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Text File | 1997-01-10 | 28.0 KB | 608 lines

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Contents | `----------------------------------------------------------------------------' 1. Law and order The usually unnecessary law-oriented "I didn't do it!" chapter. Also includes couple neat warning texts you should read for fun and edutaintment. 2. System requirements Check this if you don't want to download this for nothing! Includes both bare minimun config specs and the system we would (and do) run it on. 3. Using HORS Quick glance at the GUI & the commandline parameters. 3.1 HORS command-line parameters 3.2 HORS.INI file 3.3 HORS GUI 4. Philosophy of DEE music collections Together we stand, divided we get spread. 5. Contact info You sometimes need to get in touch with these people. 6. Required files Missing something? 7. Predicted Questions You Might Ask Rather Frequently. Please read this chapter before asking us. .----------------------------------------------------------------------------. | 1. Law and order | `----------------------------------------------------------------------------' Throughout this chapter, 'this program' means HORS, the Dee musicdemo player/infoviewer (all revisions and versions). This program is Copyright (c) 1994-1997 by Jari Komppa. This program is freeware. You are allowed to copy this program by any means, including electronic, mechanical, vocal, magnetic, genetic, optical, chemical, manual, or by any other means your creative minds might think of, as long as it's in it's whole, unmodified form, and no profit is made by copying it. You may not modify this program in any way. Not to be sold. You may not include this program in any CD-ROMs or other commercial software collections, nor broadcast this in a commercial way, without the permission from the author. You are allowed to copy, reproduce etc. this document in pieces or in it's whole form as long as the source is indicated. This program must always be accompanied by this document. Run this program at your own risk. The authors of this program take no responsibility of any damages caused by use, misuse or disability to use this program. If the law of your country says that we can't disclaim everything, do NOT use this program. There is no warranty. All copyrights and trademarks mentioned in this document are copyrights and trademarks of their respective owners. Epilepsy warning: (please read) ----------------- Some people are susceptible to epileptic seizures or loss of concusiousness when exposed to certain flashing lights or light patterns in everyday life. Such people may have a seizure while watching certain television images or playing certain video games. This may happen even if the person has no medical history of epilepsy or has never had any epileptic seizures. If you or any of your family has had symptoms related to epilepsy (seizures or loss of concusiousness) when exposed to flashing lights, consult your doctor prior to using this program. If you or your child experience any of the following symptoms: dizziness, blurred vision, eye or muscle twitches, loss of concusiousness, disorientation, any involuntary movement or convulsion, while using a program like this, IMMEDIATELY discontinue use and consult your doctor. Loud noises warning: (please read) -------------------- Listening to loud noise can, and will, damage your ears permanently. While playing music loud makes most music sound better, it's bad for your ears, and you will not be able to enjoy music (or any other sounds) as well as you used to. Think a bit ahead, and don't kill your ears. .----------------------------------------------------------------------------. | 2. System requirements | `----------------------------------------------------------------------------' This program requires: - MS-DOS 5, or compatible, or higher. - DOS4GW.EXE in the same dir or on path. - Gravis Ultrasound (any model with at least 256k RAM), Sound Blaster Pro or plain SoundBlaster, with ULTRASND and/or BLASTER environment variables set. - 386-based PC with math coprocessor - VESA VGA with 512k memory - Mouse - Over 4 megabytes of free memory (if using SB/SB2/SB PRO, a bit more, since GUS has its own memory for samples) Recommended: - Plain DOS (no multitasking etc) 5 or higher. - DOS4GW.EXE in the same dir or on path. (pmode/w WILL NOT WORK!) - Gravis Ultrasound with 1MB of memory - P5/120 or faster - *FAST* PCI VGA (only 307k of VGA memory used) - VESA 2.0 support (univbe for example) - 8+ megs of memory - Keyboard and mouse. The more memory, the better sound --------------------------------- The player used in this program uses sample scaling; ie. you can play a 1MB tune with 256k GUS, but it'll sound worse. Same thing goes for SB and memory; the more free memory you have, the better the sound gets - up to the original sample sizes, of course :). .