___________/\_____________ ____________/\___________ / __________/________ \ \__ \_______ \ \________ \__/ \ ____/ / / \ \ / / \ \/ / / \ \ / / /\ \_ __/ __/ \ / \___________/ \_______/ \_____/ \____/ \_______/__/ !SPOON - THE GROUPING GROUP OF ALL GROUPS! Doc for Sound #4 This file contains the text that didn't quite make it into the editorial. This file also reflects the (sorry) state of mind of the coder :) LEGAL DEPARTMENT : Sound 4 IS NOT, AND WILL NEVER BE PUBLIC DOMAIN. Sound 4 IS COPYRIGHTED BUT FREELY DISTRIBUTABLE SOFTWARE. THIS IS ALSO KNOWN AS FREEWARE YOU ARE ALLOWED TO SPREAD THE PACKAGE FREELY, AS LONG AS YOU DO NOT CHARGE MORE THAN A REASONABLE FEE TO COVER EXPENSES. SINCE THIS IS HARD TO GRASP FOR SOME DEALERS IN GERMANY, I DECLARE THAT NO GERMAN PD DISTRIBUTORS ARE ALLOWED TO CARRY THIS PROGRAM IN THEIR LIBRARIES. THE ONLY EXCEPTIONS ARE : AMIGA MAGAZIN PD-DISKS, IF THEY SHOULD DESIRE TO DISTRIBUTE THIS. THE VARIOUS SITES IN THE 'AMINET' INTERNET-AMIGA-NETWORK IT IS ALSO ALLOWED FOR THE FOLLOWING TO PUT SOUND ON CD-ROM : FRED FISH ON HIS FRESH FISH AND OTHER FISH CD'S AMINET ON THE AMINET CD'S OTHER DISTRIBUTORS MUST CONTACT SPOON FOR A LICENSE. IT IS EXPRESSIVELY FORBIDDEN FOR THE GERMAN PD LIBRARY : MALLANDER SOFTWARE TO DISTRIBUTE SOUND, AND ALL OTHER SPOON RELEASES, AS THEY MOT ONLY CHARGE WAY TO MUCH FOR PD STUFF, BUT ALSO SELL VARIOUS SCENE RELEASES FOR HIGH PROFITS AND SELL DISKS WITH RIPPED GFX NORMAL SCENE RELATED SWAPPERS ARE OFCOURSE NOT ONLY ALLOWED BUT ENCOURAGED TO SPREAD THIS PRODUCT.... REMEMBER, THAT THE COPYRIGHT FOR SOUND LIES WITH JOHN 'SHAYERA' HINGE AND CHRISTINE HANSEN (CHRISTINE DE LA QUEEN) OF THE DEMO GROUP SPOON,BUT THE COPYRIGHT FOR THE MUSIC, LIES WITH THE INDIVIDUAL MUSICIANS THEMSELVES. THEREFOR, IF YOU LIKE THE MUSIC, AND WOULD LIKE TO USE IT OTHER THAN FOR PRIVATE LISTENING, THEN CONTACT US, AND WE WILL PUT YOU IN TOUCH WITH THE AUTHOR, AND USUALLY HE OR SHE WILL ALLOW YOUR USE OF THE MUSIC. THIRD PARTY COPYRIGHTS : THE PLAYER V6 IS COPYRIGHT JARNO PAANANEN. TRACKERPACKER V3.1 IS COPYRIGHT CRAZY CRACK RNC DECRUNCHER IS COPYRIGHT ROB NORTHERN COMPUTING LTD. XPK AND THE SUB LIBRARIES ARE (C) THEIR RESPECTIVE AUTHORS Note about being system friendly : Sound as a whole is both system friendly, and supports multi- tasking, friendly exiting etc... BUT : Since some of the modules can only be played correct with 'Tracker Packer V3', There is a 'slight' problem using Protracker after a Sound session.. This is partly because of Tracker Packers handling of the CIA timing interrupt, and partly because of PT's handlig of the same.. This is unfortunate, but cannot be helped.. Some of the musicians have a very interesting ability to demon- strate the remaining flaws in the various replayers ;) I will especially mention MAZ, as he seems to do thing with the loop commands (E6x) that nobody seemed possible (atleast neither Guru/S2 (P61) or Merge/Polka B. (ProSucker)).. This program has been written entirely in 'C' except for the following : The Decruncher (RNC V2.08 (mode 2)) The Replayers (The Player V6.1A) (Tracker Packer V3.1) The source for Sound 3 is divided into these modules : Main.c : Opens global stuff, calls GFX routines, etc... Portable to any C-compiler (& therefor compu- ter :) ) There is some native (Amiga-OS) stuff in this, but this will be fairly easy to port (I hope /suspect :) FileSupport.c : This is an abstractionlayer for IO routines, So the main program has an easy way to load files into the correct memory... Making it a little easier to port.. This also handles the XPK interfaceing GFXSupport.c : Implementation specific graphics routines.. Currently 1 version : One for Native AGA Amiga's This allocates screens, loads, and decrunches screen data, and handles gadgets etc.. IntroSequence.c : This runs the Spoon intro sequence, ie. shows some nice pictures. (Amiga-OS dependant) OnBoardGFX.c : This contains the 'onboard' graphics, gadgets and stuff, which is too small to deserve sepa- rate loading.. (more or less Amiga Dependant ;) TIGFX.c : More onboard gfx... HL_GFX.c: Even more onboard gfx... ;) Texts.c : This contains ModuleInfo's, Rules text, and the dreaded Editorial... I don't change this so often, so it's better to leave it in a separate file, and save com- pilation time.. ReplayerStub.c : This module interfaces Sound #4 to the 2 dif- ferent replayers that we use... P612.o : This is a version of The Player V6.1 by Guru / Sahara Surfers adapted to work with C programs (Parameter calls etc..) (Amiga dep....) For all you rippers out there (HI ;) This is The Player V610.2 !! TP3.o : This is Tracker Packer V3.1 by Crazy Crack.. I was forced to include this extra replayer, when I found out that P612 didn't handle the Pattern Loop (E6X) as good as I wanted... Amongst the response to Sound #1, several people (swappers mostly) have complained that Sound wasn't a 'one file' pro- gram, but that would be a real pain in the ***!!! I would have to make it either with overlays, since it isn't feasible to load ALL of the stuff (300Kb gfx & 500 Kb msx) at once AND leave space for buffers, spare screens etc... and frankly, I know zilch about overlays.. Or make it as 2 files.. A main program and one large datafile, like some diskmags do it... I have thought about this, but I find it much easier to do it with my current system of separate files... Actually, as this program grows and grows, it has rapidly grown to a size that simply won't fit one DD disk, and therefor I consider the debate of onefile (and disk) closed.... ;) There is also the reason that I am quite happy with my current disk system which makes it easy for me to do HD install, and I can't be bothered to write a whole new setup ..... The response to Sound #2 has also made us change quite a lot inside the program : Among the big changes is the handling of the Extra screens It is now handled from one general screen, with a set of gadgets and a 'mutal exclude' system... Since the standard Gadget code in intuition.library doesn't quite support this, I have had to make my own... This takes quite some hopes, and knocking on wood's to make it work, but it seems to do so :) This became even more knocking on wood, when I implemented the text printing, which has to handle which text to plot, which page of it, and if there is more pages etc.. etc... Still some people have asked for lesser files in Sound : Keep on dreaming pals... I have thought about using a similar system to the Diskmag ROM, but it would have to be a 3-file system : Main, Disk1File, Disk2File, and I much prefer my own layout.. Another (small) addition, are the socalled 'file_id.diz' files.. These are small identification marks, used for BBS'es, and the only reason they weren't present in Sound 2, was that due to some delay's I was forced to rush the delivery of the final version and forgot some small files. (hd-installer included ;) Now thanx to Slurry/Black Fishy, we have a nice File_ID.DIZ to use, with a (more or less) readable ansii layout... Many thank you's for that Slurry !!! Some people have suggested that we should include some 'flashy' code, to make this look more like music disks such as 'Mirror' and 'JesterDay' For the moment, this will NOT be done, since the concept behind Sound is more like some of the DiskMags, mmeaning this is a general Music disk, with a small HitList, and NOT a full fledged Spoon- Music Disk, and therefor we do not intend to do the extra work, that it would require to include some flashy code every issue !! The long time goal for Sound, is to release an issue every 2 months so the overhead needed for new flashy code every issue would make my (the coder's) life a nightmare.... The Flashy code should come with the intro which b.t.w is something any group can contribute to... If you want your intro on Sound, then contact either CDLQ or SHAYERA with a rough outline of your intro, and we will contact you stating if we accept it, and for which issue of Sound it would appear (The last so your GFX can reflect this..) We would appreciate it if the intro mentions Sound and Spoon, but we wont accept intro's that slags neither Spoon nor other sceners !! Amongst the responce to Sound #3 has been : The HD-Install script forgets the fonts.. FIXED It is impossible to use ProTracker after viewing Sound.. This is because of the lousy IRQ setup in TrackerPacker.. I hope to have this fixed before the release of Sound #4 Some musicians have been concerned that I use P61 for replaying since they fear that it destroys the samples... REST EASY.. I do not use the sample packing (the 4 bit delta) I use the pattern packing and the 8 bit delta encoding, and this does NOT change the sound !!! Sound #4 is developed on the following configuration : Coders machine : Commodore Amiga A1200, 2Mb Chip memory, AGA chipset Microbotics MBX1200z, 4Mb Fast Memory, 14MHz 68881 Kickstart V 3.0 (39.106) Workbench V 3.0 (39.29) X-tra diskdrive,of suspect manufacturing:) (6 years/no err's) Quantum Prodrive ELP120 120 Mb 3½" HD Main responsible person's (and gfx'ers) machine : Commodore Amiga A1200, 2Mb Chip memory, AGA chipset Kickstart V 3.0 (39.106) Workbench V 3.0 (39.29) X-tra diskdrive As you can see, Amiga developers doesn't neccessarily have to have exotic machines to do proper work :) Tested on : A1200, No FastRam, Kick 3 A1200, 2 Mb Chip, 4 Mb FastRam, Kick 3 A4030, 2 Mb Chip, 4 Mb Fast, Kick 3 (Thanx Bagger) A4030, 2 Mb Chip, A lot of Fast, Kick 3 (Thanx to Subacid) A4040, 2 Mb Chip, A lot of Fast, Kick 3 (Thanx to Silents DK) Tools used in the creation of Sound #4 so far : SAS/C Amiga C/C++ compiler V6.55 (I hope SAS Institure reconsiders their dropping the Amiga.. it will be irritating to port this to eg. Maxon C/C++ 3) Cygnussoft CED 3.5 (Miles beyond SAS/C's SE editor :) HiSoft Devpac Amiga Assembler V3.04 (The best for serious system programming) Electronic Arts Deluxe Paint V4.5 (AGA) (It's old, It's slow, but it is trustworthy :) Cloanto's Personal Paint V6 (Why can't DPaint use Sound's legal system font ??) PicCon V2.5 (Registered Version :) (This program is REALLY great, go out and register it today) ExoticRipper V2.29 (Registered) ProPack 2.08 by Rob Northen Computing The Player V6.1A (610.2) - 22.05.95 by Guru / Sahara Surfers (The best for both speedy replay, and good diskspace saving) TrackerPacker V3.1 by Crazy Crack. Not as good in the space saving, but it supports 2 commands that The Player doesn't ... Directory Opus V4.12 by Innovatronics (I've tried V5... Therefor I use V4 ;) ImageFX V2.1 by Nova Design Inc. This is a VERY smart Image Manipulation package... The XPK Compression package.. Gives me a few much needed extra bytes of diskspace ;) Special Hardware used : Commodore Amiga CD32+FMV, to keep my mind distracted while I work :) Special thanks so far : The AD&D 2nd. Ed. Crowd, for taking my mind of off things at least once in the week... Guru / Sahara Surfers for keeping on updating The Player, and making it more powerful with each revision... The Polkapartment for supplies of tools, ideas and fun.... Tulle from the Polkapartment for lending me a CD player when my CD32 went buttoms up.... The Dreamline apartment for YOU KNOW WHAT... The SubAcid apartment for SAS/C update, and other stuff... Slurry / Black Fishy for supplying tools and our file_id.diz Pixart / TTM for Quality Control..... Look out for other forthcoming Spoon productions : WHY?, HOW?, WHAT? : The confusion trilogy... A series of intro's with a special meaning.... If you are interested in joining Spoon (and you should be !!) Then send us some examples of your work.. Coders should con- tact me (Shayera) All others contact Christine de La Queen (adress elsewhere on this disk) We are searching for : Coders (AGA experience preferred) SFX (Protracker, or PT compatible (Fast/Take/Scream etc.. 4 channels .MOD) Well put up people from Saudi Arabia or Kuwait are very wel- come, and can contact us concerning our special economic sup- port member program (ESMP) (We promise nice long letters and cheap membership :) (ok, just kidding, but don't hold back if you want to support us ;) Questions, bug reports etc, to : John 'SHAYERA' Hinge of SPOON Silkeborgvej 220 B, 1 DK-8230 Åbyhøj Denmark email : nomachine-nowhere-noplace@thevoid.gov www : don't hold your breath :) actually you can reach Spoon via FidoNet : Duffy/Spoon : Rikard Bosnjakovic @ 2:203/316.100 Make a note of which Spoonie the message is for, and Duffy will forward the message (he better... ;) You can also reach our coder Indigo on Internet : u952470@daimi.aau.dk Advert : If you are an official representative from a software company seeking new employees, then I can be contacted at the above address... I am fluent in 68K Assembler, and 'C', and,as this program shows,I am not afraid of working in big projects with modular builds. This has been a good excercise in managing such a project,and I feel pretty confident about my abilities when it comes to coding on the Commodore Amiga series of mini computers. I have also some experience in coding the Commodore 64, but this is probably not of any significance here in 1995 :) I have a solid foundation in 'system progamming' as Sound 3 shows, and I am also known for being a very fast learner. This means that I am willing to work on eg. Intel or PowerPC based systems, but as I haven't got such a system myself, I would have to need a small period of time to learn it, but I would be willing to do this, as long as I don't have to have too much to do with Windows !! (I would much prefer OS/2 WARP) 1995, the revolution is coming... Spoon... We always eat our cornflakes ; Musical distractions used while doing Sound 3 : DR-P3 : My CD player is being repaired ;^(