The first sound cards have been available since 386s and became a standard feature of many computers with the introduction of the 486 processor. Multimedia is the addition of sound, music, video and graphics to a program. The application of multimedia is broad. The growing world of Distributed Learning greatly relies on multimedia. Video conferencing is also gaining widespread acceptance as an alternative to costly travel.
Multimedia allows access to real-time video and audio meetings or conference presentations.
Distribution and packaging of such programs have also been augmented through evolving technology such as the CD Writer. In this segment of the course, we will use several controls to allow multimedia access to programs. The ability to program with this control began largely with many attempts to create bigger and better CD audio programs. Many of these not only played CDs but also allowed the user to catalog their collections in a variety of ways using database interfaces incorporated in the same program. The MCI control can be used to issues MCI commands to devices such as audio boards, MIDI sequencers, CD-ROM drives, audio CD players, videodisk players, and videotape recorders and players.