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1993-04-07
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SOUND OFF!
Version 2.0
Command Line and Batch File
Sound Production Center
(C) Copyright 1992 Rand Nowell
RaLin Enterprises
"Putting Bits Together" (tm)
┌───── PROGRAM MANUAL ─────┐
│ August 26, 1992 │
└──────────────────────────┘
- MANUAL CONTENTS -
LEGAL STUFF...........................i
OVERVIEW..............................1
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS...................1
COMMAND SYNTAX........................1
Minimum Variables...................1
DISPLAY SCREEN......................2,3
SCRIPT FILE COMMENTS..................3
SWITCHES..........................2,3,4
(/f) & (/fs) Sound Script.........2
(/s) No Display...................3
(/m) & (/ms) Music Script.........3
(/a) & (/a2) Alarms...............4
(/k) Kill Sound...................4
ERRORCODES............................4
FILE PLACEMENT........................4
SHAREWARE MESSAGES....................4
REGISTRATION, WHY.....................5
DISTRIBUTION..........................5
AUTHOR CONTACT......................5,6
SUPPORT...............................6
ACKNOWLADGEMENTS......................6
Copyright: i
Sound Off!, the program and documentation,
is not a Public Domain or Free program. It is the
Copyrighted (C)1992 work of Rand Nowell dba Ralin Enterprises.
All rights are reserved. Copying, duplicating, selling or otherwise
distributing this product except as noted in the Distribution Policy
below is a violation of Federal Copyright Law.
Distribution:
1. Feel free to distribute the Shareware version of this program as
often as you like to any interested parties. Distribution to
Electronic Bullentin Boards is encouraged.
2. Please do not distribute this program without all the original
related files such as documentation, readme files, registration
forms etc.
3. Please distribute ONLY the original authenticated ZIP format file.
4. Please obtain our written permission before including the program
with any "bundled" software packages.
5. Please do not accept payment for the program; a copying fee of
$5.00 per diskette may be charged by a non-profit user-group.
6. Please do not alter the program or documentation in any way.
7. Individuals, groups, vendors or other software distribution
companies which market diskettes containg shareware or test-drive
evaluation programs, for profit, must obtain written permission
from RaLin Enterprises prior to distribution.
************************* DISCLAIMER *****************************
This program is supplied "as is" without warrenty of any kind. The
entire risk of using, and results from the use of, is assumed by you
the user. You assume all costs of repair, servicing and corrections
stemming from the use of this program.
Rand Nowell and/or RaLin Enterprises, or any other associated
company of the program author will not be held liable for any
damages from the use of this program. No warrenties are expressed or
implied.
********************************************************************
To the original licensee of the REGISTERD version of The Program
RaLin Enterprises DOES warrant that the program disk(s) on which the
program is recorded, be free from defects in material and
workmanship under normal use and service for a period of (90) ninety
days from date of delivery as evidenced by your receipt. Our entire
liability and your exclusive remedy shall be replacement of the
deffective disk not meeting the standards of this limited warranty.
And in no case shall exceed the cost of reimbursment of monies paid for
program registration.
Sound Off! Sound Generator - Program Documentation Page 1
OVERVIEW:
Sound Off! can be used to generate sound patterns from the command line or
from within a batch file. Frequencies can be given on the command line or
read from a Script File.
With Version 2.0 Sound Off! can now read and play "Real Music" script
files. Please see the MUSIC.DOC file for more on this.
Various switches are provided for Turning off display messages, Running
an "Alarm", Turning off a "runaway" sound, Reading from script file.
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:
Are few. IBM PC/XT/AT or better, running Dos 3x and up.
Video: Runs on mono or color. Color is reccomended.
Disks: Will run on floppy system, but performance is slow
for scripts.
COMMAND SYNTAX: (Basic Required Variables)
SOUNDOFF [switch][scriptfile]<Start_Frequency><End_Frequency><Delay><Step>
<AlarmNote1><AlarmNote2><Delay><Pause>
Items in brackets [...] are optional, items in <...> are required.
See examples for variables for Alarm Procedures. The Alarm
switches must be used.
Examples will be provided shortly. For now lets explore these options
and parameters.
The minimum needed for Sound Off! to work are the frequencies, the delay
factor, and the step factor.
Frequencies will hereafter be reffered to as "notes".
* Start_Freq: This is the first note to be played, anything below about
50 probably won't be heard unless you have a special speaker setup
for your PC.
* End_Freq: This is the last note Sound Off! will play. After about
3000, the note again becomes hard to hear.
