The Disney Sound Source (marketed as simply The Sound Source) was a computer peripheral marketed and sold by Walt Disney Computer Software in the 1990s. It is essentially an improved Covox Speech Thing, albeit with a built-in speaker and amplifier powered by a 9-volt battery, along with the addition of a small buffer to improve upon the audio signal. It also retailed for $40, far less than the $70 asking price for the original Covox adapter–which was little more than a crude, off-the-shelf resistor ladder fashioned into a primitive digital-to-analogue converter and connected to a computer's parallel port.
In 2015 the hardware was reverse engineered so compatible circuits can be built from easily available off the shelf components. It is also emulated by the popular DOSBox emulator.
Game support[]
- Arachnophobia
- Coaster
- Dick Tracy: The Crime-Solving Adventure
- Disney's Beauty and the Beast: Be Our Guest
- Hare Raising Havoc
- Mickey's Jigsaw Puzzles
- Mickey's Colors & Shapes
- Rocketeer
Besides games and edutainment software produced by Disney, a number of non-Disney games also have support for the peripheral, most notably Wolfenstein 3-D and Duke Nukem 3D which explicitly state the Sound Source as a supported audio device (Disney even mentioned Wolfenstein 3-D as a supported title on their Sound Source's official compatibility list as "Castle Wolfenstein 3D"). Only sound effects will play on the Sound Source, however; a separate MIDI synthesizer is required for music.