----------------------------------------------------------------------------. | 3. Usage | `----------------------------------------------------------------------------' 3.1 Command-line parameters The command-line parameters can be used to override default settings (and settings in the INI file). However, they have not been coded yet. 3.2 HORS.INI file The HORS.INI file includes several options you might want to try out, such as detail levels and debugging options. The .ini file has descriptions of all the commands it can have, so read it. 3.3 HORS GUI General layout: .--------------------. |system |action [] |buttons |window [] |----------|---------| []tune |bars'n' | []names |info | `====================' System buttons: Configuration - lets you change some of the HORS options (these and more can be set permanently in .INI file). Help - Displays help in action window. Tune info - Displays information on the tune that's being played. Disk info - Displays information on the musicdisk that is being played. Change disk - Changes to the disk change screen (if you have more than one musicdisk installed, HORS will go into this screen directly on startup). Activities - Displays a menu of different activities (game(s) etc). Bars'n'info: This area includes volume bars, four buttons and display of technical (and less technical) data about the tune that is being played. Playtype - You may change the way HORS plays the tunes by clicking this button. Loop - Loops a single tune continiously Single - Plays a single tune once, then stops. Cycle - Cycles through all tunes in musicdisk. Random - Selects a tune from musicdisk at random. Forward, backward - Jump forwards or backwards in tune. Play/Stop - Stops or restarts a tune. Action window: In this window you will see texts and other funny stuffs. This is the multi-purpose part of the screen. You can use cursors to scroll text as well as the slider with mouse. Tune names: This is a pick-box from which you can choose what tune to play. If all tune names are not in view at once, you can use the scrollbar to scroll. Blue-backgroud tunes exist, red background ones couldn't be found, and green-background ones are not tunes at all but just texts. .----------------------------------------------------------------------------. | 4. Philosophy of Dee music collections | `----------------------------------------------------------------------------' The songs of this musicdemo are copyrighted by their individual authors. All tunes included in this music collection are freely distributable while unchanged and as long as no profit is made. The songs are freely distributable while unmodified. This means that you are suggested to spread the whole musicdisk, but you may also spread the songs individually. The music may not be included on a CD-ROM or other commercial software collection without the permission from authors. .----------------------------------------------------------------------------. | 5. Contact info | `----------------------------------------------------------------------------' Whether someone wants to contact us for any reason (companies are also welcome) then you can find us from the following addresses: !Cube - Member of Aggression, Hysteria and Dee - Assembly 2nd place music compo winner (twice) - Assembly 3rd place music compo winner E-Mail: Cube@cute.fi Snailmail: Kulotie 1 A 13 01450 Vantaa Finland Nitro - Member of Dubius and Dee E-Mail: Nitro@venture.fipnet.fi Snailmail: Peltokylantie 2 D 27 00740 Helsinki Finland Teque - Member of Aggression and Dee - Currently creates music for Remedy Entertainment E-Mail: None@what.so.eva.tz Snailmail: (Teque moves at the end of January so if you need to get in touch with him, ask some dee member) Sol - Member of Hysteria, Dee and Dubius - TMDC organizer E-Mail: Solar@spider.compart.fi Snailmail: (will change in the near future) Laurintie 116 01400 Vantaa Finland Tremor - Member of Dubius and Dee - Assembly'96 Demo compo winner E-Mail: tremor@walli.uwasa.fi Snailmail: Peramaentie 10 62300 Harma Finland HQ BBS: TRK +358-9-874-2789 28.8k node2 +358-9-857-4506 14.4k (These numbers may change soon, though) Want to use HORS as a music interface for your musicdisk, diskmag or CD-MOD collection? Email Sol. .