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1996-05-20
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341 lines
Another CD Player Version 1.01 05/20/96
Program and documentation written by András Kékesi
E-mail addresses:
keki@goliat.eik.bme.hu
keki@atlantis.bme.hu
FastMem Unit (version 3.2) written by Robert Rothenburg Walking-Owl
E-mail addresses:
robert.rothenburg@asb.com
rrothenb@ic.sunysb.edu
1. Introduction
2. Requirements
3. Getting started
4. Features
5. Initialization
6. Command line mode
7. Troubleshooting
8. Hot key summary
9. DOS exit codes
10. Future versions
11. History
12. About the author
1. Introduction
ACP is a text-screen CD player for DOS. It has many useful features like
EGA and VGA video modes, mouse handling, easy-to-use user interface, command
line mode, and it is easy to configure using initialization file.
This software may only be used for non-commercial and/or non-profit
purposes. You can freely copy and use it as long as none of the files are
modified.
Altough this software was tested carefully, it may still contain bugs.
No guarantees or warrantees are made for the use of this software, nor will
the author be held responsible for damages resulting from the use of this
software. In other words, use on your onw risk.
2. Requirements
a. Hardware requirements
- 80286 or compatible processor
- CD drive with audio disc support
- 50 kB of free disk space
- 50 kB of free conventional memory
b. Software requirements
These must be installed before starting ACP.
- MSCDEX or similar CD extension program for DOS
c. Optional
- VGA for special display features (see chapter 4.)
- a Microsoft or Mouse System compatible mouse and an installed mouse
driver (see chapter 4.)
d. Files in the archive
- ACP.EXE The program
- ACP.INI Initialization file
- ACP.DOC This file
- FILE_ID.DIZ Information file for BBSs
3. Getting started
If you want simply play the entire CD then start ACP and press F2 to open
the drive door. Then insert a music CD into the drive and press F3 to close
the door. Now press 'P' to begin playing.
You can see two bars with the available hot keys - one on the top, one on
the bottom (see chapter 8.). If you want stop the music, press 'S'. If you
want quit ACP, press F10 (this will also stop playing the CD). If you don't
want to stop the music, press ESC. This will activate Background Playing
(see chapter 4.).
Or you can type 'ACP E' to eject the door, then 'ACP P' to play the
entire disc, and 'ACP S' to stop playing it (see chapter 6.).
4. Features
- Special VGA video modes
You can use VGA text modes like 80x28, 80x30, 80x34, 80x50 and 80x60.
These will give you nicer display than the original 80x25, especially
80x28 and 80x30. Note that in these modes the screen may flicker like
in graphics mode (depends on your monitor and video card).
- Initialization file
You can personalize ACP to your needs by editing ACP.INI (see chapter 5.).
- Background Playing
Enjoy the music while running other programs - and this without using
any memory! In fact this is a feature of the CD drive. You can start
playing a CD in the program, then quit it by pressing ESC, and the
playing won't stop. Or simply type 'ACP P' at the DOS prompt (see
chapter 6.). Note that this is not a TSR (Terminate and Stay Resident)
portion of the program, it gives only a command block to the CD drive
to play one or more tracks.
- Rewind and Forward
You can use these features to search a part of a track on the CD
(see chapter 5.)
- Mouse support
Just click on a track in the Track box to play that. Or just click in
the left top corner to exit the program without stopping playing.
You can use the mouse to do anything - just click on the appropriate
area on the top or bottom bar.
- Command line mode
You can use ACP like a DOS command. See chapter 6. for more information
about this feature.
5. Initialization
ACP uses an initialization file called ACP.INI. This file must be in the
same directory than the main program. You can edit this file with an ASCII
text editor, but there are a few rules:
- Lines beginning with semicolon (;), double cross (#), star (*), dollar ($),
percent (%), et (&), space or tabulator are treated as comments.
- Blank lines and case are ignored.
- The options must be in keyword=value format.
- Don't use spaces or tabulators before or after the equal sign (=).
Here is a list of the valid keywords and their values:
ForceCPU=088|086|186|286|386|486|max
default: max
Forces to use the appropriate CPU instructions in some memory handle
routines. If newer CPU is selected, ACP may speed up a little (well, VERY
little - but you can say yourself: 'Yeah, this proggy uses the advanced
features of my 486!'). If max is selected, the correct CPU type will be
detected, and you can see the detected CPU type in the Status box. Otherwise
the selected CPU type will be shown.
If your system hangs up while running ACP, try one of the following:
- Use the correct CPU type instead of max
- Use older CPU type than yours to disable 32/16 bit instructions (eg. 086)
Note that this option works only for those FastMem routines.
VideoMode=25|28|30|34|50|60
default: 25
Sets the number of the rows on VGA cards. 50 can be used on EGA cards as
43 line mode. On CGA or Hercules cards only 25 can be used.
DON'T TRY TO USE MODES, WHICH AREN'T SUPPORTED BY YOUR VIDEO CARD OR MONITOR,
BECAUSE YOU CAN DAMAGE THESE DEVICES!
