned on and there's no way to toggle it in the BIOS.

I guess Different Manufacturers have different standards for BIOS Settings for the piezoelectric buzzer after all.