Back in the days of DOS-based games and mainly point-and-click adventures, when you set up a game you had to choose your soundcard. Most people had a Soundblaster Compatible, some had the Adlib soundcard. However, there was also an option of the MT-32 or MPU401. I didn’t know anyone who had one of these and for good reason, they cost around £500 back in 1987 when they were released. I remember paying around £50 for a Soundblaster card and CD-ROM drive so the cost difference was quite substantial!
So what made it so special? Will the MT-32 is a MIDI Device that was connected to your PC via an MPU-401 hardware interface. This gave your computer access to the audio hardware that most of these tunes were actually written on back then. Songs like the theme tune to Monkey Island were actually composed on the MT-32 and therefore you would get to hear the music exactly like the musician intended it to be heard.
So after seeing some videos about this device, I knew I needed one in my collection, and it really doesn’t disappoint. Listening to Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle and Simon the sorcerer though this module adds a whole new atmosphere to the games.
I will do a write up on this soon. I will also put up some videos showing it working, and the difference between this and what we had to listen to back then.
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