Some time ago, I retold a story from a colleague about how Janet Jackson’s song Rhythm Nation caused a specific model of laptop to crash due to the song containing a natural resonant frequency of the hard drive. (Part 2.)
One thing I wondered was how long this filter remained present.
I learned that the filter remained present at least until Windows 7, because it was then that Microsoft imposed a new rule on Audio Processing Objects (APOs), which is the formal name for these audio filter thingies, such as the one that filtered out the offending frequency. The new rule was that it must be possible to disable all APOs.
The vendor applied for an exception to this rule on the grounds that disabling their APO could result in physical damage to the computer. If it were possible to disable their APO, word would get out that “You can get heavier bass if you go through these steps,” and of course you want more bass, right? I mean, who doesn’t want more bass? So people would uncheck the box and enjoy richer bass for a while, and then at some point in the future, the computer would crash mysteriously or (worse) produce incorrect results.
Of course, the users wouldn’t realize that these problems were due to them unchecking the box several hours or even days ago. From the user’s point of view, the computer just started crashing more often. And they would tell their friends, “Don’t buy Fabrikam brand laptops. They crash a lot.” Or worse, “Don’t buy Windows PCs. They crash a lot.”
The exception was granted, and the manufacturer’s special “Don’t crash when somebody plays Rhythm Nation” filter was allowed to exempt itself from the “Disable all audio enhancements” setting.
@Raymond Chen
Can you clarify if this filter still exists in Windows 10 and 11?
I’d hate to have it in my audio stack.
All I know is that it was there in the Windows 7 era. I don’t know if it’s still there.
Surely that filter is only present in the drivers for that specific manufacturer's laptops... right? And Microsoft refused to sign the driver unless the filter was removed, until the manufacturer applied for an exception. I mean, I hope it's the way it went, but knowing tech companies...
Edit: The original post says “The manufacturer worked around the problem by adding a custom filter […] (Though I’m worried that in the many years since the workaround was added, nobody remembers why it’s there. Hopefully, their laptops are not still carrying this audio filter to protect against damage to a model of hard...
Right. The vendor wrote that special filter which they preinstall onto their own affected systems.
Hi Raymond! Could you please drop a line about what DT_DISPFILE was in GDI back in the day? There’s absolutely no information on the internet.
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/79399744/what-is-display-file-in-windows-and-how-it-differs-from-metafile
Sorry for asking this in the comments, but I don’t know any other way to contact…
Have you ever actually encountered GetDeviceCaps() returning this value? Perhaps it’s just some kind of legacy thing that you won’t encounter in modern Windows at all.
Personally, no. But understanding this would provide more insight about the requirements that GDI was developed with an eye on. In fact, this is a question about the early times of Windows that Raymond is so famous for knowing deeply and telling stories about.
Is the victim hard disk still in use by anyone? (Technically, it might still be in production…) Otherwise, in 3200 years audio enhancements would annihilate all sound, because any perceptible frequency could have matched some unfortunate hardware of some era.
A variant I heard (never confirmed) is a certain singer’s version of Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau cracked some laptop’s hard drive. The funny thing is this variant is about high pitch, instead of bass.
That’s true. The song Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau by Chinese singer Li Na did it.