Groovy Bytes: Behind the Moon/groovybytes.iso/GROOVY/SND_TOOL/WM10.ZIP/DOC.DAT/register.txt

Text File | 1995-08-30 | 16.8 KB | 358 lines

 Registering WAVmaker
 ────────────────────

 Contents:  ■ The shareware principle  {Register   9}
 ─────────  ■ Why bother? [READ THIS!] {Register  43}
            ■ How to register          {Register 174}


─── The shareware principle ────────────────────────────────────────────────────

 The WAVmaker Evaluation Package is being distributed as shareware. This allows
 you to try it out before you decide to buy the WAVmaker Registered Package.

 Shareware is not "shared" or "free" software; it is a distribution concept. By
 allowing you to scrutinize the actual product (rather than a colorful ad and
 a fancy cardboard box claiming to contain the solution to all your problems)
 BEFORE you shell out your hard-earned cash, it forces the author to be *** at
 least *** as good as somebody using traditional sales channels. Who has not
 bought a commercial product only to be swearing at it or not using it at all
 just a few days later? As a shareware buyer you risk nothing but the time it
 will take you to reach an ENLIGHTENED decision as to whether you really want
 to buy the software. The author, on the other hand, enjoys substantial savings
 in distribution and marketing. Apart from the satisfaction of cutting out
 parasitic middlemen who add nothing but cost to the product, this gives the
 (good) shareware author a competitive edge in pricing. This is why WAVmaker
 can be sold at a fraction of the cost of comparable products being distributed
 along traditional channels: it's not feeding salesmen, only who's doing the
 actual work! Distribution is being taken care of by the magic of the Internet
 and the efforts of FTP site and BBS maintainers committed to offering the best
 possible service. An increasing number of major players in the software field
 are realizing the advantages of this approach and turning to shareware for
 their own distribution (a recent example is Novell). With the ongoing growth
 and ever increasing proliferation of the Net into ordinary people's homes
 (witness M$ Network) and the effort being put into the development of secure
 cybercash systems, shareware looks more and more like the wave of the future.
 For limited categories of software products, such as communication programs
 and archivers, it is already the distribution method of choice, and the recent
 successes of Doom and Descent have proved that the principle also works well
 for games (which suffer from particularly short lifecycles, ill suited to the
 try-before-you-buy approach) if combined with retail-only sequels.


─── Why bother? ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

 But this is now, Anno Domini 1995, not 2005, and after the above lecture on
 the shareware principle you are probably still asking yourself: yeah, right,
 but why should I bother to register WAVmaker?

 Here's why:

 1) YOU WILL GET THE FULL GENERAL MIDI SOUND SET! {Catalog}

    Remember, what you have now is not the full WAVmaker, but the WAVmaker
    Evaluation Package, which only contains a limited set of demo sounds.
    Upon registration, you will receive the WAVmaker Registered Package, with
    the full set of General MIDI compliant sounds (and then some). You will
    then in effect have a superb-sounding, 16 bit stereo, General MIDI
    wavetable sound module at your disposal, allowing you to render virtually
    any MIDI file which you're likely to encounter on the Net or on a BBS.

    You could of course buy a wavetable card or sound module to do the same
    job, but that would cost you ten or twenty times as much and still not
    offer all the features of the full WAVmaker package.

    For starters, wavetable cards suffer from severe memory limitations. Ask
    yourself how much wavetable data can be packed into 1 MB or so of ROM.
    Since they are built for real-time playback, these cards can't use the
    sophisticated (but computationally heavy) data compression schemes
    implemented by WAVmaker's DFTtoWAV and DFT2WAV, so for them 1 MB is 1 MB,
    or at best 2-4 MB of actual wavetable data. Compare this to the size of
    WAVmaker's General MIDI sound library: 160 MB! The magic of WM DFTtoWAV
    {DFTtoWAV} and WM DFT2WAV {DFT2WAV} makes it possible to distribute this
    (truly!) great database on less than three ordinary, 1.5 MB diskettes. If
    you have not tried these programs out yet, go ahead and do so (I would
    have a hard time believing this myself without seeing it first hand!). If
    you have a 386 with a math coprocessor (or better) the unpacking is so
    fast that you'll probably want to keep most of the database in compressed
    form and expand what you need as you go along (so you do NOT need to
    reserve 160 MB of hard disk space for the sound data base - more like
    3 MB!).

    Also, try finding a wavetable card which will allow you to isolate MIDI
    tracks and channels, render them separately, run the various parts through
    different chains of filters and effects like echo, chorus, flanger,
    vocoder, ring modulator and more, then mix everything down to a finished,
    CD-quality result, ready to be included in your next game or burnt onto
    your next CD-ROM! WAVmaker lets you do all that - if you have the necessary
    sound data, that is :-).

 2) YOU WILL BUY THE RIGHT TO DISTRIBUTE AND COMMERCIALLY EXPLOIT OUTPUT
    PRODUCED BY WAVMAKER!

