Multimedia is a combination of text, still pictures (graphics), sound, animation, and video. It is not only beneficial for games and other entertainment software, but makes educational, reference, and business programs more effective and enjoyable as well.
Your computer can already display the visual components, but in order for your computer to deliver realistic sound, which is way beyond the capability of the tiny built-in speaker and simple circuitry, you need to install an internal circuit board containing much more sophisticated sound circuitry, commonly called a sound card. And to reproduce this improved sound you need a set of speakers, with their magnets specially shielded to prevent interference with the magnetic field of your monitor.
Multimedia data is very complex and takes up huge amounts of disk space. The best way to deliver such large amounts of data is with CD-ROM technology because if its spacious capacity: up to 680 megabytes, or the equivalent of 472 high-density floppy disks. CD-ROM stands for Compact Disc-Read Only Memory, which indicates that the technology--to begin with, at least--involved playback (read) only, and not recording, or writing. Recordable CDs have been developed recently, but this process is still relatively expensive and out of the average consumer’s reach. (By the way, as I mentioned in a past column, the computer industry has agreed to spell the magnetic variety of "disk" with a K, and the optical variety, like CD-ROM, "disc" with a C.)
The first CD-ROM drives were essentially industrial-strength audio CD players with the digital-to-analog (the signal your stereo can understand) converter removed, since computer data is all digital. But the speed of audio CD players, although fine for music, is much too slow in comparison to other types of computer drives. So, soon CD-ROM drives capable of spinning at twice the speed of audio CD players emerged, thus improving the speed of data access. Close on the heels of these double-speed, or 2X, CD-ROM drives, came triple- and quadruple-speed drives. It is now to the point where prices for quadruple-speed, or 4X, drives have dropped enough to make these speedsters the minimum you should consider as part of your multimedia upgrade. Six- and even eight-speed CD-ROM drives are just now making their way to market, but a 4X CD-ROM drive should be useful for a few years yet.
Finally, to quote Windows Magazine, "According to the guidelines established by the Multimedia Marketing Council, here’s what you need in order to have a true multimedia PC: at least a 486SX/25 system with 4MB of RAM, a sound card capable of playing 16-bit, 8-note synthesized sound and MIDI, 16-bit color video, and a CD-ROM drive capable of sustaining a transfer rate of 300K per second (double-speed). We suggest, however, that you take that a bit further, and plan on the following enhancements of the MMC’s recommendations: 8MB of RAM, a 16-bit stereo sound card with wave-table synthesis (containing actual musical instrument recordings), a hot 16-bit color video accelerator card, and the fastest CD-ROM drive you can afford."
K.O.P.C.Online home > table of contents > multimedia