----------------------------------------------------------------------------. | 6. Required files | `----------------------------------------------------------------------------' These files are required to run HORS: HORS.EXE - the main executable HORS.CFL - the main database (Graphics'n'stuff) *.CFL - Dee musicdisk database (Graphics'n'stuff) *.S3M \ *.XM \ *.MOD > - The music files (At least one per musicdisk) *.MTM _/ Also included: DB.EXE - Text-mode mod/s3m/xm/mtm player using the same player as HORS. HORS.DOC - This document. SOMECFLS.ZIP - Some .CFLs made out of other musicdisks just for fun. (with permission) Currently, the following CFLs exist: DEE1.CFL - DEE ONE datafile. DEE2.CFL - DEE TWO datafile. KOIVIS.CFL - Hypercardish presentation of koivukylä highschool. (not released yet) TQOLD.CFL - All Teque's old amigaMODs described in one CFL .----------------------------------------------------------------------------. | 7. Predicted Questions You Might Ask Rather Frequently | `----------------------------------------------------------------------------' General stuff (if in trouble): - Check your BLASTER and/or ULTRASND environment variables. (read your soundcard manual for details) - SB support *NEEDS* EMS so boot with EMM386 for instance! (read your operating system manual for details) - *GET OUT OF WINDOWS!* (the 'MS-DOS' icon does not exit windows!) (on Win95, this means the 'simple application mode') - Do NOT use (IW)SBOS or Mega-Em with this program! (HORS has native GUS support) - You might wish to try a 'clean boot' with only the essential drivers. (ie. SB support needs EMS, and hors needs VESA and mouse drivers) - .INI file includes some helpful options for troubleshooting. - The HORS and its player were devenloped on 'high-end' machines with enough memory - ie. 1MB GUS and at least 12 megs of free memory and a fast PCI VGA on a P5/150. It has been tested on 486dx2/66 and several other machines (including non-intel processors) as well, so you _shouldn't_ have any problems. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * If you have SB, you might wish to increase the available EMS handles. * * This will most probably fix other moduleplayer problems as well as * * HORS problems. With EMM386 the parameter is H=255 and with QEMM386, * * it's HANDLES=255. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Q1: The program says that no tunes are found. A: HORS needs: a) musicdisk data, b) musicdisk tunes. You probably have deleted the tunes. Go download the complete packages again. Q2: HORS doesn't boot up - it says an error message but I don't understand it! A: Although I have tried to make the error messages as informative as possible, here is an almost exhaustible list of the errors and explanations: CFL :Init error. Either HORS.CFL was not found (mounting hors.cfl - failed.) or there is some other critical error such as invalid data or other things. Remember to run HORS from the directory where all the CFLs reside. If you did, then your files may be damaged. Get a working (undamaged) distribution package. MEM :Checking the memory situation - Insufficient. nnnnK free. HORS requires (to start at all!) at least 4 megabytes (4096k) of free memory. This subject is so well documented everywhere that I don't go into details. VESA :Detecting for VESA 1.2 or later - Not enough video RAM. 512k req'd. - Failed. HORS requires VESA 1.2 compatible video card with at least 512k memory. If you only have 256k, get a new VGA. If the error is 'failed', load your VESA driver before running this program. If the error still appears, you may try to edit the HORS.INI and tell HORS to ignore VESA error - doing this is not recommended if you don't know what you're doing, as it may crash the system. (Failed means that no VESA was detected at