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The Fred Fish Collection 1.5
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InstallBeep
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InstallBeep.doc
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1989-06-04
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InstallBeep v1.1
by
Tim Friest
Don Withey
May 13, 1989
InstallBeep is copyright 1989 by Don Withey and Tim Friest.
PlayBeep is copyright 1989 by Tim Friest and Don Withey.
These programs are Freeware. They may be distributed in any way as long as
the files InstallBeep, PlayBeep and InstallBeep.doc are included unaltered.
They are provided as is (buyer beware!).
Due credit is appreciated.
To the best of our knowledge, there are no bugs, viruses, worms or rodents
in them but we take no responsibility for bugs which may have escaped our
notice.
If you have any questions/comments/etc. you may contact one or both of us
at the following.
Don Withey:
BITNet: axdrw@alaska.bitnet BIX: dwithey
USMail: Don Withey
3700 E 65th Ave
Anchorage, AK 99507
Tim Friest:
BITNet: axtbf@alaska.bitnet BIX: tfriest
USMail: Tim Friest
3861 Steller Dr
Anchorage, AK 99504
This program replaces the DisplayBeep function so that an IFF 8SVX sound is
played instead of the screen flashing. The PlayBeep function runs as a
task in the background and runs asynchronously so the length of the sound
does not slow anything down.
Usage:
InstallBeep iff_sound
The PlayBeep program must reside in the same directory as the InstallBeep
program (and can't be renamed). The PlayBeep program is the task which
InstallBeep loads and can not be run any other way.
The sound file can be any IFF 8SVX file. Sound compression is supported
(but since we have never found a compressed sound to test it, we're not
sure that it works).
The PlayBeep task takes up about 10k of memory in addition to the size of
the sound. (note the sound is loaded into Chip memory).
To cancel the PlayBeep task, type
InstallBeep -quit
(if you want to replace the sound with a new one, quit the old sound and
then install a new one).
Note: the maximum size of sample sound data is 64k words, due to a hardware
limitation in the Amiga sound chip. We decided not to double buffer the
IORequests to allow longer sounds, partly because we felt sounds that long
are a waste of precious chip memory.
Technical Notes
The PlayBeep program does a SetFunction on the DisplayBeep procedure. Thus
any program calling DisplayBeep will invoke the PlayBeep task. PlayBeep
allocates a sound channel after it receives the command to beep. Since
there are 4 sound channels (at this time), you can have 4 beeps playing
simultaneously. If another program is using sound channels, PlayBeep may
not be able to allocate a channel to play the beep (and will do a normal
screen flash). Note another sound program may not follow the rules and
allocate sound channels even if it isn't currently using any.
PlayBeep is LoadSeged into memory by InstallBeep and CreateTasked. Message
ports are used to communicate with it. The function that is SetFunctioned
simply sends a message to the task to play the beep (this is why it is
asynchronous).
Credits
We have included a couple of sample sound files with this distribution.
All of the sounds were gleaned from public domain programs found in the
Fred Fish Library. These sounds were produced exclusively with the Perfect
Sound digitizer by the authors of the various programs.