    Let's face it, there are some really weird people out there, and some may
    be weird enough to spend a month or so of their time creating their own
    version of the WAVmaker database rather than shelling out the 40 bucks
    required for Standard registration. Having done that, they would probably
    realize that their library can be sold to others. Unfortunately, this
    would create a threat to WAVmaker's continued development, by competing
    directly with the Registered Package, so - much as I hate this kind of
    thing - I have been forced to take some elementary legal precautions.

    I COULD of course have left out WM WAVtoDFT {WAVtoDFT} from the package; as
    there is no comparable compression system on the market today, the weirdos
    would have to either burn a CD-ROM or limit themselves to personal use of
    their library (which is quite OK with me). But that would punish the vast
    majority of users whom I sincerely expect to support WAVmaker's continued
    development, by denying them a valuable compression utility. So, I have
    included the real mode WM WAVtoDFT - not the fastest possible due to the
    slow extended memory access provided by HIMEM.SYS; if you are interested
    in obtaining the protected mode version, which is to WM WAVtoDFT what
    WM DFT2WAV is to WM DFTtoWAV, contact me - but I am explicitly prohibiting
    two things:

    ■ You may not distribute ANY kind of output produced with WAVmaker unless
      you have purchased your own personal copy of the WAVmaker Registered
      Package. What you do with the WAVmaker EP for your personal use is none
      of my business - if you are a weirdo valuing your time at less than 40
      bucks a month, go ahead - but if you want to share the results with
      others, you must register, as spelled out in the Limited User License
      Agreement {License}.

    ■ You may not distribute WAVmaker output if that output is part of a
      competing product, like a sample database meant to be used with WAVmaker
      itself, and hence in direct competition with the WAVmaker Registered
      Package, without prior written permission from me. This is true even if
      you are a registered user (that would make you a double weirdo, or maybe
      a weirdo squared: first pay 40 bucks to get the real thing, THEN spend a
      month creating your own database... naah, can't happen...). This is also
      spelled out in the Limited User License Agreement {License}, which you
      are accepting to honor by using WAVmaker.

      Please note that similar clauses can be found in most software packages
      capable of creating valuable output (have a look at the license agreement
      which came with your latest Borland compiler, for instance; it prohibits
      you from using the compiler to create applications competing directly
      with the Borland product range!). I don't really like doing this, but I
      want to ensure that WAVmaker keeps developing and isn't killed right off
      by parasites. If you have an interesting sound/patch library which you'd
      like to make publicly available, contact me and we'll hammer out an
      agreement; my objective is protection, not repression (I'm a nice guy,
      really!), and I DO want to see WAVmaker grow.

    Anyway, the bottom line is: if you want to distribute or otherwise exploit
    WAVmaker's output, register A.S.A.P.!

 3) YOU WILL GET THE LATEST VERSION!

    If you have downloaded or have been handed an obsolete version, you
    will receive up-to-date files. As long as WAVmaker keeps receiving
    user support, it will keep developing and getting better, so see to
    it that you have the latest & best version!

 4) YOU WILL FURTHER WAVmaker's DEVELOPMENT!

    Many things in version 1.0 could and will be improved, user support
    permitting. A complete port to 32 bit DPMI code, more flexible patch
    control (separate amplitude envelope and loop point settings, more
    envelope points, more performance parameters) and Windows support
    are high on the list.

 5) YOU WILL FEEL GOOD!

    Designing, implementing and documenting WAVmaker has been *lots* of
    hard work. By using WAVmaker without contributing to its continued
    development, you would not only be acting against your own best
    interests (wouldn't you like a better, faster version, loaded with
    lots of new exciting features?); you would also be doing something
    which you really know to be wrong, deep down inside...

    Do the right thing! Get that good, warm feeling! Register your copy
    of WAVmaker today!


─── OK, you've convinced me. So, how do I register? ────────────────────────────

 Thought you'd never ask! You need to do two things:

 1) Decide whether you want to settle for a $40 US Standard registration,
    enough to get all the advantages described above, or if you want to boost
    WAVmaker's development by going for the $60 US Advanced registration,
    which entitles you to all of the above AND to having the next major
    release of WAVmaker sent to you when it becomes available. Either way,
    add $5 US for shipping and handling if you are in a member state of the
    European Union, or $10 US if you are outside of the European Union.

 For simplicity, amounts are given in US dollars. You need * NOT * make your
 payment in US dollars, though; if you are not in the US, just get hold of a
 newspaper, look up the exchange rate, and compute the corresponding amount
 in your own currency. (I could have used ECU, or DM... but most shareware
 buyers are in the US, so US dollars it is).