all!) VESA :Checking VESA mode 101h - Not 640x480x256. - Not supported by system. - Window size is not 64k. - Bytes per scanline is not 640. - Failed. Any of these errors may mean that your VESA drivers are not VESA 1.2 compatible (VESA 2.0 does not actually require 1.2 compatibility!) You may try UNIVESA or other similar universal VESA driver to fix this. Or, it might be that your VESA driver DOES work, but returns false values (as some of them do - even the high-end cards!). If this is the case, edit your HORS.INI file so that HORS ignores VESA error. Doing this is not recommended if you don't know what you're doing, as it may crash the system. (Failed means that get_vesa_mode_info returned error code!) PANIC:Couldn't melt the player. The .CFL files are corrupted. Obtain a working version. PANIC:Player initialization failure. Error codes:XX/XX/XX Situation MAY be unstable. Rebooting recommended. This is the generic player initialization failure error message. The error format is AL/AH/function number. DOS and TrmPlay errors are returned in AL (the first value). EMS error code is returned in AH (the second value). If this happens, you most probably either have run out of EMS or you have too many EMS-using programs active. Examples of DOS error codes (ask a programmer for others): 02 File not found - Should never happen if you don't mess with network or multitasker. 15 Drive not ready - Generally hardware failure. 19 Seek error - Possibly bug in our routines. Please report. 20 Sharing violation - Networking problem. List of TrmPlay error codes: E0 SoundDevice didn't initialize E1 SoundDevice not detected E2 SoundDevice IRQ not detected E3 SoundDevice DMA not detected - For the above: try to run IWINIT, ULTRINIT or whatever initialization program you have for your soundcard. E6 No pattern orders E7 Invalid number in some reg in some function - The above two should never happen. Please report. E8 EMM not found - Only happens if you use SB and don't have EMS driver installed. Either use GUS or install EMS driver. F0 Insufficient On-Board RAM - Should never happen (since sample scaling is active). F1 Sound card's environment variable not found - Set up BLASTER or ULTRASND environment variable. FF Too many SFX channels - Should never happen (no SFXs are in use) but included here for completeness' sake. Q3: The program seems awfully slow. A: If using SB, change to a smaller sampling rate. Or perhaps you want to put the interpolation off, since it eats enormous ammount of processor power. You also might try reducing the detail level - most of the detail stuffs are there just for fun; lower detail levels still give you all the entertainment you need. See the .INI file for details. One option is always to buy a faster machine. Or a GUS. Q4: How do I run HORS under OS/2 (warp) ? A: HORS was partially coded under OS/2, so it should work. Run it in full-screen dos session, set all "emulate" options off, and all 'multimedia' options on, throw priority to the max, and the same goes for all memory sliders. If it doesn't work, tough. I got it to work (but then, I don't use OS/2 gus drivers, I have GUS, and my VGA has VESA support in the bios). HORS is meant to be used from real DOS, however. Q5: What on earth are the BogoMips values? A: 'BogoMips' is just one simple benchmark loop from which I can get a rough approximation of machine speed. It's affected by RAM and video speed, processor power, VGA BIOS and caches. This is included just for fun. It's not used for anything. The BogoMips indexes and their messages are, as follows: .. 14 "Are we moving?" (Definately too slow system) 15.. 22 "Too slow!" (20 - Intel 486dx2/50 with cirrus logic (5428 probably)) 23.. 33 "Very slow." 34.. 50 "Slow." (50 - Intel 486dx2/66 with diamond stealth 64 (s3 864)) 51.. 75 "A bit slow." (60 - Intel P5/75 with S3 864 video card (pci)) (70 - AMD 486dx4/133 with cirrus logic (5428 vlb)) 76..113 "Moderate." (80 - AMD 486dx2/100 with cirrus logic (5428 vlb)) (100 - Intel p5/120 with diamond stealth 64 (ark logic)) (110 - Intel p5/133 with diamond stealth 3D 2000 (s3 virge) or s3trio card or stealth 64 (s3 968)) 114..169 "Fast." (120 - Intel p5/150 with diamond stealth 64 (ark logic)) (150 - Intel p5/200 with matrox millenium (WRAM)) 170..255 "Very fast." 256..383 "Extremely fast." 384..576 "Amazing speed." 