Power CD-ROM!! 7/POWERCD7.ISO/sndtools/da5/da5.doc

Text File | 1994-07-27 | 19KB | 380 lines

AVIXIVA Reflective Systems

Content:  Instructions for DA5.EXE Jul94 release
File:     DA5.DOC
Date:     27Jul94

Computer Control Digital Audio Software  DA-5

The Chromium Newt version of DA-5 provides a new look and several
new features although the filename remains unchanged.

Our wizard has a fondness for reflective lizard-like creatures.
(Adjusting his hat and wand...he begins...)

Intro

Thank you for taking the time to look at our new audio software for
MS-DOS and Windows.  We hope you like it well enough to send in the
Shareware usage and registration fee of $17.00 and help promote future
upgrades and product development.

DA-5 runs in a color text mode from DOS or in a DOS text window
under Windows 3.1.  It requires MSCDEX version 2.1 or higher and
a device driver that supports audio play with your drive.

Player Cosmetics

Our ideal component player is a control center for one or two quarter
height CD players (drives), something which COULD become reality as
a standalone component due to falling mechanism prices and digital
audio transfer from the drive via the data bus.

The screen appearance is based on real elements of several Hi-Fi
components, a stereo cassette deck which had bargraph meters at
the top, a tray load linear tracking turntable with disc position
bargraph, track number and electronic cueing, and a stereo component
which used flat touch sensitive backlit glass buttons for control.

These cosmetics are combined with a pulldown LCD computer screen
with attached controls and one or two CD player computer controlled
mechanisms (without buttons or headphone jack) which have disc
indicator lights in the door.  This version has the pulldown
screen showing two lines.

The CD control center body has a top part to hide the top cover, and
dark glass for a message area and 80 segment disc play time scale.
A moveable pointer shows the location of the laser on the disc.
The color of the scale shows how full the disc is, each segment is
equal to 1 minute of play time, except at the end of the disc.  The
stepped location pointer overlays the scale, and is lit with various
colors for the mode.  The starting minute of each track can be marked
with a dot above the play scale, or a section repeat scale can show
the relative start and end minute of a section repeat.

Below the scale is a narrow slit for the time-in-track indicator.  It
shows the relative location within a track when Track Elapsed or Track
Remaining time is displayed.

A Seek indicator is at the left of main display window.  The seek
indicator lights yellow when track information is requested from the
drive, green during reading track times, and red when the drive is
sent a command to move the laser to a new position.  The seek indicator
normally turns off in 300-1000 msec when seek should be completed.

Also at the left are track mode indicators.  A green dot at the top
shows Pre-emphisis, at the bottom shows that the disc is recorded with
Digital Copy Permitted.  A star, * shows in the upper position if
attempting to play a data track.  These indicators are usually off.

The main display area shows the Current Track, the Index number within
the track and the play Minutes and Seconds. At startup, the Track
elapsed Min/Sec is displayed as default.

A note about Index numbers - discs recorded with Index numbers above
01 may use the Index number to mark separate movements or parts.  One
example can be seen on the Enigma disc, MCMXC a.D., track 2, which is
indexed in 3 parts.  The index number is zero between tracks, and the
seconds counts down to zero at the start of the track, then counts up.
The starting time of a track is usually recorded to match the point
at which the index changes to 01.  This means that the track number
may change 2-3 seconds before the remaining track time reaches zero.

The maximum track and end time is shown to the right of Min/Sec.  The
end time marks the start of the disc Lead Out area.  The actual play
time is typically 2 seconds less, depending on the starting time of
the first track.

To the right is the display area which shows the number of CD-ROM drives
(up to 10) or the Track/Section Repeat numbers/times.  This area is
usually dark except during drive selection or when repeat is active.

The drive select display shows the number of available CDROM drives, and
the MSCDEX version or the drive model number if known.  If you have 2-10
drives, this display is used to select the drive to use for audio play
under DOS or Windows.  Units 0-7 display with 8 drives or less.

