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EnigmA Amiga Run 1996 February
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EnigmA AMIGA RUN 04 (1996)(G.R. Edizioni)(IT)[!][issue 1996-02][Skylink CD III].iso
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rustle.lha
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Rustle
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Rustle.readme
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1995-12-02
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5KB
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112 lines
Short: plays white noise using the audio.device
Uploader:
Author: Thomas Ansorge, Dinkelackerring 55, D-67435 Neustadt a. d. Weinstraße, Germany
Type: mus/misc
Description
~~~~~~~~~~~
Rustle is the most useful and important program you've ever met! What it
does? Simple: It plays white noise over the audio device. This is serious!
Ok, the full story. My monitor has no loudspeakers, so I needed a pair of
active boxes. Since my Amiga is not any s**ndbl*st*r I decided to buy a
pair of good ones. 2x3W, power switch, volume button and a bass button on
each of them. And because 2x3W is much and we all have to conserve energy,
each has a small circuit that detects whether there is actually a signal to
amplify or not and switches the boxes off if there is not. I don't know
what this circuit consumes, I hope less than 3W... There were no boxes
without this feature, and they have a very good sound, so I bought them.
When any program wanted to remind me of something, they made "knack!", then
came nothing (because most beeps are short), then again "knack!". For a few
weeks, while I did not play music or something else over the audio device,
or heard a music CD (my drive is connected to them as well), an annoying
"knack!" was all I got out of them, several times a day. You know the
famous rule: If nothing else helps, read the manual. So I did, and it told
me (not literally): "We congratulate you for buying a pair of the best
active boxes ever made with the best energy conservation feature that
cannot be switched off etc etc...
I deceided that something was to happen about this, and, soon. A small,
little program that enables me to control those nasty little amplifiers
from my keyboard, without any visible connection save the normal audio
cable, that should not be much of a problem. It wasn't. They switch on when
something comes, so something had to come as long as I wanted them to work.
And when this something stops to come, the circuit switches them off. And
this something has to come from the audio device. Simplicity itself! But
what? Any whistle or continuous techno music would penetrate my ears and,
by the way, tell my friends (some of them are Windows fanatics) how this
magic works. But there is exactly *one* thing any ear is educated to
*over*hear: white noise if it is not too loud. Aaaah! !:) (that's a smiley
with a good idea---me!)
Writing the program did not take a long time althought I had to read first
how audio.device works. Digitalized white noise is a fine source for random
numbers, so random numbers play fine as white noise. All I had still to
find was a good name for it. "White_noise" describes exactly what it does,
but sounds like "traffic" or "pneumatic hammer", all those things we don't
want to hear. "Rustle" sounds more friendly, it has something of "nature".
Says my dictionary. So I deceided to call it Rustle.
Usage
~~~~~
(CLI-) Usage is simple, "Rustle VOLUME/N" is all, with VOLUME being any
integer from 0 (nothing) to 64 (loud). Default for VOLUME is 4, that's the
weakest signal that this awful circuit accepts to be something.
Use Ctrl-C, or the Break command, to stop it.
Workbench usage is not intended.
Compatibility
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rustle needs Kickstart/Workbench 2.04, perhaps 3.0 (I don't know). It has
been tested with 3.1 only.
Rustle uses a left and a right channel of the audio.device.
It's own request to play something has the lowest possible priority, so any
other program that wants to use the audio.device should have no problems
allocating the necessary channels. This has been tested with various
beeping programs and, as a representative for music playing programs,
PowerPlayer V4.1 by Stephan Fuhrmann. On my Amiga, they have proven to work
fine together with Rustle. VT and Delitracker have failed to do so, and I
suppose that they get control of the audio hardware not in a completely
legal way.
Rustle might slow down programs that do a good part of their work in chip
memory. I can't do much about that, audio.device needs its data in chip
memory and has to read them frequently.
I'm using this version of Rustle for a couple of months now, and I have not
observed a crash where I could say that Rustle was the reason of it.
The necessary :( legal stuff
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Copyright: Freeware.
DISCLAIMER: RUSTLE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS-IS", NO WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND
ARE MADE. ALL USE IS AT YOUR OWN RISK. NO LIABILITY OR RESPONSIBILITY IS
ASSUMED.
If this disclaimer, or parts of it, do not comply with your local law, or
if you do not agree with this disclaimer, then you have no permission to
run or use this software. Sorry.
Credits etc.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
A big Thank You goes to Stephan Fuhrmann for beta-testing this short piece
of software.
A friendly "Hello" goes to the manufacturer of these fine boxes (they DO
have a good sound!) in the hope that he will notice that sometimes "less"
is "more".
And I would be most happy to hear of other people who do have any use for
this program :)