577.. "Get outta here!" (Is this possible? :) Q6: I love this program! I love the musics! I want to give you all my money! A: Just use the contact address(es) mentioned above.. ;) Q7: How big is the source code for HORS? A: All lines counted for in *.c and *.h (ie. no player or graphics data etc included). History of building: at 2288 rows, it didn't do anything useful yet (only inits, detects and low-level functions like filesystem and VESA). at 3657 rows, the initialization was complete, but no graphics were shown. at 4685 rows, it was in alpha-0, testing of simple mouse, button and music playing. Quantizing was also included at this point. at 5196 rows, it was in alpha-1, buttons and sliders worked, although they didn't do anything much yet. Volumebars were also included. at 6220 rows, it was in alpha-2, text rendering functions were included, tune control buttons (except playmode) actually did something, tuneinfoblock was coded and some buttons showed texts. at 7578 rows, it was in alpha-6, you could play tunes, read infotexts, *make* infotexts (developer kit was also made), playmode worked, as did the text viewer (with pictures), exit button, border flahes while loading music, "blinkless" mousecursor and hyperlinks. at 8751 rows, it was in alpha-7, we had mousefollowers, picturemaps, some activities (nibbles and mande), bottom greetter, and several other things. at 9200 rows, it was in beta-0, tunepickbox and selectdisk had been recoded, DEE ONE intro was coded, and several bugs were fixed. at 9267 rows, it was ready for beta-2, and only DEE TWO intro was to be coded for the DEE TWO to be released. (Lots and lots of things in the to-do-list but ready for release at this point - no known bugs etc). at 9924 rows, in beta-4, only some small changes were needed for release (8 days to release date). at 10104 rows, intro recoded, ready to release v2.0.0/d2. Q8: With Microsoft Mouse driver version under 9.01, the cursor moves 4 pixels at a time. What gives? A: Upgrade to version 9.01. It's a bug in the driver. Q9: I want to have the HORS loader tune/hidden tunes separately! A: Ask the composer of that tune (!Cube has made the loader) if he would like to give (or sell, dedicate, sacrifice or whadever) it to you. Q10: What should that HORS version number mean? A: 2.0.0/d2 A4 | | | | | +-|-|--|--|---- Revision +-|--|--|---- Major version +--|--|---- Minor version +--|---- DEE disk supported (intro code etc). +---- Alpha or Beta version, and version number (0++) Q11: HORS just says 'stub exec failed' or something..? A: You need DOS4GW.EXE. One of those that comes with most of the games these days. Copy one of those to your DOS directory or anywhere else on your path and there you go. We didn't feel like adding 250k extra to this ZIP. Q12: How can I run HORS with win95 and SB (or clone)? A: One of our beta-testers succeeded in this by bootting into 'single application mode' (ie. MS-DOS 7) with the following configuration files: <config.sys> DEVICE=F:\WINDOWS\HIMEM.SYS DEVICE=F:\WINDOWS\EMM386.EXE (-note: no RAM parameter) SHELL=F:\WINDOWS\COMMAND.COM /P (-4dos.com works as well) <autoexec.bat> sndinit /b (\these two are the SB clone init commands) set sound16=c:\sound (/that differ from card to card) set blaster=a220 i5 d1 t4 (-make sure these settings are correct) mouse.com(-or whatever mouse driver you use) Q13: How do I run HORS with WinNT ? A: One beta-tester also succeeded in running HORS in WinNT4 dos-box, but for some reason no software could find his soundcard (including the soundcard's own software). We recommend running HORS from real DOS instead. Q14: How do I run HORS with DosEmu (on Linux) ? A: This configuration was never tested; if you get it to work (on your own risk, naturally), let us know. Q15: HORS crashes with error 'Trash protection failure'. What's that? A: Please report the situation when this happens. (It really shouldn't happen). Q16: I'm in Win95 and HORS crashes in the beginning with some DOS4GW error. A: Please run HORS in 'single application mode' instead. Q17: Nothing in this list helps! A: Feel free to mail to jari.komppa@pcb.compart.fi with your questions. Please describe your system and your problem (and error code if applicable) in the message. (Hundred messages in the lines of "it doesn't work!" won't help much).