Under the display window is a pull down computer screen, currently
pulled down to display two lines.  The Que play Manage prompts and
play by starting track or Repeat Track entry prompts display in this area.

The primary functions from left to right match the function keys at
the top of your computer keyboard.  The pause key matches the spacebar.
The keys light when activated.  The Eject key glows dark red when the
drive is locked (eject button on the drive is disabled).

The drive mechanisms have colored lights which show the disc
type, Green for audio, Light Red for Mixed mode (data and audio),
Yellow for ROM (data only).  If you have a tray load drive,
imagine a clear front, if a caddy load, imagine a front door with
an embedded clear plastic lit from inside to show the colors.

Operation

Copy the DA5.EXE file to a subdirectory in your listed in your PATH
statement or into whatever directory you want to use - say AUDIO...

If you would like to try DA5 under Windows, place the DA5.PIF and .EXE
files in the root directory or in the path.  You can edit the .PIF
later to specify a subdirectory for DA5.

Start the program by entering DA5 (file extension not needed).

If there is an audio CD in the drive (and you have only one drive),
it should start playing within a few seconds.

Drives which have no cd caddy installed or which have the tray open
should should indicate INSERT DISC at the drive Icon on screen.
You have three options at this point: (1) Exit with [Esc] key
(2a) Insert a disc/caddy (2b) Place a disc in the tray and close it
with the close button on the drive, or if you have a powered tray
open/close, press the Accept disc key ([F1] or [A])  (3) Press the
Drives [D] key to select between various CD-ROM drives, [0]-[9].  Other
drives must have been assigned a drive letter at bootup with MSCDEX.
Keys other than Esc, D or F1/A are inactive until a disc is installed.

If MSCDEX is NOT loaded or is version 2.0 or lower, you should see
a version message before DA-5 exits to DOS.

While a CD is playing, press the [H] key for the Help screen.  It
times out in 20 seconds or if you press a key.

The primary operating buttons are F1-F12 at the top of your keyboard,
the keys are (left to right), Accept/Eject, Stop, Play, Rev Track,
Rev 60 secs, Rev 10 secs, Fwd 10, Fwd 60, Fwd Track, Stereo/Left/Right
channel select, Begin mark for section repeat, Finish mark for section
Repeat.  Most primary keys on the keyboard will do something in some
mode.  Ten seconds is used for skip seconds since that interval is
works well in skipping back to repeat the last phrase of a song.  The
Rev track button restarts the current track from within the track or
steps to the prior track when playing the first 5 seconds of the track.

A single digit starting track can be selected by pressing keys
1-9 at the top of the keyboard.  On discs with more than 9 tracks,
the software waits for a second digit and/or RETURN or a space when
the first digit pressed is a valid starting digit for a higher track.
Invalid high track numbers play the maximum track.  A start and end
track can be specified when track repeat is active.

Using the Play scale to start play

The scale can be used for moving to any minute by using the cursor
left/right keys.  To play at the new location, press the cursor down key.
The minute display indicates the new play minute during Slidecue.

Repeat Mode

Times are set while playing, by pressing the B/F or F11/F12 keys.
The symbols on the keys represent Begin Mark Play From and
Play To Finish Mark.  The F10 key represents Begin Mark Seek/Play,
and F9 key toggles Section Repeat on/off.  (Same as S key when the
repeat window is shown.)

If you get the begin or finish times wrong, use the Rev/Fwd keys to
play again, and set it again.  Repeat mode does not start until you
press the PLAY key or Begin Mark Seek/Play Key while the repeat mode
is active - light blue diamond color.  Repeat clears at about 32 repeats.

The times shown for repeat begin/finish are for the absolute disc
location (elapsed time from the start of the disc), and are listed
in minute, second and frame.  A frame is 1/75th of a second, so frame
numbers range from 0-74.  When you hold down the Begin or Finish buttons
running under DOS, you can see the leading digit of the frame number cycle
through 0-7.  Under Windows, the count updates slower, with about 3
updates per second using a 386DX/25MHz computer.  If the count updates
more slowly, your drive or driver is at fault.  Time updates may appear
a little uneven during rapid display when the disc has UPC code recorded.