* Delay: This is the time, in milliseconds, for Sound Off! to pause
between the playing of each note. There are aprox. 1000 milliseconds
to a second. I say aprox., because the PC timer is not as accurate as
a watch. If you specify 1000 for a delay, the delay will not likely
be an exact second.
* Step: This specifies how big a jump Sound Off! should make between
Make your PC "Come Alive" with Sounds and Music!!
Sound Off! Sound Generator - Program Documentation Page 2
notes. For instance, Start and End of 200 & 900 with a Step value of
50 will play the notes 200 250 300 350 400 450 500 550 600 650...900
Experimentation with these values is the best teacher!
To play a "tune" UP the scale make the Start_Frequency LESS
than the End_Frequency.
Reverse this to play DOWN the scale, The Start_Frequency should
be GREATER than the End_Frequency.
DISPLAY:
When Sound Off! runs, it will create a display of characters. One will
be written for each note played. The display is in color unless the
system is in MONO mode. This color display is NOT shown during
the playing of a script.
At the end of the run, Sound Off! will display the command given to
produce the sounds you just heard, so you can write it down for future
use.
If you do not want a display, see the '/S' switch below.
While playing either a .SOS or .SOM script file, Sound Off! will
tell you which script it is playing, it will also display the
line number which it is currently playing from the script.
SWITCHES:
Switches may be upper or lower case. They must be proceeded by a
forward slash, ie: /f and they must be seperated by a space, from any
other variable. Only one switch at a time is used. There are no
instances where more than one switch can be used.
/f Instructs Sound Off! to read variables from a Sound scriptfile(.SOS).
The syntax is SOUNDOFF /f filename. Program displays are active.
The script file is a simple Ascii text file and can be created by
any Ascii text file editor. You should give the scriptfile the extension
of .SOS This extension is REQUIRED!
/fs Runs the Sound script file with Displays turned off.
SOUNDOFF /fs filename
Our program TFREQ (Ver 2.0) will create script files for Sound Off!
When you specify the filename on the command line, do not included the
extension, it is assigned by Sound Off! If the script file resides in a
directory that is included in your PATH statement, or in the current
directory then only the filename is needed.
If it does not then include a drive\dir\ with the filename.
The script file must not include any alpha characters in the variable
Make your PC "Come Alive" with Sounds and Music!!
Sound Off! Sound Generator - Program Documentation Page 3
lines. All variables must be numeric: from 0..9 Values must start in
the first column, and must have a space between them.
You can view the sample scripts included, but a small example is given
here.
Sound Scripts use only one frequency and one delay per note,
no End_Freq or Step is used.
Example Script: 400 50
640 10
330 25
440 50
550 200
COMMENTS IN SOUND SCRIPTS:
If you wish to add comments to the script, put a 0 (ZERO) for the
last frequency and delay, then insert comments after that. ie:
400 50
.
.
.
550 200
0 0
Note: This is a test script for John.
eof filename.sos
If you are careful, you can place comments to the right of the notes
and delays. Be sure to move to the right at least 3 or 4 spaces.
You can write a letter after the variables, it doesn't matter. As long
as you remember to use a 0 for the last variables. If you don't, the
program will abort with an error.
/s The /S switch tells Sound Off! to run in "silent" mode. Program
messages or displays will not show. This is useful when using Sound
Off! in batch files. But.....error messages will still display.
To run Sound Off! in silet mode just type as such:
SOUNDOFF /s 440 990 75 25
You can use multiple Sound Off! commands in one batch file. Just put
each one on a seperate line. Look at the sample batch files included
for some examples.
/m Tells Sound Off! to play a Music Script File (.SOM).
/ms Play Music Script File with NO display.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Please read MUSIC.DOC for all other information on using Music
Script Files.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Make your PC "Come Alive" with Sounds and Music!!
Sound Off! Sound Generator - Program Documentation Page 4
/a Alarm mode. SOUNDOFF /a 550 10 20 will start a constant beep, and
will continue until a key is pressed. You can use this to alert you of
when a process or program has finished.
The first is the frequency, then the length of the sound, then how
long to pause before playing the sound again.
/a2 Calls the two tone alarm. Keypress aborts just as it does the
single tone alarm. For this one we have the following:
<1st Note> <2nd Note> <Delay> <Pause>
See TEST_ALR.BAT for command syntax.
You can enter any frequency,delay and pause you like. Again,
experimentation is the best way to discover what works for you.
/k Kill Sound. If you happen to start Sound Off! with a missing value, be
it a frequency, a delay or what, you may find the program ending, with
the speaker still blaring out a note. Just type SOUNDOFF /k and the
racket will stop.