UseMouse=yes|no
default: yes
ACP will use the mouse, if this option is set to yes and a mouse driver is
installed.
CheckSnow=yes|no
default: no
On CGA displays the screen may "snow" (it's an interference), so you can
set this option to yes if you don't like snow. :-)
SkipFrames=x (where x is a number between 1 and 65535)
default: 375
Sets the skip time interval in frames (1/75 seconds) when using the Fwd or
Rew feature (see chapter 4.).
MoreBack=yes|no
default: no
On EGA and VGA adaptors you can use 16 background colors. On other video
adaptors the characters will blink if you choose light background colors.
InitAction=play|continue|stop|none
default: none
Specifies what to do at startup. Play means that ACP should start playing
the disc from the first track. Continue forces ACP to play the disc
from the current position. Stop means that ACP should stop playing, and
none means that ACP shouldn't worry about inserted discs.
Note that if the drive door is ejected and play selected, ACP closes
the door and starts playing if there was a disc on the tray.
* The following options sets up the colors.
* Background colors: black, blue, green, cyan, magenta, red, brown, white
* Foreground colors: gray, lightblue, lightgreen, lightcyan, lightmagenta,
* lightred, yellow, brightwhite + background colors
* If you set MoreBack to yes, then you can use the foreground colors as
* background colors (16 foreground colors and 16 background colors).
HeaderFore=color
default: black
The foreground color of the header line.
HeaderBack=color
default: white
The background color of the header line.
FooterFore=color
default: black
The foreground color of the footer line.
FooterBack=color
default: white
The background color of the footer line.
MainFore=color
default: yellow
The foreground color of the main screen.
MainBack=color
default: gray
The background color of the main screen.
WindowFore=color
default: yellow
The foreground color of the windows.
WindowBack=color
default: lightblue
The background color of the windows.
CurrentFore=color
default: brightwhite
The foreground color of the current track.
CurrentBack=color
default: gray
The background color of the current track.
6. Command line mode
If you want to start ACP in command line mode, type at the DOS prompt:
ACP parameter
where 'parameter' is one of the following:
? Gives you a small help about using command line mode.
Pxx Play track xx. If xx is an invalid track number, ACP plays the first
track. If xx is not a number, or you entered simply P, then ACP plays
the entire disc from the first track.
Note that ACP closes the drive door if it was opened, and plays the
disc if there was one on the tray.
S Stop the CD.
C Continue playing from the current position if the disc was stopped.
R Reset CD drive.
Case are ignored. If you start ACP without any parameters, it starts in
interactive mode. Note that in command line mode ACP doesn't use ACP.INI.
7. Troubleshooting
- If ACP hangs up, try other setting for ForceCPU (see chapter 5.).
- I don't tested ACP under Windows 3.x / Windows 95, there may strange
things happen.
8. Hot key summary
Top bar
[click in the left corner]: see ESC.
P: Play the entire CD from the current track.
S: Stop playing.
C: Continue a stopped track.
ESC: Background Playing (see chapter 4.).
Bottom bar
Up arrow: Play previous track.
Down arrow: Play next track.
Left arrow: Search backward (rewind).
Right arrow: Search forward.
F2: Eject the drive door.
F3: Close drive door and read disc information.
F4: Read disc information (use this if you closed the door manually).
F9: Reset CD drive.
F10: Stop playing and exit the program.
You can see all tracks if you click on the top or bottom border of the
Track box.
9. DOS exit codes
You can use these from batch files monitoring the ERRORLEVEL variable.
The codes are:
0: Normal exit
255: Wrong CPU type
254: Background playing
253: MSCDEX not installed
252: Syntax error in ACP.INI
251: Program usage error
250: Command successfully executed
249: Help requested
248: Command execution failed
others: I/O error while reading ACP.INI
Error codes from 248 to 251 are command line mode errors.
10. Future versions
In the future releases of ACP I want to add some new features:
- Programmable playing
- Shuffle (random playing)
- Language support (English, German, Hungarian)
Future releases will be available on ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/cd and
its mirror sites. The name of the packed file will be acp_xxx.zip where
xxx is the version number (so 1.00 -> 100).
11. History
Version 1.00 03/26/96
- The first release
Version 1.01 05/20/96
- Added command line support (see chapter 6.).
- Added new option InitAction (see chapter 5.).
- Selecting 'max' for ForceCPU caused to run with 8086 instructions, this
bug is now fixed.
- You can see the selected CPU type in the Status box. If you select 'max',
the detected CPU type will be shown.
- Detailed informations about startup process.
- Option CurentFore and CurentBack renamed to CurrentFore and CurrentBack.
- Some color names renamed (see chapter 5.).
- Optimized code parts.
- Minor bug fixes.
12. About the author
I study at Technical University of Budapest, Faculty of Mechanical
Engineering. I wrote this program because I did not have any well-working,
nice CD players. But now... :-)
If you have any problems, questions, bug reports or comments
please contact me:
- by e-mail: keki@goliat.eik.bme.hu
keki@atlantis.bme.hu
- by snail-mail: Kékesi András
Budapest
Pálya u. 2b
H-1012
HUNGARY/EUROPE