It is normal for the track time pointer to move unevenly every few updates
because the seconds within a track may not divide evenly into the
number of positions, and the left over time eventually causes the
position to change 1 second faster or move two places when playing a
really short track.  If you find this annoying, you can turn off the
display in track mode with the Y key.  This uneveness is the reason
that the disc time display is fixed to 1 min segments and shows the
relative recorded area of the disc.  The two display styles reduce
confusion about what information is shown on either scale.

Options

DA-5 automatically sends a play command to the drive when the drive
is not playing except when Stop or Pause is activated.  Autoplay is
disabled on discs with ROM tracks.

DA-5 automatically starts play at the end of a disc, since the drive
stops playing.  For those times you want to stop play at the end of
the last track, press O to select Stop at End? (Y/N).

DA-5 offers the Option of Continuous play on the first two drives.
At the end of the last track, the other drive is selected, and play
starts.  Use of this option requires that the audio of both drives
be combined into one set of stereo signals before going to the amplifier
or speakers.  If you have two drives connected to your sound card, one
thru Line/Aux in, and the other through the internal CD Audio connector on
the card, just set the mixing volume for both inputs to match with the
DOS soundcard volume utility (comes with card) or from within Windows.

If you don't have the drives connected thru a soundcard, you will need to
make a passive mixer cable to mix the two outputs to one input.  You
cannot use a simple "Y" cable since the two outputs will act like "a short
circuit" to the other. See the file, CABLE.TXT

DA5 does not support a mouse.  Mouse support requires more buttons
and pull down menus, we leave that to the Windows version.

Channel Selection

Pressing the channel select key normally activates the channels in
sequence.  Left only, left to both, right only, right to both, reverse
left/right and stereo.  Some drives only activate the channel muting
during a play command.  So when the drive is unknown, the default
operation sends a new play command to the drive to kick the channel
muting setting.  This can be set off using the K key which will toggle
the channel "kick" off/on.

The program supports several startup options using the DOS variable
AVIX=

Defaults are established with SET AVIX from DOS or set with a batch file
such as the AUTOEXEC.BAT according to the following sample line.

SET AVIX=   D1 P42 VL:255 VR:255 VS:

The D1 parameter sets the CDROM drive to be used for audio play to the
second drive, unit 1.  Unit 0 is the first drive CD-ROM drive and is the
default.  This parameter saves having to select the drive after the
program starts each time when using a second drive for audio play.

The P42 sets the paper color to color 42 at startup in DOS or full screen
under Windows.  Available colors can be previewed using the Z & X keys
while the program is working.  A Black background player body is 0, full
white is 63.  Suitable colors are:  56=grey, 44=hot pink, 38=gold orange,
24= dark cyan, 20=rust brown, 17=default pale blue, 16=dark green, and
12=hot pink-red.  Pressing V during operation resets the default color
to the setting specified with this option.

The VL:xxx and VR:xxx set the default startup volume.  If a drive does not
support variable volume, 000=off, 001-255 is max volume.  If VR:xxx is
omitted, the left volume setting is used for the right channel.  If VS: is
present, the Volume Stop mode is disabled at startup, and the sound will
not stop momentarily as the channels are changed.  This setting affects
only the drive, not any soundcard settings.

Possible Problems:

The only problems reported with prior versions of DA5 were caused
by device drivers that didn't support audio properly.  One early
Hitachi driver did not support the BUSY bit when it was in play.
The BUSY bit is used to determine if the drive is playing audio or
not.  So the autoplay function kept sending a play command to the
drive, over and over again.  This was indicated by the program
Seek and play lights.  In such a case, holding Esc allowed exiting
the program with the disc playing.  A new driver fixed that problem.