This is also handy for programmers, I know I have forgotten to insert
code to stop the sound at times, while testing my programs. This way
you have a quick easy fix for that problem.
ERRORCODES:
Please see the file ERRLVL.LST for a listing of error codes returned
by Sound Off!
WHERE TO PUT IT:
Sound Off! should be put in a directory that is included in your PATH
statement. This way it can be called from ANY directory on your drive.
If you do not know what the PATH statement is, please refer tou your
DOS manual. If you don't have a PATH statement, it's strongley
suggested that you implement it!!
To save some typing, I suggest you put your script files in a
directory thats in your path. This way you only need include the
file name itself in the Sound Off! command.
SHAREWARE MESSAGE:
Its unfortanate that I even have to do this, but I know for
a fact that there are copies out there, of my programs that
are being used without Registration. I don't feel that to be
fair. So......at the end of each and every call to Sound Off!
a one line message will flash for a bit, asking you
to Register your Shareware Programs, (including this one) :)
This message WILL display, even if you turn off display via one
of the command switches. Again, Im sorry about this....but if
Make your PC "Come Alive" with Sounds and Music!!
Sound Off! Sound Generator - Program Documentation Page 5
you Register the program, it will be G...O...N...E!!
REGISTRATION:
If you find Sound Off! useful, and wish to continue its use, a
Registration of $12.00 is in order. Registration is a ONE TIME fee
and will get you a Registered Copy, free of any SHAREWARE notices,
full support for this and all future copies. Updates to the program
are at No Charge to Registered users. Updates are supplied via
U.S. Mail or from our Support BBS (SOON!) Mail updates will require
a small fee to cover material and shipping.
A registration form has been provided for you to use.
Please see REGCOM.DOC
I have other useful programs available also.
See PROGRAMS.TXT for a listing.
If you program in Pascal you might be interested in my program
TFREQ which allows you to test sound procedures of many types, and
once you have what you want you can save it to a source file.
Source files are written in a Pascal procedue format for inclusion
in your programs. We have a somewhat rough version out at present,
but Version 2.0 (major rewrite) is due out soon. This version will
also write script files for Sound Off!
DISTRIBUTION:
You may distribute Sound Off! with any programs or batch files
you create and give to others. The condition to this is: You must
distribute this documentation and all supporting files with it.
Not doing so will be considered an infringement of Federal
Copyright Law. If you received the Original Zip file from
RaLin Enterprises, I ask that you distribute that same file.
The above applies to only the SHAREWARE release version. The
REGISTERED version may NOT be distributed under any circumstances.
AUTHOR CONTACT:
I can be reached by several means.
Phone: (510) 651-0253 Ask for Rand
If you get my wife, or the answering machine, please leave your
name, number, and a brief description of the problem, and I will
get back to you ASAP! (See SUPPORT below)
Net Mail: 1:215/777 or 1:161/42 Rand Nowell
Compuserve ID: 76124,761 (Checked 1-2 times a month, minimum)
Genie ID: R.NOWELL (Checked 1-2 times a month, minimum)
FIDO Net: Shareware conference: Rand Nowell
Mail: Rand Nowell
Make your PC "Come Alive" with Sounds and Music!!
Sound Off! Sound Generator - Program Documentation Page 6
RaLin Enterprises
49728 Sundale Dr.
Fremont, Ca. 94538
SUPPORT:
Registered users receive full unlimited support, if I have to call
you back, it will be on my dime!
Unregistered users will receive help, but if I have to call, expect
a collect one.
I am in the process of setting up a "part time" support BBS here,
you will be able to download my programs, and upgrade your current
Registered programs as upgrades become available. For the time
being this BBS will only run during certian hours, and be mostly
limited to having only RaLin programs available.
It is hoped we can get a dedicated system configured for the BBS
before to long, and make MANY programs available.
Where is the time for all this?....................
Registered users will be notified when the board is up!
See the REGCOM.DOC file for our Registration plans.
If you have any comments (good or bad) or suggestions, please use the
Comments/Suggestions form attached to the Registration.
Thank You!
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:
Sound Off! was written with Turbo Pascal
version 6.0, a product of Borland International.
A GREAT programming language!
Thanks Borland, for a job well done.
To those of you who Register, Thanks for helping support the
SHAREWARE CONCEPT! Registering this and other products, give the
authors incentive to continue enhancements and to develop new products
for your use.
Make your PC "Come Alive" with Sounds and Music!!