NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #16/NN_1992_16.iso/spool/comp/archives/2956

Internet Message Format | 1992-07-23 | 5.2 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!ames!agate!sics.se!stp
From: [e-mail] (Stephen Pope)
Newsgroups: comp.archives
Subject: [comp.lang.smalltalk] MODE Version 1.1 Available
Followup-To: comp.lang.smalltalk
Date: 24 Jul 1992 09:50:11 GMT
Organization: Swedish Institute of Computer Science, Kista
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Archive-name: auto/comp.lang.smalltalk/MODE-Version-1-1-Available


Newsgroups: comp.object, comp.lang.smalltalk
Subject: MODE Version 1.1 Available

Subject: MODE 1.1 Available

Musical Object Development Environment (MODE) Version 1.1 Now Available

The Musical Object Development Environment (MODE) is a software system
for music composition, realization, and performance; it is a full re-
implementation of the HyperScore ToolKit (HSTK).
MODE version 1.1 is a collection of software class libraries for building
musical applications; it is written in Smalltalk-80 and is meant to be
used with the ParcPlace Systems, Inc. Objectworks\Smalltalk Release 4.1
run-time environment. The default release will run on a Sun SPARCstation
computer and supports MIDI and stereo high-quality audio I/O.

The platform dependencies and lowest level of the operating system
interface for MIDI and sound I/O are well documented, and the system runs
suitably (for development) without the external interface on any OW\ST
R4.1 platform. Versions of the MIDI and (hopefully) sound interfaces for
Macintosh computers are expected soon.

The MODE 1.1 release is available free via anonymous Internet ftp file
transfer from the directory pub/st80 on the server ccrma-ftp.stanford.edu
(i.e., Internet files [e-mail]:/pub/st80/*).
This directory includes a README file, a text file list (ls -lR) of the
full release, and several compressed tar archives (e.g., MODE_1.1.tar.Z)
with full or small (no utilities or test data, less doc) versions of MODE.
There is also a subdirectory named "mode" with a copy of the full release
(in several subdirectories, the way it unpacks itself), which can be
perused or from which individual files can be transferred.

There are several elements of the MODE:
 - a music representation language (SmOKe events, functions, and sounds);
 - several schedulers and I/O drivers (real-time and file-based voices);
 - user interface components for musical applications (Navigator MVC); and
 - several built-in applications (editors and browsers for MODE objects).

The end-user applications include several graphical signal and function
editors, a cue-sheet-style sound file mixer, pitch-time and other graphical
score editors in several flavors, and tools for digital signal processing.

The MODE 1.1 release consists of about 900 Kbytes of source code, 90% of
which is in Smalltalk-80 (with 10% in C). The C code consists of interfaces
to several external utility programs that take over the lowest level of
MIDI and (8- and 16-bit) sampled sound I/O. The various versions of these
utilities communicate with Smalltalk via temp files, stdio pipes, sockets,
or shared memory.

There are extensive on-line examples, demonstration tools, and development
aids built into the MODE. The documentation includes an introduction to
reading Smalltalk-80 language, as well as the notes from a two-day
Smalltalk-80 course and many screen dumps of MODE applications.

Because the MODE is a development environment rather than a set of fixed
applications, it is expected that the user will eventually become a
proficient Smalltalk-80 programmer, and will extend and customize the
existing applications and add new ones, possibly refining the kernel
description language as well.

Various versions and components of the MODE are documented in two chapters
in the book "The Well-Tempered Object: Musical Applications of Object-
Oriented Software Technology" (S. T. Pope, ed. MIT Press, 1991), in papers
in the Proceedings of the  1987, 1989, 1991, and 1992 ICMC conferences,
in an article in "Computer Music Journal" 16:3, Fall, 1992 (forthcoming),
and in documents available individually in the Internet files [e-mail]:/pub/st80/doc/*.

The source distribution is available in several forms in the compressed
archive files with the name suffix .tar.Z. The full release unpacks itself
into a directory hierarchy that requires approximately 4.6 Mbytes of disk,
and includes SPARC binaries and C source for all necessary sound file,
MIDI, and sound I/O utilities. There is a data directory with several
sound, MIDI, envelope, and event list files. The small version of the
release tar file does not include the SPARC-specific utilities, the sample
data, or the larger PostScript documentation files. It is suitable for
loading onto a single Macintosh floppy. Unpacking MODE onto DOS requires
a step of editing the file names on a UNIX or Macintosh platform.

Comments are invited to the EMail discussion group [e-mail].

For more information, contact:
    Stephen Travis Pope
    EMail: [e-mail]
    P. O. Box 60632
    Palo Alto, CA, 94306 USA
    (currently at SICS in Stockholm)