 2) Pick the payment method most convenient to you:

    ■ MasterCard/Visa by PHONE  (* TOLL-FREE * in the US!)  {Register 203}
    ■                 by FAX                                {Register 222}
    ■                 by E-MAIL                             {Register 245}
    ■ Money order     by SNAIL MAIL                         {Register 264}
    ■ Bank transfer                                         {Register 287}
    ■ Postal giro                                           {Register 304}
    ■ Check           by SNAIL MAIL                         {Register 331}
    ■ Cash            by SNAIL MAIL                         {Register 344}

 MasterCard/Visa by PHONE:

    If you are in the US, call NorthStar Solutions TOLL-FREE at

       1-800-699-6395 (10:00 a.m. - 10:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time)

    If you are NOT in the US, call NorthStar Solutions at

       1-803-699-6395 (10:00 a.m. - 10:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time)

    Have the following information ready:

      ■ Program name and version number (WAVmaker 1.0)
      ■ Where the Registered Package should be mailed
      ■ Your Visa or MasterCard NUMBER and EXPIRATION DATE

    IMPORTANT: NorthStar processes registrations only, please contact me
               directly for any product/technical support! {Contact}

 MasterCard/Visa by FAX:

    Send the completed registration form {RegForm} to NorthStar Solutions'
    fax:

    1-803-699-5465 (Available 24 hours. International and business orders
                    encouraged.)

    The registration form can be printed out from within WM Help using the
    Print command or by clicking here: {DOS EXE\HARDCOPY Doc\RegForm.TXT}.

    If you are using a faxmodem, send an edited copy of the file
    Doc\RegForm.TXT {RegForm}.

    Be sure to include the following information:

      ■ Program version number (1.0)
      ■ Where the Registered Package should be mailed
      ■ Your Visa or MasterCard NUMBER and EXPIRATION DATE

    IMPORTANT: NorthStar processes registrations only, please contact me
               directly for any product/technical support! {Contact}

 MasterCard/Visa by E-MAIL:

    Create a copy of the file Doc\RegForm.TXT {RegForm} and use any text
    editor to complete it. Send the result to NorthStar solutions using one
    of the following addresses:

                       ■ America OnLine: STARMAIL
                       ■ CompuServe: 71561,2751
                       ■ Internet:[e-mail]

    Be sure to include the following information:

      ■ Program version number (1.0)
      ■ Where the Registered Package should be mailed
      ■ Your Visa or MasterCard NUMBER and EXPIRATION DATE

    IMPORTANT: NorthStar processes registrations only, please contact me
               directly for any product/technical support! {Contact}

 Money order by SNAIL MAIL:

    Send the completed registration form {RegForm} and your money order to

    NorthStar Solutions
    P.O. Box 25262
    Columbia, SC 29224
    USA

    Make the money order payable to NorthStar Solutions.

    The registration form can be printed out from within WM Help using the
    Print command or by clicking here: {DOS EXE\HARDCOPY Doc\RegForm.TXT}.

    Be sure to include the following information:

      ■ Program version number (1.0)
      ■ Where the Registered Package should be mailed
      ■ Your Visa or MasterCard NUMBER and EXPIRATION DATE

    IMPORTANT: NorthStar processes registrations only, please contact me
               directly for any product/technical support! {Contact}

 Bank transfer:

    Instruct your bank to transfer the amount to

    SwedBank (SWIFT code: SWEDSESS)
    Clearing Number: 8327-9
    Account Number: 23.403.510-3
    Recipient: Tommy Anderberg
               Almvagen 4
               195 44 Marsta
               Sweden

    Do not forget to state your full name and address!

    If you wish to contact me directly before making your payment, see
    {Contact}.

 Postal giro:

    Instruct your post office to transfer the amount to

    PostGirot Bank Sweden
    S-105 06 Stockholm
    (SWIFT code: PGSISESS)
    Account Number: 617 37 30-0
    Recipient: Tommy Anderberg
               Almvagen 4
               195 44 Marsta
               Sweden

    This should work in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany,
    Great Britain, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway,
    Switzerland, Spain, and probably elsewhere too (check with your post
    office).

    If you are in Sweden, use ordinary PostGiro with the above Account
    Number and Recipient.

    The same remark applies here as above: do not forget to state your full
    name and address!

    If you wish to contact me directly before making your payment, see
    {Contact}.

 Check by SNAIL MAIL:

    Send the completed registration form {RegForm} and an INTERNATIONAL CHECK
    (you'll have to ask your bank to issue one) directly to

    Tommy Anderberg
    Almvagen 4
    195 44 Marsta
    Sweden

    The registration form can be printed out from within WM Help using the
    Print command or by clicking here: {DOS EXE\HARDCOPY Doc\RegForm.TXT}.

 Cash by SNAIL MAIL:

    Send the completed registration form {RegForm} and CASH directly to

    Tommy Anderberg
    Almvagen 4
    195 44 Marsta
    Sweden

    The registration form can be printed out from within WM Help using the
    Print command or by clicking here: {DOS EXE\HARDCOPY Doc\RegForm.TXT}.

    Needless to say, sending cash is not as safe as going through a bank or
    the postal giro system; checks are preferable, too.