Audio CD still playing after CD player software closed.
Hi,
Tonight I was playing "Spiceworld" by "The Spice Girls" on my Compaq Deskpro EN (P11 400MHZ, Windows 98 FE).
I was playing the CD with the "Creative CD" CD player program that came bundled with my Sound Blaster 16 driver CD.
I closed the program, but the music kept playing, I thought maybe it's somehow still running, so I did CTRL+ALT+DEL, but taskmanager didn't show it running.
I did hae the CD open in the explorer so I closed that too, and the music is still playing, then I closed the only other thing left "My Computer" which was also open at the time. Now nothing is running, and the music is still playing.
The only time the music has stopped so far, was when I opened a new instance of "Creative CD" but then when I exited the program it did the same thing, which is why the CD is still playing,
I've closed the program before and the music stopped immediately, as it should. I don't know what could be causing this.
The Sound Blaster 16 card is connected to the CD-ROM drive with the audio decoding cable, and has been ever since I installed the card a day after I got the computer.
I'm really confused. This is "weirding" me out a little, anyone got a clue?
Tonight I was playing "Spiceworld" by "The Spice Girls" on my Compaq Deskpro EN (P11 400MHZ, Windows 98 FE).
I was playing the CD with the "Creative CD" CD player program that came bundled with my Sound Blaster 16 driver CD.
I closed the program, but the music kept playing, I thought maybe it's somehow still running, so I did CTRL+ALT+DEL, but taskmanager didn't show it running.
I did hae the CD open in the explorer so I closed that too, and the music is still playing, then I closed the only other thing left "My Computer" which was also open at the time. Now nothing is running, and the music is still playing.
The only time the music has stopped so far, was when I opened a new instance of "Creative CD" but then when I exited the program it did the same thing, which is why the CD is still playing,
I've closed the program before and the music stopped immediately, as it should. I don't know what could be causing this.
The Sound Blaster 16 card is connected to the CD-ROM drive with the audio decoding cable, and has been ever since I installed the card a day after I got the computer.
I'm really confused. This is "weirding" me out a little, anyone got a clue?
Comments
When a player tells a CD drive to play back a CD, all it does is send a single command. The drive does all of the work itself. The CPU can crash and it will keep playing. You could even disconnect the data cable and it will keep playing.
This was handy for early games. They could initiate CD playback of a nice high quality music track during a level, yet use absolutely no additional CPU time.
Some very early computer CD drives had next/previous track buttons and a headphone output - those drives didn't even need to be hooked to a computer. You could leave those out on a workbench connected only to power, and play back your audio CDs.
On a related note, how would you work that? I have many drives that will spin up a disc, but won't play through the 3.5 mm headphone output. The drives have a play/pause button.
Anyway, a CD drive with a headphone jack on the front is a nice thing to have whether it features a "Play" button or not. The one in my oldest PC will play music through the 3.5mm jack and the sound card at the same time. Just run the CD Player and I can turn the speakers off (they don't have headphone out) and plug straight into the drive. Volume on the drive is adjusted with the little dial/slider thing next to the port independently of the OS volume levels.
EDIT: Fixed LOLzy grammatical error.
Actually, I have a point of reference on this! 12 or so years ago I remember using one of the CD drives exactly like the ones mentioned, it had a volume wheel - next/back/playpause/stop buttons and a 3.5mm headphone jack. It would play through the CD drive without software interaction, but you had to plug in the headphones directly into the CD Drive's headphone port.
I have 2 early 2000s/late 90s laptops that I can actually play CDs on while the laptop is off. Satellite 5105-S501 and Pavilion N3270. I don't know why I remember the exact model numbers, I'm just good at remembering things like that.
I do know that my NEC Versa FX's proprietary external CD-ROM drive doubles as a basic Audio CD player - all it needs are a 6V AC adapter and a sound system with the 3.5mm jack connector and you're set - I've actually done this before and it's a nice way to listen to music on my Timex clock radio (which has a line in jack).