In another case, the user had a SCSI drive on a BUSLOGIC or similar
card, and was using the card makers driver.  Although it supported
audio on SOME DRIVE (or DA5 would have sensed no audio support in
the driver bits), it did not support the SCSI audio commands of
his drive.  Changing to a new ASPI driver which did work handled
that problem.  A similar problem occurred when using a Pioneer
device driver with another brand of drive.  Data was okay, but audio
didn't work.

Corel SCSI, Trantor or Adaptec ASPI drivers seem to handle audio on
many SCSI models.  You can often use their ASPI-CD driver with
another company's ASPI manager.

We make only legal requests to MSCDEX and DOS, and expect no
problems with good drives, drivers and 100% IBM compatible
computers when playing regular audio discs.  Some drivers or
drives may have problems if you try to play a data track.  Others
happily play any location on the disc and show the time code
location while muting the audio from the drive (sounds like a 75Hz
buzz otherwise).

If you have Future Domain drivers, do not try to play the ROM
tracks on a CDROM or mixed mode disc.  Use audio tracks only.
The audio track locations will be shown with white dots
above the playscale.  A red dot at the left is ROM until the
first white dot on the right.  Use track skip or direct track
number entry to start play on mixed mode.  DA5 will skip up to
the first audio track before starting, and try to play to the
start of the last ROM track, or last audio track.

New Features

This version sports a new look, track remaining time toggle, track
time scale, automatic disc repeat disable and start play on a second
drive after play stops at the last track on the current drive.

Play by starting and ending tracks was simplified to require only a
starting track except in the track(s) repeat mode.  The ending track
was originally in the '88 version to handle mixed mode discs.

If you use a disc with alternate audio and data tracks where there
are data tracks after the first audio track or before the last
audio track, you should use the repeat mode to set the play tracks.

Keys 1-9 now work with one keypress on those tracks, and if
the there are fewer than 9 tracks, say 7, and you press 8.  The higher
digits now play the maximum track, rather than waiting correction.
The same limiting occurs if you have 14 tracks and press 1, 5.  You
play the last audio track.

The player now starts with Elapsed time in track shown and the track
time scale active.  Remaining time for the entire disc has been moved
to the main display, there were too many things moving.

The play defaults during pause and stop mode were adjusted so that
pressing Rev/Fwd track/time skip releases pause.  In stop, pressing
one of those keys starts play of the first audio track.  If you want
to resume play after pressing Stop, press Stop to release the mode or
press and release pause.  The prior defaults were inconsistant with
real audio CD players.

SOFTWARE DISTRIBUTION

The DA-5 audio software was developed to meet our need for a responsive
audio play utility for DOS and Windows.  This work is being shared with
you by being made available for downloading on Compuserve and other
sources as Shareware.  We paid a price in time, hardware and development
software to make DA-5.  If you use DA-5, we ask that you send the
usage fee of $17.00 to the address listed below.

You are granted free use during the evaluation period which must not
exceed a full cycle of the moon, from one full moon to the next.  If
you are still using the software at the next full moon, please send
the usage fee.

Payment of the usage fee grants you the right to use the software.  We
will provide additional instructions for undocumented features, and you
will be entitled to one program revision or updated version on 3.5
floppy disk.  If you want an immediate update, please specify when you
send the usage fee.  If the software is used by a business or school,
the usage fee covers one site and 3 computers.  Add $1.00 per additional
computer, and $10.00 per additional site.  Employees may use their own
copy on a computer at the office without incurring added usage fees.

We recommend sending the usage fee in US$.  If you MUST use other local
currency, send a variety of bills suitable for display.

Checks must be in US dollars on a US bank and valid. Make them payable
to:  T. W. Roscoe

Send to:  T W ROSCOE
          11367 Wright Road, No.3
          Lynwood, CA 90262-3125
          U.S.A.

Please indicate the version date - as shown with the V key during operation.

If you are outside the United States and would like to assist in localizing
the text and help screens of the software in Spanish, French, German or
another language and/or become a local representitve, please contact me
by CIS Email or Postal.

We would appreciate your comments on this software if you decide not to
send the usage fee.  Suggestions from registered users will be considered
in future updates.